Flemke - Is this your McLaren? (Vol 5)

[Don1]

Interesting - I'm running (what I was told) a BTCC rig and it is far too much for the road. But watching WEC Ferraris loose a braking contest on track will never get old....

[flemke]

Isebac said:

flemke said:

They are these:


Which weigh 2.25kg each without pads.
Yes, stock calipers definitely part of the problem, which I brought to the attention of McLaren after speaking to a metallurgist who explained to me that, over a series of high heat cycles, aluminium will lose its stiffness.

Oh nice!

The use of racing calipers on road cars is an interesting subject. If you look at weights of normal supercar calipers, it's substantially more. For example, the Mclaren 720S front calipers - 3.74kg, the Porsche 991.2 GT3/RS - 4.09kg. So why aren't more supercars making use of these much lighter racing calipers? One reason I've heard is that the racing calipers don't have the same environmental protection against corrosion, salts, whatever. And that's I guess true given that they don't usually come with things like piston rubber seals, but surely if that really was a big problem that could be remedied while still keeping the superior structural shape of the caliper.

Interestingly, the T.50 also comes with nice racing calipers from AP, so it appears like they can be made road worthy:

Yours are probably still a bit lighter, though.

That is true about the lack of seals. Recall that a racing car will be serviced after each race, so there is no real need for seals.
Most compromises in production cars are related to costs, and I would guess that the same applies here.

[Benni]

I am a regular reader here and like the level of first-hand expertise on such a rare car,
both from the owner and other fans/geeks.
Thinking of brake calipers, is it allowed to name Spyros Panopoulos here with his organic design ideas,
or is the crazy greek frowned as vaporware because "Chaos" was never rolled out as far as I know ?
( He has an engineering history of supplier to racing scenes where I am no expert,
but his quartermile efforts are showing serious numbers. )
https://newatlas.com/automotive/spyros-panopoulos-...

[Davey S2]

flemke said:

These days, on public roads, if I am able to do a nice gearshift or steer the car exactly as I am trying to do through a bend, I am satisfied, at least for that moment.

Is that in the F1 or another car?

If that's the criteria (and it would be for me over outright speed on a public road) then there are a lot of cars out there that would fit the bill to do that.

[Klippie]

What you lads need for your brake pistons is - Fomblin Perfluorinated Grease - its probaly the best anti-seize grease available, we used it on submarine Cupronickel fittings which were extremely sticky and would easily bind up.

One thing though its very expensive.

[trackdemon]

Davey S2 said:

flemke said:

These days, on public roads, if I am able to do a nice gearshift or steer the car exactly as I am trying to do through a bend, I am satisfied, at least for that moment.

Is that in the F1 or another car?

If that's the criteria (and it would be for me over outright speed on a public road) then there are a lot of cars out there that would fit the bill to do that.

That may be true, but I imagine the satisfaction of executing a quality shift in an F1 is absolutely related to the difficulty of doing so. It's quite easy to do a good shift in (for example) a GT86 whereas an F1 requires a level of nuance and precision that's quite demanding - and I imagine that's where the pleasure of 'just driving' comes from. Clearly Flemke is in a better position to confirm that but from what I've read it seems reasonable. Same goes for steering one well with it's highly responsive nature and unassisted rack making it a fair bit more challenging than your average car.

[Steve Theodore]

Haha, the very thread that I joined PistonHeads so long ago to participate in, and low and behold it's still here.

Carry on my friends...this is priceless stuff here.

[barchetta_boy]

Apologies if this has been asked a million times but having spent a few hours in the GMA factory yesterday and spent a sleepless night last night thinking about these cars, anyone know if flemke is getting a T50 or T33?

[Sway]

barchetta_boy said:

Apologies if this has been asked a million times but having spent a few hours in the GMA factory yesterday and spent a sleepless night last night thinking about these cars, anyone know if flemke is getting a T50 or T33?

No to T.50 - iirc, there was a bit of a comms mixup and he didn't get an allocation.

I have noticed Andy74b missed out initially, but now has a car in build...

[flemke]

Sway said:

barchetta_boy said:

Apologies if this has been asked a million times but having spent a few hours in the GMA factory yesterday and spent a sleepless night last night thinking about these cars, anyone know if flemke is getting a T50 or T33?

No to T.50 - iirc, there was a bit of a comms mixup and he didn't get an allocation.

I have noticed Andy74b missed out initially, but now has a car in build...

Sway is as usual correct.
In retrospect I don't mind, because in real life it has been years since I had the chance (right time, right place) for a proper road drive in a real sports car. I was going to get a T.50 more out of loyalty to Gordon than anything else, and he is doing fine without my order, so it's all good.

[Petrus1983]

Do you believe many will be ‘loyalty’ purchases?

I was sceptical of the T50 - until I saw one at Goodwood and in fairness did look good fun.

[Sway]

Seeing t.50/t.33 and Lauda mockup all at Goodwood was very special - especially as just around the circuit TT9's F1 was parked up...

The evolution is very clear, and the detailing is just phenomenal.

[Isebac]

barchetta_boy said:

Apologies if this has been asked a million times but having spent a few hours in the GMA factory yesterday and spent a sleepless night last night thinking about these cars, anyone know if flemke is getting a T50 or T33?

I would kill for a long factory visit, so congrats! How was the production going? They should be just about starting.

[barchetta_boy]

First customer cars are due very soon.

[thegreenhell]

In their latest vlog on youtube, where they showed 23 crate V12s ready to be shipped from Cosworth, Gordon and Dario said they were expecting the first customer monocoque to be delivered to the production facility this week. That is assuming the video was shot in the days immediately before it was published, and not months ago...

[flemke]

Petrus1983 said:

Do you believe many will be ‘loyalty’ purchases?

I was sceptical of the T50 - until I saw one at Goodwood and in fairness did look good fun.

Some, I think, although at this point the T.50 and the F1 would appeal to somewhat different audiences. Today the F1 is definitely not a modern car, whereas the T.50 is an ultra-modern car with a manual gearbox.
I know of at least a couple of people trying to put together complete collections of Gordon's cars. The funny thing was that they were having the hardest time getting their hands on a Rocket!

[vincegail]

The Rockets seems to be the most obtainable Gordon Murray car. Pricewise, that is. (or was) Although I recall Gordon mention in a video where somebody visits his garage (don't remember the video) that one changed hands for 250K recently. So not so obtainable, maybe. They are much rarer than F1s or T50s, and seem to rise in price as well!

[Caddyshack]

vincegail said:

The Rockets seems to be the most obtainable Gordon Murray car. Pricewise, that is. (or was) Although I recall Gordon mention in a video where somebody visits his garage (don't remember the video) that one changed hands for 250K recently. So not so obtainable, maybe. They are much rarer than F1s or T50s, and seem to rise in price as well!

That is crazy for what it is.

[SpeckledJim]

Caddyshack said:

vincegail said:

The Rockets seems to be the most obtainable Gordon Murray car. Pricewise, that is. (or was) Although I recall Gordon mention in a video where somebody visits his garage (don't remember the video) that one changed hands for 250K recently. So not so obtainable, maybe. They are much rarer than F1s or T50s, and seem to rise in price as well!

That is crazy for what it is.

True, but if it helps, so is £15,000,000 for an F1.

[Caddyshack]

SpeckledJim said:

Caddyshack said:

vincegail said:

The Rockets seems to be the most obtainable Gordon Murray car. Pricewise, that is. (or was) Although I recall Gordon mention in a video where somebody visits his garage (don't remember the video) that one changed hands for 250K recently. So not so obtainable, maybe. They are much rarer than F1s or T50s, and seem to rise in price as well!

That is crazy for what it is.

True, but if it helps, so is £15,000,000 for an F1.

Well, I did consider that but at least the F1 has a purpose built engine that is one of the greatest ever made, it has unique features and there are a lot of very carefully considered components…it would be hard to buy anything similar or build similar - t50 is a cheap alternative now.

You could get very close to the rocket with many alternatives - forumula Fords have been put on the road, radicals, tiger ERA etc.

£15m for anything is mad…even a house when you really think about it.