Discussion
Never seen that site before. Very interesting. Do you know where they get their figures? As Autocar is still the only magazine ever to have figured the F1, I guess that they must take them from magazines. When I can be arsed I guess I should go and compare them to our own figures, although I suspect that quite a few of these cars can already be found at www.autocarmagazine.co.uk
SpeedDemon,
Not sure what cars you're using as a benchmark, but (and I know I'm bound to say this) I think the 12.3 second 1/4 mile time is pretty good. A couple of weeks back, Autocar tested the 655bhp, £367k Koenigsegg and achieved exactly the same time, albeit with an 8mph higher terminal speed. They also road tested an M3 CSL recently (360bhp) and got 13.2 sec and 110mph. Can you give a few examples of cars that dip below 12 secs?
Not sure what cars you're using as a benchmark, but (and I know I'm bound to say this) I think the 12.3 second 1/4 mile time is pretty good. A couple of weeks back, Autocar tested the 655bhp, £367k Koenigsegg and achieved exactly the same time, albeit with an 8mph higher terminal speed. They also road tested an M3 CSL recently (360bhp) and got 13.2 sec and 110mph. Can you give a few examples of cars that dip below 12 secs?
>Not sure what cars you're using as a benchmark, but (and I know I'm bound to say this)
>I think the 12.3 second 1/4 mile time is pretty good. A couple of weeks back,
>Autocar tested the 655bhp, £367k Koenigsegg and achieved exactly the same time
>albeit with an 8mph higher terminal speed.
Hi Simon,
You'll have to keep in mind that, from what I can tell, the situation is a bit different here than there, both in our road system (wide, straight, and offering ample opportunity for "friendly competition") and in the frequency of encountering predatory cars on the streets.
At least in the general area where I live, Vipers (450-500hp and gobs of torque) are not uncommon, 996 TT's are seen on a near daily basis, and Ferrari 360's are less than a rare occurrence. The 360 does the 1/4 in 12.2, the 996TT at a similar level, and Vipers run high 11's. There are also a lot of modified cars running near or better than low-to-mid 12's, including Vettes and now the WRX & Evo crowd.
Please don't take this at all as a general comparison (or invitation for comparison
) between the Noble and the cars listed above. In my mind, the Noble as a package reigns supreme . The only point is that there are many cars around here that are often inferior to the Noble but which when it comes to a speed contest or the need to pass them, will produce results that are a side-by-side dead heat given a 12.3 1/4 mile time.
Ok, there's that, and, well... There's also that my NSX was at 12.04 at 119mph on a bad day, and who likes the thought of going slower (in a straight line, anyways, which I'm the first to admit isn't where all the fun is)?
What can I say, we're obsessed with horsepower and quarter mile times here... And I'm ashamed to admit that Mercedes' horsepower battle with itself is partially attributed to the US market where apparently customers keep asking them for more & more power. (Sigh). As if there weren't more important things Mercedes could be doing to their cars...
As for Autocar driving the Koenigsegg to a 12.3... I haven't seen the article. Did they attribute the time to any particular issue? (Poor gearing, on-off clutch, ultra-slow shifter, in the rain, or something like that?)
Best,
Marc
>I think the 12.3 second 1/4 mile time is pretty good. A couple of weeks back,
>Autocar tested the 655bhp, £367k Koenigsegg and achieved exactly the same time
>albeit with an 8mph higher terminal speed.
Hi Simon,
You'll have to keep in mind that, from what I can tell, the situation is a bit different here than there, both in our road system (wide, straight, and offering ample opportunity for "friendly competition") and in the frequency of encountering predatory cars on the streets.
At least in the general area where I live, Vipers (450-500hp and gobs of torque) are not uncommon, 996 TT's are seen on a near daily basis, and Ferrari 360's are less than a rare occurrence. The 360 does the 1/4 in 12.2, the 996TT at a similar level, and Vipers run high 11's. There are also a lot of modified cars running near or better than low-to-mid 12's, including Vettes and now the WRX & Evo crowd.
Please don't take this at all as a general comparison (or invitation for comparison
) between the Noble and the cars listed above. In my mind, the Noble as a package reigns supreme . The only point is that there are many cars around here that are often inferior to the Noble but which when it comes to a speed contest or the need to pass them, will produce results that are a side-by-side dead heat given a 12.3 1/4 mile time. Ok, there's that, and, well... There's also that my NSX was at 12.04 at 119mph on a bad day, and who likes the thought of going slower (in a straight line, anyways, which I'm the first to admit isn't where all the fun is)?
What can I say, we're obsessed with horsepower and quarter mile times here... And I'm ashamed to admit that Mercedes' horsepower battle with itself is partially attributed to the US market where apparently customers keep asking them for more & more power. (Sigh). As if there weren't more important things Mercedes could be doing to their cars...
As for Autocar driving the Koenigsegg to a 12.3... I haven't seen the article. Did they attribute the time to any particular issue? (Poor gearing, on-off clutch, ultra-slow shifter, in the rain, or something like that?)
Best,
Marc
2 main problems with the Koenigsegg:
- getting traction to the road.
- The engine was problematic to say the least. The first time we tried to figure it the car simply wasn't working well enough. I quote:
"Neither we nor Koenigsegg were happy with the performance figures we extracted from the CC8S. This may seem an odd thing to say about a car that will hit 150mph from rest in 17.6 sec, but when the Mclaren F1 needed just 12.8secs to do the same it's clear that something was not right. There was no way it possessed anything close to its claimed 655bhp and had Koenigsegg allowed us more runs we'd doubtless have lowered the 60 and 100mph times"
abridged version of the road test is here:
www.autocarmag.com/RoadTest_Summary.asp?RT=204167
Koenigsegg are keen to see the car in the magazine again and whilst we won't do another road test on the car in this incarnation, expect to see it taking part in some of our other benchmark testing (0-100-0 for example) where we'll start to see different figures emerging.
>> Edited by stuart_forrest on Thursday 30th October 19:34
- getting traction to the road.
- The engine was problematic to say the least. The first time we tried to figure it the car simply wasn't working well enough. I quote:
"Neither we nor Koenigsegg were happy with the performance figures we extracted from the CC8S. This may seem an odd thing to say about a car that will hit 150mph from rest in 17.6 sec, but when the Mclaren F1 needed just 12.8secs to do the same it's clear that something was not right. There was no way it possessed anything close to its claimed 655bhp and had Koenigsegg allowed us more runs we'd doubtless have lowered the 60 and 100mph times"
abridged version of the road test is here:
www.autocarmag.com/RoadTest_Summary.asp?RT=204167
Koenigsegg are keen to see the car in the magazine again and whilst we won't do another road test on the car in this incarnation, expect to see it taking part in some of our other benchmark testing (0-100-0 for example) where we'll start to see different figures emerging.
>> Edited by stuart_forrest on Thursday 30th October 19:34
Finaly found the 4.0 Tuscan times from 2001 0-100-0 autocar. 0-100 9.15 secs 
but it only had 1 ltr of fuel racing slicks and the thinest driver they could find according to some Noble driver 
joust said:
As I've often posted before - one of the "best" independant performance ranks is at
www.syclone.freeserve.co.uk/rivals_cars.htm
No axe to grind, nothing to prove, and just takes the details from "reliable" sources.
M12 12.5, 114mph for 1/4 mile. Pretty good when you look at the company it keeps.
J
Nice list, i wonder why they left Ultima out....
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