RE: Exclusive: The Wheeler Interview

[marcus]

Xm5eR said:

A.G. said: Good article and all points agreed with but the discussion as usual was about front enders, ie. An accident that would probably be YOUR fault, If however you were to be in an accident that was someone elses fault. ie You were T boned in a side impact by Mrs Q Citizen in a Voyager/Shogun/etc etc would you rather be cocooned in an NCAP Nissan Micra/Citroen Saxo etc etc. monocoque structure or be sat wrong side of the aforementioned extremely strong chassis with the protection of 2 outriggers, a GRP door casing a couple of CDs and a michelin map to fend off the school run missile? Just playing devils advocate and NOT doing a Jigs. All the above is of course IMVHO. I will have to correct your misassumption that the TVR range has no side impact protection. I graduated from Manchester University where the STATUS vehicle testing facility is based and where TVR side impact bars were developed. They pioneered a unique impact bar which absorbs energy over an extended period of time to decrease the posibility of intrusion from a side impact. I can assure you a lot of mainstream manufacturers copied their idea, many years after TVR were already using it.

No side impact protection in my S series doors, I went to a breaker for a door handle of an S3 - car had suffered side damage ans the only remains of the door was the card and vinyl of the inner skin, huge rip in the seat (and no door handle -, bummer). I had a look in mine, and yup, nowt. No worse than a Citroen AX though :-)

Marcus

[qualityscrew]

ducati said:

Its ok him banging on about airbags and abs - what about reliability? I sent him around twenty emails trying to get him to personally guarantee the reliability of his cars before I bought one. If the guy who builds them cannont back them - stay well clear! Can you just imagine . . they cannot build a reliable car - so abs and airbags would slaughter them - they'd kill all their customers! Whats the old saying? "never trust a car with capri door handles!"

Oh the irony!
A post about TVR reliability, from a member calling himself DUCATI !!!

That really made me

[bjwoods]

marcus said:

Xm5eR said: A.G. said: Good article and all points agreed with but the discussion as usual was about front enders, ie. An accident that would probably be YOUR fault, If however you were to be in an accident that was someone elses fault. ie You were T boned in a side impact by Mrs Q Citizen in a Voyager/Shogun/etc etc would you rather be cocooned in an NCAP Nissan Micra/Citroen Saxo etc etc. monocoque structure or be sat wrong side of the aforementioned extremely strong chassis with the protection of 2 outriggers, a GRP door casing a couple of CDs and a michelin map to fend off the school run missile? Just playing devils advocate and NOT doing a Jigs. All the above is of course IMVHO. I will have to correct your misassumption that the TVR range has no side impact protection. I graduated from Manchester University where the STATUS vehicle testing facility is based and where TVR side impact bars were developed. They pioneered a unique impact bar which absorbs energy over an extended period of time to decrease the posibility of intrusion from a side impact. I can assure you a lot of mainstream manufacturers copied their idea, many years after TVR were already using it. No side impact protection in my S series doors, I went to a breaker for a door handle of an S3 - car had suffered side damage ans the only remains of the door was the card and vinyl of the inner skin, huge rip in the seat (and no door handle -, bummer). I had a look in mine, and yup, nowt. No worse than a Citroen AX though :-) Marcus

Not very relevant really.

As TVR stopped building S's over 12 years ago.......

Things have moved on, most all other 12 year old plus designed cars woul be pretty rubbish, compared to modern cars in a crash.

B

[Jon Gwynne]

GingerNinja said:

Agree with your points on here. I'd also add there's a certain level of generally unfounded arrogance amongst most drivers who claim they don't need driver aids - on a beautiful dry road, when you driving perfectly poised for an incident, and you've had plenty of experience in hazardous situations, then yes maybe you can do without such safety features. But for mere mortals who travel in all conditions, on all road types and who aren't driving with the focus of a racing driver, then these things will be of assistance at some point or another. You could at least make them either an optiona extra, or have them switcheable - even the Enzo & Scaglietti(sp?) have switcheable traction control - but what do Ferrari know about building cars, eh.

Ferrari makes much heavier cars than TVR so that isn't really an apt comparison.

TVRs are light enough that ABS is simply not required in the same way as they are with heavier cars with power-assist braking. The ABS that is a critical part of hauling a heavy Merc or Volvo to a halt from high speeds on a wet road doesn't work the same magic on a car that weighs half as much and has race-engineered brakes.

Traction-control also has no place in a real driver's car (IMNSHO). Traction-control is for people who don't want a throttle but rather a "go button" that they can stomp on and let the car's brains sort everything out for them.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, I'm glad TVR don't offer ABS/TC and those who are scared away from buying TVRs for this reason are EXACTLY the kind of people who should be scared away from buying them. They should buy their Boxters and Z4s instead.

I've driven TVRs in the wet and practiced panic-stops in them to familiarize myself with the behavior of the car. Their braking ability is above reproach.

ABS and airbags are marketing ploys and TC is little paddle-shifters on BMWs - a toy so that yuppies can pretend they're F1 drivers while they commute to and from the office.

None of these things may properly be referred to as "safety devices".

[Guibo]

jam1et said:

Also, if anyone thinks it is a good idea to have all these safety devices it may be wise to read this first, which highlights various concerns: www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/tribsouthwest/news/s_168154.html >> Edited by jam1et on Thursday 22 April 15:05

"Across the country, there have been 30 reported cases of air bags injuring rescue workers. Other cases likely have gone unreported. There have been no reports of fatalities or Pittsburgh-area incidents, said David Long, a national expert on air bag safety.
...Air bags have saved an estimated 14,000 lives, Long said."

Sounds like a more than fair tradeoff to me.

[captain honesty]

to all the people who have stated that they have practised panic stopping in the wet-i'm sorry but thats just horses$$t. that is a controlled stop,not a panic stop!

i believe the abs case is not just about stopping distances but the ability to drive around a potential accident under full braking thus possibly saving someone's life.
human nature when faced with such a situation is to mash the brake pedal and try to steer. with abs it is possible,without you are just likely to skid and spin and wipe someone out.you don't have time to think or modulate your braking you just do it!

you can say that you practiced it and you don't need abs-what arrogance,in your tests you were EXPECTING to stop therefore the test is a load of crap.

didn't anybody ever see tiff needell test avoiding a crash by steering on abs?with it he steered around it without it he piled straight ahead,but judging by some of the comments on here he's probably not as good a driver as them

[dinkel]

Few points;

-Never saw a Ducati with an airbag . . . or doorhandles even.

-Let TVR owners talk about TVR safety svp. And hey, does not every car have a flaw?

-reliability: quote from qualityscrew "Oh the irony!
A post about TVR reliability, from a member calling himself DUCATI !!!"

Hey, this post is not about TVR reliability . . . or am I missing something here . . .

In the end the only safe-factor (even with abs, tc, airbags and all that onboard) is the driver him/herself. Saw an MK1 Etype (open bonnet i want one). Don't think the owner worries a bit about possible impact or the absence of airbags: the guy obviously can drive the thingy. Same here with TVRs. If you can you buy to drive one.

Can't imagine a love affair with a horse because I can't ride!

Don't miss airbag, tc, all the gadgets in the '95 Civic . . . Does not make me drive different ( ) in the '00 Golf . . .

[900T-R]

bjwoods said:

Things have moved on, most all other 12 year old plus designed cars woul be pretty rubbish, compared to modern cars in a crash. B

My Saab was basically designed in the Sixties, and was extensively redesigned to meet future crash protection standards amongst other things... in the late Seventies. According to the latest real-world safety data from the highly regarded bi-annual Folksam assessment, it's in the '15%-30% safer than the average car' category. A 1996-2000 VW Passat (essentially the same as sold right now) is in the same bracket, for instance.

It also does not feature ABS or airbags, unlike most of the lower classed vehicles...

The bottom line, I think, is whilst both can be helpful under certain circumstances, neither can replace sound basic engineering.

I feel awfully sorry for the man unfortunate enough to have a bad frontal impact in his TVR - but how does he know he'd been better off with an inflateable bag and some fireworks in his steering wheel? Today, cars are fitted with dozens of 'bags and inflateable , and people still die in this type of crash. Heck, our local chiropractor was killed when meeting a lorry at the wrong side at the road (most probably a black-out - he was on his way to the doctor because he was unwell). He drove a Saab 9-5, arguably the safest car money could buy at the moment. Now are we going to suggest he would still be here if he drove a Leopard tank, or whatever?

As safety goes, it's a question of marketing more than anything else. ABS, EBD, CBC, DSC+T, ESP, the number of air bags, all of them are easily sold to the general public as 'must-haves' for their personal safety because their concepts are not hard to grasp. You just tick boxes and compare, and if one car has an acronym the other hasn't it must be safer than the other - right? In reality, all the electronic gubbins might just be able to add a couple of percentage points to the overall safety level of a car, which is defined by the 'rightness' of its mechanical engineering. A most disturbing trend, for instance, is for modern family hatchbacks to have a higher center of gravity, 200 kgs more weight and less suspension development hours on the road than their forebears, relying on ESP to keep them on the blacktop instead. A long-standing member of the European Car Of The Year jury once told me that with ESP disabled, a Peugeot 307 left the lange-change course backwards at a speed 10 km/h lower than the 306 would cope with just beautifully on the same manoeuver. When adding a bit of electronics is far cheaper than spending more time sorting the chassis, gives you an acronym to sell to your customers and enables you to get away with a dynamically inferior concept that gives people more 'space' or better the perception they got themselves a bigger car than they really have, what would you do as a manufacturer?

Personally, I feel the stainless braided brake lines. late-model callipers and well-developed disc/pad combo, the improved weight distribution, the removal of excess weight, the lower center of gravity, the improved fore/aft balance and vastly superior damping (Koni) on my Saab do much more for my ability to get myself out of a situation than a regular-grade ABS/ESP system would (let alone the first-gen Bosch ABS that later versions of this car got as standard, reduces the useful brake pedal travel to about 1" and removes all feel. Everytime I jump into a car so equipped it feels very disconcerting). If I could install a racing-grade ABS system, yes, I would - but I can't and no ABS is the next best option for this specific vehicle. Of course, only the likes of Porsche et al would go to such lengths in a production car, and most likely just for their high-end sporting versions.

As for TVR - I don't think they should add ABS in se, nor that they shouldn't. A more pressing concern would be improvements in the damping department and more development for that final handling polish - the sense that when pressing on at the Nordschleife, the engineers were there before you.

[Jon Gwynne]

captain honesty said:

to all the people who have stated that they have practised panic stopping in the wet-i'm sorry but thats just horses$$t. that is a controlled stop,not a panic stop! i believe the abs case is not just about stopping distances but the ability to drive around a potential accident under full braking thus possibly saving someone's life. human nature when faced with such a situation is to mash the brake pedal and try to steer. with abs it is possible,without you are just likely to skid and spin and wipe someone out.you don't have time to think or modulate your braking you just do it! you can say that you practiced it and you don't need abs-what arrogance,in your tests you were EXPECTING to stop therefore the test is a load of crap. didn't anybody ever see tiff needell test avoiding a crash by steering on abs?with it he steered around it without it he piled straight ahead,but judging by some of the comments on here he's probably not as good a driver as them

Well, in the controlled stops I made, I wasn't able to lock up the brakes. So, presumably, if I'd wanted to steer around an obstacle, I would have been free to do so.

But the argument that ABS is intended to allow for steering during panic stops has always amused me. Does no one see the inherent contradition in such a claim? If someone is too panicked to be able to practive cadence-braking, how the hell are they expected to be able to steer.

During a panic stop, people aren't going to cadence-brake OR steer. They're going to freeze and plow straight ahead regardless of ABS. You said youself that "you don't have time to think" in an emergency situation.

This is the reason why people are warned not to use their left foot on the brake and right foot on the gas in a car with an automatic transmission, in a panic situation, they are likely to simply stomp down with both feet without thinking about it and if their right foot stomps on the throttle, they're not going to be able to stop properly.

Bottom line: ABS isn't "safety equipment", it is marketing hype. Peter Wheeler is right and you are wrong.

[deeen]

captain honesty said:

you can say that you practiced it and you don't need abs-what arrogance,in your tests you were EXPECTING to stop therefore the test is a load of crap. didn't anybody ever see tiff needell test avoiding a crash by steering on abs?with it he steered around it without it he piled straight ahead,but judging by some of the comments on here he's probably not as good a driver as them

Er - so Tiff wasn't expecting to stop, then? Those pesky cones just ran out onto the track and took him by surprise? Or is this post just completely self contradictory?

[rich1231]

Jon,

you are right and everyone else is wrong?

Do you have a medallion and hairy chest on show?

Just trying to get the mental image right.

ABS, traction control, airbags etc etc have saved countless lives. Funny thing is they have saved the lives of people around the cars having the accidents too. If i get into trouble, its one thing my car getting totalled and me killed but I would not want to inflict damage on another.

Now of course no one here is as good a driver as you are and can break hard and have total control of their car in those oh so pant filling moments, but you see there are other people on the road other than you.

I think TVR are daft not including life saving aids. I actually think the reason they havnt are the costs involved to develop and something additional to go wrong and get slated for.

[shpub]

captain honesty said:

didn't anybody ever see tiff needell test avoiding a crash by steering on abs?with it he steered around it without it he piled straight ahead,but judging by some of the comments on here he's probably not as good a driver as them

I remember that test. Top Gear when it had Clarkson first time round. Also included several members of the public who went through the same test and crushed the cone despite ABS. They needed some training to first get them out of the panic "we are all doomed" mode and then to apply a LOT of steering input as the car was under steering like hell. After 3 or so attempts they managed to miss the cone. Yes ABS helped them and deserved a pat on the back. Unfortunately, if this has been real life only the third victim would have been saved. The first two would have been sacrificed on the learning curve.

Seems to me it keeps coming down to better driver training irrespective of what widgets you add is the best way to stop accidents.

[roadsweeper]

shpub said:

captain honesty said: didn't anybody ever see tiff needell test avoiding a crash by steering on abs?with it he steered around it without it he piled straight ahead,but judging by some of the comments on here he's probably not as good a driver as them I remember that test. Top Gear when it had Clarkson first time round. Also included several members of the public who went through the same test and crushed the cone despite ABS. They needed some training to first get them out of the panic "we are all doomed" mode and then to apply a LOT of steering input as the car was under steering like hell. After 3 or so attempts they managed to miss the cone. Yes ABS helped them and deserved a pat on the back. Unfortunately, if this has been real life only the third victim would have been saved. The first two would have been sacrificed on the learning curve. Seems to me it keeps coming down to better driver training irrespective of what widgets you add is the best way to stop accidents.

[Jon Gwynne]

rich1231 said:

Jon, you are right and everyone else is wrong? Do you have a medallion and hairy chest on show? Just trying to get the mental image right. ABS, traction control, airbags etc etc have saved countless lives. Funny thing is they have saved the lives of people around the cars having the accidents too. If i get into trouble, its one thing my car getting totalled and me killed but I would not want to inflict damage on another. Now of course no one here is as good a driver as you are and can break hard and have total control of their car in those oh so pant filling moments, but you see there are other people on the road other than you. I think TVR are daft not including life saving aids. I actually think the reason they havnt are the costs involved to develop and something additional to go wrong and get slated for.

Well, I do actually have some hair on my chest but no medallion, sorry.

The number of lives saved by ABS, airbags, traction-control, etc... will never actually be known. Baseless numbers are cheerfully bandied around by people who point at someone who survives an accident in a car that happens to have one or more of those features and conclude that these features must necessarily have contributed to the survival.

In reality, things like grippier tires, crumple zones and automatic seat-belts have done more to reduce accident fatalities than all the TLAs in the world.

I never said I was a great driver, in fact I'm not - I'm merely a good driver - I know my limits and stay well within them. Maybe that's one reason why I've never been in a serious accident in the 22 years I've been driving and the small fender-benders I've been in were invariably the result of some numpty driver. And, incidentally, none of them could have been prevented by any safety gear in the world.

One of the problems with ABS, TC and stability-enhancers is that it encourages idiots to erreoneously believe they can drive beyond their limits which puts not only the idiots at risk but everyone around them. Good drivers don't need these things and bad drivers are made worse by them. Now, what was the benefit again?


Let's be clear about one thing. TVR have *not* failed to include what you call "life saving aids". They have discovered through research and testing that their cars are safer and better without these gimmicks. To write that TVR is deliberately compromising the safety of their cars is libellous.

[Jon Gwynne]

shpub said:

captain honesty said: didn't anybody ever see tiff needell test avoiding a crash by steering on abs?with it he steered around it without it he piled straight ahead,but judging by some of the comments on here he's probably not as good a driver as them I remember that test. Top Gear when it had Clarkson first time round. Also included several members of the public who went through the same test and crushed the cone despite ABS. They needed some training to first get them out of the panic "we are all doomed" mode and then to apply a LOT of steering input as the car was under steering like hell. After 3 or so attempts they managed to miss the cone. Yes ABS helped them and deserved a pat on the back. Unfortunately, if this has been real life only the third victim would have been saved. The first two would have been sacrificed on the learning curve. Seems to me it keeps coming down to better driver training irrespective of what widgets you add is the best way to stop accidents.

Amen, brother! Gadgetry is no substitute for learning how to drive properly.


Here's the "Gwynne Plan":

1. License reform: Three levels of driving license. The first is the ordinary type as exists now. However, holders of such a license are restricted to driving cars of Insurance Group 12 or lower. The second level (available to those with a Level 1 who pass a comprehensive driving skills test) would allow the holder to drive cars in groups 13-18. The third level (available to anyone with a level 2 license who passes additional testing) would allow driving cars in group 19-20 and would, in addition, exempt the driver from speeding citations provided the speed was within 20% of the posted limit. Also, a Level 3 license would entitle the holder to discounts on road-tax and insurance premiums.

2. Legal reform: Include license suspension as a punishment for dangerous driving. For example, anyone involved in more than two injury accidents in any three year period loses their license for 30 days. Anyone convicted of driving while intoxicated would have their license suspended for 60 days plus 180 more for each subsequent offense (in addition to whatever other penalties they face). Anyone who causes an injury accident while intoxicated would have their license revoked permanently - even for a first offense. Anyone who drives with a suspended license pays a £5000 fine and loses their license forever. Anyone who drives on a revoked licenses pays a £10,000 fine, forfeits the car they were driving and serves a minimum of six months in prison.

3. Abolish this speed-camera nonsense. It is a stupid idea which undermines the role of the police and traffic enforcement laws and turns them into revenue-collectors.


Adopting policies which reward/encourage good driving and beat the crap out of the dangerous and irresponsible driver are the only way to go.

[TheHobbit]

Basically, if you come around a corner, something (anything) jumps out in front of you, and you hit it, the simple fact is that you were going too fast.

If you are travelling at a speed where you cannot stop in the distance you can see to be clear, you are going too fast.

ABS simply helps you steer around a situation you should not have been in in the first place and the airbag just breaks your nose if you can't operate ABS and hit it after all.
I'm not saying people don't do it [drive too fast], and I'm not saying I don't do it, even though I should know better, having passed an IAM driving test, I do [drive faster than the distance I can see to be clear] sometimes, and I know it. I'm just stating the facts.

:runs to get fire extinquisher and hides behind sofa:

>> Edited by TheHobbit on Friday 28th May 12:54

[TheHobbitsBoss]

12:51 on Friday 28th May. I am paying you to work not surf pistonheads all day

[rev-erend]

Hobbits boss - don't hobits get a lunch break !

I suspect you are really a troll

lotr

[racketman]

can a cars balance help you in anyway in a panic situation?i.e the set up,chassis etc

[joust]

TheHobbitsBoss said:

12:51 on Friday 28th May. I am paying you to work not surf pistonheads all day

As a boss you should know dam well that you have to give "reasonable and private access" to communications infrastructure during peoples lunchtime.

Oh, and it's also the law that you have to give employees a lunch break you old miseryguts



J