Flemke - Is this your McLaren? (Vol 5)

[Sway]

flemke said:

Problem there is that only the small guys do that, and with being a small guy comes lack of R&D, zero economies of scale, zero purchasing power, zero institutional knowledge. Indeed the McLaren F1 suffered from these things.

Is that necessarily an issue though, at the level of the Seven/Atom/etc.?

With good quality engines and engine management available, and without the need to design complex crash structures etc., then those small companies can be very lean - focusing purely on chassis design/dynamics, exterior and interior. Picking and choosing from the 'greatest hits' parts bin costs a lot less than R&D, although it's a given the unit costs will be higher. Swings and roundabouts.

Zenos seem to be doing some clever things with cheap recycled composites, GTM produced a fibreglass monocoque twenty years ago that is simply stunning in it's strength, stiffness and cabin space (much cleverer than the Elise which came after). It also has bespoke dampers, an excellent yet cheap engine, manual steering etc. So innovation and control quality don't have to cost lots, yet they can produce superb driver's cars (or at least in GTM's case until the founders retire).

The secret to their success is scaling the operation to enable profits at affordable prices and low volumes. It's a very, very difficult path to take, as witnessed by the many failures along the way - but doesn't that make the industry stronger, using industry learning rather than organisational?

[flemke]

isaldiri said:

flemke said:

It's bleak, yes, because it costs a lot of money to develop car, you have to sell a lot of cars in order to pay for that development expense, and not that many people care about having a "driver's car". Nonetheless, niche markets exist in all sorts of areas, so it's possible, and some might say that examples such as the GT86 and Ariel Atom show that. On the other hand, some might say that examples such as the BAC Mono show that it is not possible.

I think a viable niche market does exist, but a far greater problem than market size is regulatory constraint. As a consequence of regulatory constraint, there is now so much stuff that is either added on to a car or fundamentally changed in a car - airbags, crash structures, cats, turbocharging, pedestrian impact front ends, auto gearboxes, hybridisation - that producing and selling what we might call a true "driver's car" is not allowed.

The car makers in some cases have done a fine job of trying to compensate in other ways for that constraint, but I think the record shows that to overcome it completely is impossible.

Interesting, thanks for that. Guess it's back to looking for a decent condition manual NSX then..!

I agree entirely, but good luck with that one. Although they made 18,000 cars, more than half were in LHD and, of the RHD version, almost all were sold into Japan. Then filter out the auto-boxes and you are left with...not a lot!

[flemke]

Sway said:

flemke said:

Problem there is that only the small guys do that, and with being a small guy comes lack of R&D, zero economies of scale, zero purchasing power, zero institutional knowledge. Indeed the McLaren F1 suffered from these things.

Is that necessarily an issue though, at the level of the Seven/Atom/etc.?

With good quality engines and engine management available, and without the need to design complex crash structures etc., then those small companies can be very lean - focusing purely on chassis design/dynamics, exterior and interior. Picking and choosing from the 'greatest hits' parts bin costs a lot less than R&D, although it's a given the unit costs will be higher. Swings and roundabouts.

Zenos seem to be doing some clever things with cheap recycled composites, GTM produced a fibreglass monocoque twenty years ago that is simply stunning in it's strength, stiffness and cabin space (much cleverer than the Elise which came after). It also has bespoke dampers, an excellent yet cheap engine, manual steering etc. So innovation and control quality don't have to cost lots, yet they can produce superb driver's cars (or at least in GTM's case until the founders retire).

The secret to their success is scaling the operation to enable profits at affordable prices and low volumes. It's a very, very difficult path to take, as witnessed by the many failures along the way - but doesn't that make the industry stronger, using industry learning rather than organisational?

I could not comment on the Zenos or GTM, although I would be surprised if their makers had cracked the worst of the problems.
Of the other cars you mentioned, the build quality on the Caterhams is laughable (literally, it has made my friends and me laugh), and the Ariel has the slight shortcoming of a lack of roof or body, which makes it at best a great warm, dry-weather driver's car.

Of the cars that are more mature, more finished products, I suppose the Cayman might come closest to being a true driver's car, but it weighs probably 200, maybe 300 kg more than it ought to do considering all the weight-saving technology that is available to Porsche at a reasonable cost.

[Peloton25]

flemke said:

I have to agree with PGNCerbera and coyft.

You'll get zero debate from me about whether they have proved those early claims.

Quiet confidence on the part of Ron at Geneva in 2013 would have been the better strategy. If the Marketing team had a do over on all this I am sure the script would have been different, but their lack of transparency wasn't caused by an under-performing car. That's my point.

>8^)
ER

[anonymous-user]

Sway said:

Zenos seem to be doing some clever things with cheap recycled composites, GTM produced a fibreglass monocoque twenty years ago that is simply stunning in it's strength, stiffness and cabin space (much cleverer than the Elise which came after).

The insurmountable issue is that, when talking about a low volume product, the amortisation of the development costs and the raw labour cost of building the things massively outweighs the costs of the parts. So, yeah, using "recycled" composites might knock £10 off the cost of a body panel, but there's still £500 of someones time involved in designing,developing, making and finally building that part. This is why pretty much the only low volume vehicles that survive are the "premium" ones, where you can absorb the development costs into the final product. The only other option is for the people involved to work for virtually free, or outsource the entire thing to China where you can get away (currently) with paying people pence per hr........

[flemke]

Peloton25 said:

flemke said:

I have to agree with PGNCerbera and coyft.

You'll get zero debate from me about whether they have proved those early claims.

Quiet confidence on the part of Ron at Geneva in 2013 would have been the better strategy. If the Marketing team had a do over on all this I am sure the script would have been different, but their lack of transparency wasn't caused by an under-performing car. That's my point.

>8^)
ER

If the 918 had done a best of say 7:05, and the P1 had done a 6:50, do you think that McLaren would not have published the 6:50 time?
We know that McLaren were timing some of their (the P1's) laps. If your only goal were to create a car that feels great to drive, why would you do that?
It should not be a big deal to anyone except that literally 1 in 100 million driver who is personally capable producing a sub-7 lap in a 918.

[thegreenhell]

flemke said:

It should not be a big deal to anyone except that literally 1 in 100 million driver who is personally capable producing a sub-7 lap in a 918.

Even then it's just willy-waving as nobody is actually racing these cars, where laptimes really matter.

[Mjunkie]

It would be nice to see a 3 car nuburgring shoot out by EVO. I think they done a similar thing with a zonda, Enzo and carerra gt.

Does the LM exhaust you have fitted retain the 4 cats? Or has doing away with those contributed to some of the extra horsepower your car has?

If there was one piece of modern technology that you could add to the f1 (all technical issues aside and not including anything you have already done) what would it be?

[flemke]

Mjunkie said:

It would be nice to see a 3 car nuburgring shoot out by EVO. I think they done a similar thing with a zonda, Enzo and carerra gt.

Does the LM exhaust you have fitted retain the 4 cats? Or has doing away with those contributed to some of the extra horsepower your car has?

If there was one piece of modern technology that you could add to the f1 (all technical issues aside and not including anything you have already done) what would it be?

Yes my car has cats. I think it would find the MOT a struggle without them!

One piece of modern tech? Without a doubt, ABS, which is not even that modern.

[epom]

Mjunkie said:

It would be nice to see a 3 car nuburgring shoot out by EVO. I think they done a similar thing with a zonda, Enzo and carerra gt.

Does the LM exhaust you have fitted retain the 4 cats? Or has doing away with those contributed to some of the extra horsepower your car has?

If there was one piece of modern technology that you could add to the f1 (all technical issues aside and not including anything you have already done) what would it be?

Yep they did an article anyway, they piggy backed along as some company were doing one. Black something or other I'm sure.

[isaldiri]

epom said:

Yep they did an article anyway, they piggy backed along as some company were doing one. Black something or other I'm sure.

Black Falcon, who also managed to crash the Koenigsegg I believe. Have heard a few admittedly unsubstantiated rumours that the test was ever so slightly skewed towards making Pagani look good as well.....

[thegreenhell]

In that same speech he also specifically said that the car would lap the Nordschleife in under 7 minutes. That would be easy enough to prove empirically one way or the other, unlike trying to determine something woolly like "the best driver's car" or suchlike.

[PGNCerbera]

coyft said:

Peloton25 said:

PGNCerbera said:

Show me where he backed up his claims then...

I wasn't suggesting that they had in a way that would satisfy the skeptics. I am simply countering his imaginary point that the reason we didn't see the full result was because the P1 didn't perform to expectations. That's not the case at all.

>8^)
ER

I don't think the P1 has performed to expectations at all. The CEO of the company said it would break all the records at the Nordschleife, that it would be the fastest car in the world, and that includes what's gone before today and what will come after and that he was very very very confident that noone is going to get anywhere near the performance of this car.

He set those expectations, I can't see how he has delivered any of them.

Indeed.

Peloton, your posts on this matter are too hinting and opaque for me. Let's be direct. Ron made specific claims. See the link below. Flemke's assessment is spot on on this matter too. I don't see how you can continue to say black is white.

http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1082766_ron-den...

Anyway, let's forget Ron's big mouth and celebrate McLaren and a wonderful car.

[andyps]

Sway said:

GTM produced a fibreglass monocoque twenty years ago that is simply stunning in it's strength, stiffness and cabin space (much cleverer than the Elise which came after).

There was also the monocoque Midas which was introduced in 1978 and has a couple of links to the McLaren F1.

[Sway]

andyps said:

Sway said:

GTM produced a fibreglass monocoque twenty years ago that is simply stunning in it's strength, stiffness and cabin space (much cleverer than the Elise which came after).

There was also the monocoque Midas which was introduced in 1978 and has a couple of links to the McLaren F1.

They've recently re-released the Midas, having updated the source components I believe. Haven't seen one other than passing one going the other way near Bath - I think both of us were massively shocked to see another numpty in a plastic rollerskate!

[flemke]

PGNCerbera said:

coyft said:

Peloton25 said:

PGNCerbera said:

Show me where he backed up his claims then...

I wasn't suggesting that they had in a way that would satisfy the skeptics. I am simply countering his imaginary point that the reason we didn't see the full result was because the P1 didn't perform to expectations. That's not the case at all.

>8^)
ER

I don't think the P1 has performed to expectations at all. The CEO of the company said it would break all the records at the Nordschleife, that it would be the fastest car in the world, and that includes what's gone before today and what will come after and that he was very very very confident that noone is going to get anywhere near the performance of this car.

He set those expectations, I can't see how he has delivered any of them.

Indeed.

Peloton, your posts on this matter are too hinting and opaque for me. Let's be direct. Ron made specific claims. See the link below. Flemke's assessment is spot on on this matter too. I don't see how you can continue to say black is white.

http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1082766_ron-den...

Anyway, let's forget Ron's big mouth and celebrate McLaren and a wonderful car.

Good link, PGN.

I note that Ron also asserts that that P1 could be driven "25 kilometres" in pure electric mode (production version: 10km) and that it would "completely eliminate turbo lag (production version: close, but no cigar).

Also, "This is going to be the fastest car in the world" and "No-one's going to get anywhere near the performance of this vehicle."

[thegreenhell]

flemke said:

PGNCerbera said:

http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1082766_ron-den...

Good link, PGN.

Although they completely misinterpreted what he said about the Top Gear lap. He said that he had personally driven it 10 seconds faster than the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car lap record, not that it was 10 seconds faster than the overall Top Gear lap record.

[Ira]

flemke said:

Grapes could be sweet, but it turned out to be sour

Good link, PGN.

I note that Ron also asserts that that P1 could be driven "25 kilometres" in pure electric mode (production version: 10km) and that it would "completely eliminate turbo lag (production version: close, but no cigar).

Also, "This is going to be the fastest car in the world" and "No-one's going to get anywhere near the performance of this vehicle."

[Animal]

flemke said:

Of the cars that are more mature, more finished products, I suppose the Cayman might come closest to being a true driver's car, but it weighs probably 200, maybe 300 kg more than it ought to do considering all the weight-saving technology that is available to Porsche at a reasonable cost.

I'm sure Porsche will at some point make available a 'lightweight' Cayman, presumably for a not inconsiderable premium over the standard car!

[flemke]

Animal said:

flemke said:

Of the cars that are more mature, more finished products, I suppose the Cayman might come closest to being a true driver's car, but it weighs probably 200, maybe 300 kg more than it ought to do considering all the weight-saving technology that is available to Porsche at a reasonable cost.

I'm sure Porsche will at some point make available a 'lightweight' Cayman, presumably for a not inconsiderable premium over the standard car!

But if you order a car with more options, that too costs more.

If less is more, how can more be more?

These car companies must be getting their sums wrong.