How important is motorsport heritage?

[Tartan Pixie]

heebeegeetee said:

Tartan Pixie said:

Very much so and for good reason. Take a manufacturer like Hyundai who have no major history in motorsport and compare their coupe to similar offerings like the MX5 or Celica, there's just no contest in terms of drivability.

The best engineers in any industry are the ones who have a passion for what they do, as such any manufacturer is going to get the best out of its engineers by indulging their passion for motorsport. For an example look at Toyota's involvement in the East Africa Rally.

Through the 70's and 80's Toyota threw huge sums of money at rallying and was looking at Africa as a key market, hence they needed rugged, reliable cars. I am pretty sure that rallying expertise is a major reason why Africa is full of corollas, hi-lux's and land cruisers, not because people were buying in to a racing image (they weren't) but because the engineers had been pushed to design cars that worked well in that environment. Cars that work well sell.


( East Africa Rally. I miss you.)

Hmm, I dunno. Fiat have had a lot of involvement in motorsport one way and another, but you wouldn't want to rely on a Fiat in Shepard's Bush never mind the African bush.

At no point did I say that involvement in motorsport automatically means someone will make good cars. My point was that it's much harder to make good cars if you don't get involved.

Marquis Rex said:

So that explains why Renault with a vastly succesful F1 programme and a system of rotation for the engineers from F1 to their road car R and D are in the doo doo right now and no one associates them with that racing herritage...only with boring family orientated cars that pretty much fall apart

Or that cars like the Porsche 928 from a marque with such racing herritage,very well engineered, a front suspension design derrived from the 70s racing 908s, weissach rear axle following elasto-kinematics, a car fully endorsed by 1980s racing drivers such as Derek Bell was a commercial failure

Hmmm

Same goes for Renault, though you'd think with that much expertise they could make a car which doesn't fall apart. No idea about the 928, though I still hold that motorsport helps sell cars.

JayTee94 said:

Yeah, I see what you mean. Not much motorsport history is there?

I thought Hyundai's involvement in motorsport was quite recent? Certainly none of thew cars you posted are exactly historic.

I test drove a coupe from 2001 and found it to be a bit lumbering, not a bad car but it felt normal rather than sporty. If their cars have improved since then and they were getting in to motorsport at the same time then it would surely support the idea that motorsport helps make better cars?

[RizzoTheRat]

My current car is from a manufacturer who's been rallying since the '60s and started doing WRC in the '90s, Intercontinental rallying in the '00s (2 manufacturers titles I believe), and have now entered the BTCC.

I chose my car mainly for the 2.0TDI engine, so no, motorsport heritage doesn't matter at all