Quote:
Originally posted by dd74
It seems, though, that so many cars are built with track-in-mind engineering. Selling point? Sure. Two cars I know of that campaigned this thought are the Cadillac CTS (partly engineered, supposedly, off laps done at Nurburing (sp?)), and the Honda S2000.
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Every production car goes through tens of thousands of miles of laps at 'tracks'. Even mundane ones. Professional drivers (read washed-up race drivers) make really great feedback guinea pigs. They know how to tell engineers what the car is doing, and replicate the same situation after making a change. They eliminate the driver variables by being consistent. It would blow your mind to learn how many laps they do while trying to tweak suspension tuning or tire specs.
The Ring is/was really just real-world roads, so it is a great proving ground .... plus it has cache in advertising. It doesn't sound as cool to say that proving was done at TRW in Ohio, but the results may be similar. Every big manufacturer owns a private track. Some are pretty challenging.
No matter what type of car, tuning is a story of comprimise. A sedan tuned for benign (safe understeer) handling, and a smooth and quiet ride, might not make a great track vehicle. Does that mean it is less 'durable'? No. They could tune that same car for maximum cornering ability, neutral handling, road feedback, and less body roll.... but the intended buyer may not like the comprimises. A car like the aforementioned S2000 makes fewer comprimises, and it might make it tougher to live with as a daily driver. But the track-day guys sing its praises.
The key is for the manufacturers to know their intended audience and deliver the right set of comprimises.
E