LP670SV experience day Thruxton
Discussion
Just thought I'd post about my day yesterday. Wife tells me on tuesday she is organising a day at chessington world of adventures for the children on thursday, a day I am already off work.
We all get in the car, and after we turn off on the M25 onto the M3 I tell her shes made a mistake. Lots of guessing later we turn into thruxton, and apparently I have a cayman, renault single seater, LP670SV experience day. Whoohooo!
The LP670 was the car I always wanted if money were no object. Suddenly felt a bit hesitant about driving the car in case its a let down. One should never really meet the hero in real life.
Tiff Needel was taking passengers round the track in some sort of touring car in an effort to wow the masses, seems to have quite a lady following from the conversations I overheard in the booking room, and lots of squealing and tyresmoke from the chicains.
Porsche cayman was a bit of a revelation. I only really have my cars to compare with, but the Porsche would have driven round the outside of any of them, on pretty much any corner on any track. The balance and stability of the car right where you need it in the corner was phenominal, drifting on the power in my cars requires almost constant correction of the steering input, drifting in the cayman required pretty much your finger tips and even they didn't really have to move. You could steer the complete corner on the throttle. The only downside is it felt like they were missing a big chunk of power, kind of reminded me in a strange way of a Fiat X19 I used to own. I really really hate porsches, and I don't remember last time I drove a 911 it being anywhere near that good in the corners.
Next the 670. This car is a theatrical performance while stationary. Utterly gorgeous. Total impractical, absolutely massive looking footprint. More photos got taken of this car than any other car there by some margin even though it was standing next to a 458.
Get into the car, hit your head on the bottom of the swing up door, and fall into a relatively hard bucket like seat, but your bum doesn't worry about it as your head is now in a slightly swimmy daydream/boyhood fantasy. Dash lights up like the starship enterprise, and the engine fires up with a BMW like precision. Blipping the throttle while stationary is a slightly strange experience as the engine management takes about a second to decide whether it really wants to follow your command or not and then lazily does about half what you have told it to, somewhat remiscent of a sulking child. Not the immediate motoroycle like responses of the Cerbera.
Flappy paddles into first and off. Through the gears, into second KERRRR-CHUNNKK. Blinkin heck, that is a terrible gearchange. The car positively wobbles in the time it takes the car to change. Initially I thought flappy paddles were so you could change gear in a split second and possibly even round a corner. No way would you do that in this car. My feeling was that to try an improve it I would take my foot off the accelerator going up the box it was that bad, and that interfered with my driving style a LOT, no way would you want to power out of a corner in this car and change gear. First lap, its like I've lost everything I learn't about the track in the cayman. I can't touch the brake on the car cos its like an on/off button. Carbon ceramic brakes are motorcycle like vicious, something I'm used to controlling with my finger tips, not my foot.
First corner looming. Whats changedown going to be like. Need not have worried The changedowns all sounded like perfect heel and toe, the car was perfect and it was pretty much the first time I noticed the glorious engine sounds, no unsettling of the car while changing down. So perfect in fact you wonder why the upchange is so bad. Second lap, third lap, I got more used to the brakes, they still cause almost any corner to look like you are in a race, fast up and anchors on, not progressive in the slightest. I suspect if you drove this car to tescos with carbon ceramic brakes on, you would arrive with a bunch of cars all deeping engrained into your rear bumper.
On what straight bits there are at thruxton, the engine was making micemeat out of the caymans, you could pretty much overtake at will, but in the tighter corners there didn't seem to be any catching them. Last lap and I was only just starting to feel that this car made any sense, rushing toward a bend knowing the brakes were to be used at the last minute only, confidence in the downchange which was the only time I sat back to enjoy the noise, and then powering out of the corners. Despite trying hard I don't think I ever drifted the lambo. Apparently I hit 148mph at one point and the rev to about 8K. It was all over far too quick, and I feel the car was a mutlifacetted diamond that I only really saw from the shop window. Those caymans had the corners nailed by almost anyone, this Lambo would take me a long time to have enough confidence to do what I was doing in them on the first lap.
Was I dissapointed meeting my hero. The acceleration didn't feel anywhere near as quick as the figures seem to suggest. Fast acceleration in the Cerbera 'feels' faster, and certainly sounds faster and more dramatic in the TVR, although I'm sure the reality is different. I would throw away the carbon ceramic brakes for anything other than track work, and I would love to try that car with a manual gearbox rather than the flappy paddles. But its a strange thing about me and cars. I don't like perfect cars, I love the flaws, The lambo has just enough to make me want to find out more, but not enough to turn me off. Like any good woman it well and truly makes me feel like the limiting factor to the relationship. The challenge would be ever managing to turn that around.
We all get in the car, and after we turn off on the M25 onto the M3 I tell her shes made a mistake. Lots of guessing later we turn into thruxton, and apparently I have a cayman, renault single seater, LP670SV experience day. Whoohooo!
The LP670 was the car I always wanted if money were no object. Suddenly felt a bit hesitant about driving the car in case its a let down. One should never really meet the hero in real life.
Tiff Needel was taking passengers round the track in some sort of touring car in an effort to wow the masses, seems to have quite a lady following from the conversations I overheard in the booking room, and lots of squealing and tyresmoke from the chicains.
Porsche cayman was a bit of a revelation. I only really have my cars to compare with, but the Porsche would have driven round the outside of any of them, on pretty much any corner on any track. The balance and stability of the car right where you need it in the corner was phenominal, drifting on the power in my cars requires almost constant correction of the steering input, drifting in the cayman required pretty much your finger tips and even they didn't really have to move. You could steer the complete corner on the throttle. The only downside is it felt like they were missing a big chunk of power, kind of reminded me in a strange way of a Fiat X19 I used to own. I really really hate porsches, and I don't remember last time I drove a 911 it being anywhere near that good in the corners.
Next the 670. This car is a theatrical performance while stationary. Utterly gorgeous. Total impractical, absolutely massive looking footprint. More photos got taken of this car than any other car there by some margin even though it was standing next to a 458.
Get into the car, hit your head on the bottom of the swing up door, and fall into a relatively hard bucket like seat, but your bum doesn't worry about it as your head is now in a slightly swimmy daydream/boyhood fantasy. Dash lights up like the starship enterprise, and the engine fires up with a BMW like precision. Blipping the throttle while stationary is a slightly strange experience as the engine management takes about a second to decide whether it really wants to follow your command or not and then lazily does about half what you have told it to, somewhat remiscent of a sulking child. Not the immediate motoroycle like responses of the Cerbera.
Flappy paddles into first and off. Through the gears, into second KERRRR-CHUNNKK. Blinkin heck, that is a terrible gearchange. The car positively wobbles in the time it takes the car to change. Initially I thought flappy paddles were so you could change gear in a split second and possibly even round a corner. No way would you do that in this car. My feeling was that to try an improve it I would take my foot off the accelerator going up the box it was that bad, and that interfered with my driving style a LOT, no way would you want to power out of a corner in this car and change gear. First lap, its like I've lost everything I learn't about the track in the cayman. I can't touch the brake on the car cos its like an on/off button. Carbon ceramic brakes are motorcycle like vicious, something I'm used to controlling with my finger tips, not my foot.
First corner looming. Whats changedown going to be like. Need not have worried The changedowns all sounded like perfect heel and toe, the car was perfect and it was pretty much the first time I noticed the glorious engine sounds, no unsettling of the car while changing down. So perfect in fact you wonder why the upchange is so bad. Second lap, third lap, I got more used to the brakes, they still cause almost any corner to look like you are in a race, fast up and anchors on, not progressive in the slightest. I suspect if you drove this car to tescos with carbon ceramic brakes on, you would arrive with a bunch of cars all deeping engrained into your rear bumper.
On what straight bits there are at thruxton, the engine was making micemeat out of the caymans, you could pretty much overtake at will, but in the tighter corners there didn't seem to be any catching them. Last lap and I was only just starting to feel that this car made any sense, rushing toward a bend knowing the brakes were to be used at the last minute only, confidence in the downchange which was the only time I sat back to enjoy the noise, and then powering out of the corners. Despite trying hard I don't think I ever drifted the lambo. Apparently I hit 148mph at one point and the rev to about 8K. It was all over far too quick, and I feel the car was a mutlifacetted diamond that I only really saw from the shop window. Those caymans had the corners nailed by almost anyone, this Lambo would take me a long time to have enough confidence to do what I was doing in them on the first lap.
Was I dissapointed meeting my hero. The acceleration didn't feel anywhere near as quick as the figures seem to suggest. Fast acceleration in the Cerbera 'feels' faster, and certainly sounds faster and more dramatic in the TVR, although I'm sure the reality is different. I would throw away the carbon ceramic brakes for anything other than track work, and I would love to try that car with a manual gearbox rather than the flappy paddles. But its a strange thing about me and cars. I don't like perfect cars, I love the flaws, The lambo has just enough to make me want to find out more, but not enough to turn me off. Like any good woman it well and truly makes me feel like the limiting factor to the relationship. The challenge would be ever managing to turn that around.
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