RE: Light IS Right: PH Blog
Discussion
I'd defiantly go with the idea that lighter is better. Crash protection and good quality can be done on a lightweight basis with some clever engineering. And the feeling of a light car is something you can't really show in facts or figures, it's a more subjective "feel" - perhaps the reason my 1 tonne abarth 595 Competizione, while down on power to my old (and 200 kg heavier) 208 GTi feels much more "alive".
Best example of this in the cars I've owned is my 200 quid, by the side of the road bought 1.1 106. 190,000 miles of us, yet down a good road, it felt fantastic.
Best example of this in the cars I've owned is my 200 quid, by the side of the road bought 1.1 106. 190,000 miles of us, yet down a good road, it felt fantastic.
samoht said:
...There's an almost zen perfection to the art of working out the minimum possible amount of material and how to distribute it to achieve a given strength and stiffness; after removing all unnecessary material, the remaining shape is a perfect physical, three dimensional, tangible representation of the unseen forces involved in the piece doing its job.
The "Zen perfection" of the challenge and beauty of lightness in engineering is why the Veyron/Chiron pisses me off so much.How do Bugatti explain the new Chiron being 150Kg heavier than the original (and bloated) Veyron?
kambites said:
I'm not sure the Elise needs more stiffness, especially if you get it back to S1 weight. I've certainly never driven mine and though "what this really needs, is a stiffer chassis".
Lower, thinner sills would indeed be a big plus but I don't think you could do it without spending a LOT of money or seriously compromising side-impact protection.
Agreed on both counts. I think it's those monster sills which hold back sales of the V6 Exige. It's undoubtedly a great drive but there simply aren't enough limbo dancers looking to spend £50k on a new car. When you open the door, which looks OK from the outside, and want to get in you find the opening is still half-filled with a tall and wide sill.Lower, thinner sills would indeed be a big plus but I don't think you could do it without spending a LOT of money or seriously compromising side-impact protection.
The latest cheaper McLarens have developed a good solution to this problem. The sill (black in photo) angles steeply down towards the front of the car, making it very easy to get in and out.
The equivalent Elise/Exige sill goes straight across the opening and is widest at the front.
Edited by Ozzie Osmond on Saturday 30th April 12:41
Ozzie Osmond said:
The latest cheaper McLarens have developed a good solution to this problem. The sill (black in photo) angles steeply down towards the front of the car, making it very easy to get in and out.
The equivalent Elise/Exige sill goes straight across the opening and is widest at the front.
That's the one place carbon fibre can probably really help; there's no way a sill-point that low would have enough stiffness in an aluminium tub. The Mclaren also has a considerably higher roof-line and the seats are set higher, both of which serve to make the sills look lower than they actually are.The equivalent Elise/Exige sill goes straight across the opening and is widest at the front.
The Mclaren also appears to have a small structural box-section between the seats which the Elise doesn't have space for unless you make the whole car wider, which would make it considerably heavier. Take that to its logical conclusion and you'll end up with a slightly shorter two-seater Evora which whilst it might be a great car is going to be 1200kg even with a carbon tub.
I'd love to see Lotus make a proper Boxster type car based on VVA but it's not going to happen until they're ready to replace the 111 platform which realistically is years away and by then the damned thing will probably have no choice but to be turbocharged.
Edited by kambites on Saturday 30th April 13:04
This is a well timed article, because this morning I passed a classic late 1960s 911 and couldn't believe how tiny it was. I was in my Mk2 MX-5, which itself is smaller than 98% of stuff on the road today and this 911 cant have been much wider or longer. The new one by comparison is an absolute Porker (excuse the pun)...it no longer is narrow enough to have proper back road giant killing ability and frankly I don't think its a sports car anymore at 1500KG for a Carrera 2. Its a bloody capable GT car, but I think Gordon Murray was right when he said the limit for a proper sports car is somewhere around 1200/1300 Kgs meaning on that score the new McLarens aren't really sports cars either. Autocar tested a 570S fully brimmed with fuel etc and it was 1445KG. Better than a 991 Turbo (1610KG) and Audi R8 (1730?!!) but still hardly light. Even the Cayman GT4 clocks in at 1425Kg full fuelled...
We really do need more manufacturers following Mazda's example and shedding the pounds, smaller wheels and tyres too, so we can get back to enjoyable machines that don't need massive BHP and facebending grip levels to provide thrills....
We really do need more manufacturers following Mazda's example and shedding the pounds, smaller wheels and tyres too, so we can get back to enjoyable machines that don't need massive BHP and facebending grip levels to provide thrills....
greenarrow said:
We really do need more manufacturers following Mazda's example and shedding the pounds, smaller wheels and tyres too, so we can get back to enjoyable machines that don't need massive BHP and facebending grip levels to provide thrills....
"If the weight of the airplane was thoughtlessly increased by one kilogram, we must increase the strength of various parts to support the increased weight, and this would mean additional weight increases which, in the case of a fighter, would also equal about one kilogram. At the very least, then, the first one kilogram increase would result in a two kilogram increase. Because these changes further increased the weight supported by the wing, the wing area must also be larger, which meant another weight increase of several hundred grams. This would reduce performance unless we used a more powerful engine." ~ Jiro Horikoshi, designer of the Mitsubishi Zero. This vicious circle of more weight requiring stronger components, leading to yet more weight, applies to cars also.Mazda designers closely inspected various Zero wreckages to gain ideas and inspiration while working on the RX-7; as you say, their attention to detail with regards weight in the current 'Skyactiv' push is nothing new for them.
coppice said:
My car(Seven ) weighs 550kg and if you haven't driven anything that light it does tend to redefine what you are used to and refresh your recollection of physics. Stops, turns and goes - just like that.
Then just imagine how a motorcycle feels compared with your relatively lardy car!IMO fretting about statistics is pretty pointless - either a car drives well or it doesn't. Sure, the 911's got bigger over the years but so has everything else. Check out E-type vs F-type for instance. I've got a wad of cash-money says the F-type is the better drive - power, brakes, chassis, the lot. Similarly I imagine a modern Mini would easily outshine the original. All of those cars are now 50 years out of date.
kambites said:
Ozzie Osmond said:
I've got a wad of cash-money says the F-type is the better drive - power, brakes, chassis, the lot.
I think that depends on your definition of "better". It'll certainly be more competent but that's not the same thing as more fun, which is rather more subjective. That extra grip may improve lap times, but makes a car feel dead at normal road speeds, as it's working at two tenths. Give me a 'worse' car that is small enough to give plenty of options, and is 'crap' enough to feel alive.
jl34 said:
Look how a nissan GTR defies physics! . i once had a 450 KG bike engined westfield that tried to take off after every pothole. Another 250Kg would have made it much better!
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And imagine how much better it would be if Nissan threw a huge amount of money into making it significantly lighter..
Great discussion....
One other factor to throw in is the reality of British roads. Whilst always interesting to read reviews of how fast a road car will perform on the Nurburgring, most of us need driving to be a pleasure on normal roads in normal (legal) conditions. IMHO that's where handling matters much more than speed, and it's all about that compromise between comfort and nimbleness. And from my limited experience, weight is not the deciding factor, it's what they do with it. for example:
Light cars I think are great on real roads: Lotus Evora, Mazda MX5
Light cars that don't get it right: Lotus Exige, Ferrari 328
Heavy cars I think are great on real roads: Aston V8 Vantage, Ferrari 456
Heavy cars that don't get it right: Porsche 997, Bentley GT
One other factor to throw in is the reality of British roads. Whilst always interesting to read reviews of how fast a road car will perform on the Nurburgring, most of us need driving to be a pleasure on normal roads in normal (legal) conditions. IMHO that's where handling matters much more than speed, and it's all about that compromise between comfort and nimbleness. And from my limited experience, weight is not the deciding factor, it's what they do with it. for example:
Light cars I think are great on real roads: Lotus Evora, Mazda MX5
Light cars that don't get it right: Lotus Exige, Ferrari 328
Heavy cars I think are great on real roads: Aston V8 Vantage, Ferrari 456
Heavy cars that don't get it right: Porsche 997, Bentley GT
Ozzie Osmond said:
Then just imagine how a motorcycle feels compared with your relatively lardy car!
Judging by the humungous size of some current bikes and their immense owners they aren't probably much lighter than a Seven . But sports bikes (if that is the right term?) do look huge fun and seem to have huge go too. Bit s
t in the corners though ... anonymous said:
[redacted]
Somewhat sadly, I completely agree. I suppose it's an inevitable part of the maturity model for a mode of transport. Just as steam (loved by enthusiasts, requiring more skill to operate, and more rewarding in return) moved to diesel electric, so cars are moving to isolated bubbles piloted increasingly by computers.
67Dino said:
One other factor to throw in is the reality of British roads. Whilst always interesting to read reviews of how fast a road car will perform on the Nurburgring, most of us need driving to be a pleasure on normal roads in normal conditions. IMHO that's where handling matters much more than speed, and it's all about that compromise between comfort and nimbleness. And from my limited experience, weight is not the deciding factor, it's what they do with it. for example:
Light cars I think are great on real roads: Lotus Evora, Mazda MX5
Light cars that don't get it right: Lotus Exige, Ferrari 328
Heavy cars I think are great on real roads: Aston V8 Vantage, Ferrari 456
Heavy cars that don't get it right: Porsche 997, Bentley GT
On the bumpy lanes around here one of the Impreza guys was spot on - the early Impreza with soft suspension coped with bumps flat out, the later cars that had stiffer suspension and felt more "sporty" simply couldn't handle bumpy roads and you had to back off - however they felt more stable / predictable on smooth fast A roads.Light cars I think are great on real roads: Lotus Evora, Mazda MX5
Light cars that don't get it right: Lotus Exige, Ferrari 328
Heavy cars I think are great on real roads: Aston V8 Vantage, Ferrari 456
Heavy cars that don't get it right: Porsche 997, Bentley GT
The point being that you cannot suit all the drivers / all the roads in one solution a car manufacturer really has no chance of getting it "right".
Back to Mr C. Chapman. Light weight, soft as possible springs, impeccable damping. Job done. As he noted, if the wheels aren't on the ground, grip is zero!! As a mathematical insight, start with the suspension stiffness to achieve a car vertical frequency of 1.0Hz. Up to about 1.25 –1.50 Hz for something sporty. And maybe down to 0.75 Hz for comfort.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Again though, "st" here is entirely subjective. I've driven an E-type and whilst I haven't driven an F-type I've driven a myriad of other modern sports cars and the E-type was, for me, more fun than almost all of them.Give me the choice of an E-type DHC and my Elise to drive down a country road on a sunny day and I'd take the E-type every time. In fact back when it was working, I'd take my battered old MGB over the Elise if I was just out driving for the hell of it.
For different people "peak drivers' car" came at different times. For me it would be cars designed in the 60s, albeit fitted with radial-ply tyres rather than cross-plys. Peak "transport car" hasn't happened yet, IMO, and for me it wont involve an internal combustion engine.
Edited by kambites on Sunday 1st May 11:06
kambites said:
Again though....
You should be over at Goodwood today! Loads of cars there. Even my first glimpse of a Lotus 3-eleven. Looks BIG! My sum-up would be the back of an Evora attached to the previous 2-Eleven tub with an Exige nose. Not my kind of car (even though toad registered) but I bet it's quick on a circuit!Ozzie Osmond said:
kambites said:
Again though....
You should be over at Goodwood today! Loads of cars there. Even my first glimpse of a Lotus 3-eleven. Looks BIG! My sum-up would be the back of an Evora attached to the previous 2-Eleven tub with an Exige nose. Not my kind of car (even though toad registered) but I bet it's quick on a circuit!
One of the disadvantages of light cars is that you don't half notice when your suspension bushes start to fail.
Edited by kambites on Sunday 1st May 11:29
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