Flemke - Is this your McLaren?
Discussion
flemke said:
... I feel free to speculate. ... £345k each (in mid-'90s money). Anyone else's speculations on this subject would be most welcome.
Care to speculate a little further? Say we took the cost as £400K +/- 15% and that as being double in today's money how much do you think it costs VW to produce the Veyron?
chp said:
flemke said:
Surely they could fit in a little racing once in a while.
A little racing yes, but no big programmes like formula 1...
By the way, what do you think of Spyker buying Lotus? ;-)
Porsche wouldn't touch F1 with a bargepole, although they did a great job in the mid '80s when they supplied McLaren with a turbo engine.
How much per year has Audi spent on the R8/10s? Fifty million euros, maybe, before sponsorship income? That would be peanuts to Porsche. Instead of anything resembling a proper works racing effort, they have this cynical programme in which they let the customers subsidise the factory and do ALL the heavy lifting. Perhaps it makes good business sense, perhaps not.
The folks at BMW have pretty sharp calculators, and they have had a real factory racing programme even if one ignores their massive F1 effort - Le Mans, ALMS, touring cars, Formula BMW, 'ring 24 Hrs.
I wasn't aware that Spyker might buy Lotus. Don't know that I care.
Spyker are an irrelevancy to every meaningful component of civilisation with which I am familiar.
I just wish that they would cease wasting perfectly good aluminium, steel, carbon fibre, rubber, glass and leather on their retina-destroying grotesqueries.
Nick_F said:
Ten(?) years ago there was a cover story in/on Car about a prototype being built around an extraordinary 2.0 V8, the engine being two Yamaha 1000cc cylinder blocks on a common crank.
The project foundered, as I recall, but the ready availability of these motors now must surely stimulate interest in something materially faster and more comfortable than a Seven, but more track-focused than a 911 derivative?
A V8 2.6l, 350-400 bhp Elise might be amusing.
The project foundered, as I recall, but the ready availability of these motors now must surely stimulate interest in something materially faster and more comfortable than a Seven, but more track-focused than a 911 derivative?
A V8 2.6l, 350-400 bhp Elise might be amusing.
Perhaps, although I'm not sure about the usability and durability of these made-up engines.
You can still do a lot with a lightweight car and a properly fettled 2.3 Duratec.
flemke said:
Nick_F said:
Ten(?) years ago there was a cover story in/on Car about a prototype being built around an extraordinary 2.0 V8, the engine being two Yamaha 1000cc cylinder blocks on a common crank.
The project foundered, as I recall, but the ready availability of these motors now must surely stimulate interest in something materially faster and more comfortable than a Seven, but more track-focused than a 911 derivative?
A V8 2.6l, 350-400 bhp Elise might be amusing.
The project foundered, as I recall, but the ready availability of these motors now must surely stimulate interest in something materially faster and more comfortable than a Seven, but more track-focused than a 911 derivative?
A V8 2.6l, 350-400 bhp Elise might be amusing.
Perhaps, although I'm not sure about the usability and durability of these made-up engines.
You can still do a lot with a lightweight car and a properly fettled 2.3 Duratec.
was that not a Quaife project? I may be wrong but im sure they did something along those lines. Bike engines usually have very little torque too, which is great for bikes, not so good for cars.
JR said:
flemke said:
... I feel free to speculate. ... £345k each (in mid-'90s money). Anyone else's speculations on this subject would be most welcome.
Care to speculate a little further? Say we took the cost as £400K +/- 15% and that as being double in today's money how much do you think it costs VW to produce the Veyron?
If we say that there were 11 years between the first production F1 and the first production Veyron, and we say that inflation during that period averaged...3% (?), after compounding that would be something like 40%.
If an F1 road car cost, say £375k to produce (marginal production cost, that is) at the beginning of the programme, before they went down the curve, that might be £525k in 2005 money.
In constant dollars, I can't see how the Veyron could have been produced for roughly the same cost as an F1; the cost of a Veyron (again, marginal cost of producing a single unit) must have been higher.
For one thing, the engine has a lot more parts to it (not to mention the turbo apparatus), and they're under greater stresses than what were present in the F1. That must have been more expensive to produce in constant money.
Then we have the gearbox. Here again, the Veyron's 'box is much more complex than the F1's - hugely so.
The Veyron's got all the complication taking drive to the front wheels, in contrast to nothing in the F1.
The Veyron has 10 radiators. I can't recall how many the F1 has - two or three.
All the electronics in the Veyron had a cost. The fact that electronic technology is so much cheaper these days than it was in the early '90s may fully offset the great disparity in electronic features, however.
The Veyron's aero features cost a lot more to produce than their simpler counterparts on the F1 would have done.
I don't know how the various CF construction techniques applied to the Veyron would compare with those on used for the F1.
The overall quality of workmanship is similar on both cars.
As with everything I say, this is an uninformed guess, but let's suppose that the Veyron cost...25-30% more to produce (at the margin) than the F1. That seems about right.
So, if in the same money an F1's build cost would have been £525, that would make the Veyron's cost...£650-680.
IIRC, there was what seemed to be semi-informed speculation that the marginal build cost of the Veyron was equal to its (original) sales price. Wasn't the original sales price 1 million Euros, plus tax? That would have been about £665k, which squares with our speculations.
deevlash said:
flemke said:
Nick_F said:
Ten(?) years ago there was a cover story in/on Car about a prototype being built around an extraordinary 2.0 V8, the engine being two Yamaha 1000cc cylinder blocks on a common crank.
The project foundered, as I recall, but the ready availability of these motors now must surely stimulate interest in something materially faster and more comfortable than a Seven, but more track-focused than a 911 derivative?
A V8 2.6l, 350-400 bhp Elise might be amusing.
The project foundered, as I recall, but the ready availability of these motors now must surely stimulate interest in something materially faster and more comfortable than a Seven, but more track-focused than a 911 derivative?
A V8 2.6l, 350-400 bhp Elise might be amusing.
Perhaps, although I'm not sure about the usability and durability of these made-up engines.
You can still do a lot with a lightweight car and a properly fettled 2.3 Duratec.
was that not a Quaife project? I may be wrong but im sure they did something along those lines. Bike engines usually have very little torque too, which is great for bikes, not so good for cars.
Thinking of bikes, I don't know whether this has been answered earlier on in the thread, but are or have you ever been a biker Flemke?
Nick_F said:
Development bill for the Bugatti must have been so high as to render the per-car build costs insifgnificant.
They did say that the development cost was something like 5 million Euros/car, but they never said over how many cars that number was spread.
Also, in an interesting article in the '06/7 Automobile Year, Gordon Murray mentions that the development budget for the Veyron was 15 times what it was for the F1. If anything, I would have thought that the ratio was even higher, but who knows whether his number was based on fact or speculation, and what the VAG numbers would have included.
Mattt said:
Didn't Clarkson state it on TG - it might not be true however.
Clarkson's assertions on the "Motoring Comedy Hour" have about as much credibility as Peter Hain does - less than zero.
I would not presume that something was necessarily incorrect just because he said it, but it's a strong possibility.
Mattt said:
Thinking of bikes, I don't know whether this has been answered earlier on in the thread, but are or have you ever been a biker Flemke?
Yes, but only the kind that creates forward motion via the rotation of his feet on the cranks.
When I was a boy, my mother used to tell me a story about how she had had a schoolmate with a bike who crashed it into a tree, "...and at the funeral services they couldn't have an open coffin because his head was so badly damaged, son"..
That pretty well put me off the possibility. Now I'm too old to learn properly, so I'd just end up killing myself.
deevlash said:
was that not a Quaife project? I may be wrong but im sure they did something along those lines. Bike engines usually have very little torque too, which is great for bikes, not so good for cars.
IIRC, that was one, but there have been others.
Where is the RS engine for the Caparo? Forthcoming, I hope, but these projects are bloody difficult, what with environmental, drivability, durability, packaging and cost constraints.
I've heard of a similar project to the 2-litre V8 using motorcycle components, developed by cyclone power. I understand that this engine is fitted into a French TT-specification MINI racer - 2 litre V8, 320 Brake Horse Power with a Sequential Drenth 6 speed gearbox. See www.letsgooffroad.blogs.com/
100SRV
100SRV
flemke said:
Nick_F said:
Ten(?) years ago there was a cover story in/on Car about a prototype being built around an extraordinary 2.0 V8, the engine being two Yamaha 1000cc cylinder blocks on a common crank.
The project foundered, as I recall, but the ready availability of these motors now must surely stimulate interest in something materially faster and more comfortable than a Seven, but more track-focused than a 911 derivative?
A V8 2.6l, 350-400 bhp Elise might be amusing.
The project foundered, as I recall, but the ready availability of these motors now must surely stimulate interest in something materially faster and more comfortable than a Seven, but more track-focused than a 911 derivative?
A V8 2.6l, 350-400 bhp Elise might be amusing.
Perhaps, although I'm not sure about the usability and durability of these made-up engines.
You can still do a lot with a lightweight car and a properly fettled 2.3 Duratec.
flemke said:
...Why not make a track-day car that is outstanding without being over-the-top, a car that is class leader because of its build quality, tactility, adjustability, beautiful gearshift, fantastic brakes, and efficient, safe design? You could do that for a lot less than £175 k, and the result would, I daresay, provide much more driving satisfaction.
Lot's of discussion about a track day only car, I presume you guys have already seen
http://dpcars.aprsworld.com/dp1/index
US $125K, 2.8L Hartley V8, 970BHP/Tonne
flemke said:
Ron Dennis has been quoted as saying, with regard to whether the F1 programme lost money, that it had "definitely washed its face". What might this mean?
If so, they would have come close to breaking even on the programme, and if they had produced the projected 300, they would have made good money. The car's price was set, however, whilst they still had 300 in mind, not the 107 that ultimately left the factory.
If so, they would have come close to breaking even on the programme, and if they had produced the projected 300, they would have made good money. The car's price was set, however, whilst they still had 300 in mind, not the 107 that ultimately left the factory.
Flemke
Thanks for the answer, all very interesting. I always took the sold at cost with a pinch of salt because Ron Dennis is far to shrewd to take on any busines venture that is not going to make money, now or at some point in the future.
This has in itself bought up another question, regarding cars produced. They were intending to produce 300, yet only produced 107, the only cause I have ever heard about for this was their new relationship with Mercedes, and thm not being happy with such a close relationship with BMW. Was there any truth to this story that you know of?
Martin Keene said:
This has in itself bought up another question, regarding cars produced. They were intending to produce 300, yet only produced 107, the only cause I have ever heard about for this was their new relationship with Mercedes, and thm not being happy with such a close relationship with BMW. Was there any truth to this story that you know of?
From what Flemke and others have said on this thread and others, I think the biggest issue was that they couldn't be sold in the US.
Mattt said:
deevlash said:
flemke said:
Nick_F said:
Ten(?) years ago there was a cover story in/on Car about a prototype being built around an extraordinary 2.0 V8, the engine being two Yamaha 1000cc cylinder blocks on a common crank.
The project foundered, as I recall, but the ready availability of these motors now must surely stimulate interest in something materially faster and more comfortable than a Seven, but more track-focused than a 911 derivative?
A V8 2.6l, 350-400 bhp Elise might be amusing.
The project foundered, as I recall, but the ready availability of these motors now must surely stimulate interest in something materially faster and more comfortable than a Seven, but more track-focused than a 911 derivative?
A V8 2.6l, 350-400 bhp Elise might be amusing.
Perhaps, although I'm not sure about the usability and durability of these made-up engines.
You can still do a lot with a lightweight car and a properly fettled 2.3 Duratec.
was that not a Quaife project? I may be wrong but im sure they did something along those lines. Bike engines usually have very little torque too, which is great for bikes, not so good for cars.
Thinking of bikes, I don't know whether this has been answered earlier on in the thread, but are or have you ever been a biker Flemke?
I think the car your refering to was the Lightning, the follow up car to the Rocket, it used a 2 litre V8 built by combining two Yahama Exup engines to a common block/crank, incedently the engine was re-engineered a few years back and is now known as the RST V8 and I think forms the basis for the supercharged engine in forthcoming the Caparo T1, (Flemke I think you may have seen this engine at the Rocket workshop... ?). In the mid w90's this car was somewhat ahead of its time but unfortunately didnt make it past the prototype stage. Currently RST are running a specially built Caterham with this engine and I think there maybe customer Elises built the same. Flemke If you have a chance could you drop me an e-mail please?
Edited by crafty1 on Monday 19th March 13:39
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