RE: V8 Ariel Atom Gets 900bhp Per Tonne
Discussion
Be good to see the Ultima on the TG track, I guess the reason it has not appeared there is down to money. the power laps may not be set up with a great deal of scientific accuracy (But maybe they are?)
but in the pub argument / willy waving world, they seem to be a reasonable yardstick.
Still like would to see what a 1200 bhp per ton Caterham would do though!
but in the pub argument / willy waving world, they seem to be a reasonable yardstick.
Still like would to see what a 1200 bhp per ton Caterham would do though!
It appears that an Ultima did go around the Top Gear track, and set a speed which beat everything else
on the board (1 minute 12.8 seconds) but was deemed not to be a road car , and consequently not put up on the board along with a Ferrari FXX and Caparo whioh were not put up for the same reason (but I seen caparos on the road quite a few times around the Norwich area as there is a garage which has them in the showroom at Long Stratton.
on the board (1 minute 12.8 seconds) but was deemed not to be a road car , and consequently not put up on the board along with a Ferrari FXX and Caparo whioh were not put up for the same reason (but I seen caparos on the road quite a few times around the Norwich area as there is a garage which has them in the showroom at Long Stratton.
peter pan said:
It appears that an Ultima did go around the Top Gear track, and set a speed which beat everything else
on the board (1 minute 12.8 seconds) but was deemed not to be a road car , and consequently not put up on the board along with a Ferrari FXX and Caparo whioh were not put up for the same reason (but I seen caparos on the road quite a few times around the Norwich area as there is a garage which has them in the showroom at Long Stratton.
Actually Ultima drove the track themselves as topgear would never feature the car on topgear, so they hired the track and did there own timed runs to prove a point. on the board (1 minute 12.8 seconds) but was deemed not to be a road car , and consequently not put up on the board along with a Ferrari FXX and Caparo whioh were not put up for the same reason (but I seen caparos on the road quite a few times around the Norwich area as there is a garage which has them in the showroom at Long Stratton.
The Ultima that did the 1:12 lap was also driven to the track where it went over a few roadbumps to prove that it was road legal, i would guess topgear cannot have a car like the Ultima GTR on, as if they had put it on the track in the first season it would pretty bad watching all the other mega money cars not coming close to its performance and would not make for a very interesting show.
Also I think a big part of the show is slowly getting cars that are a bit faster each season so people go wow, the ultima would have remained at the top for years and would ruin that.
CarMad426 said:
peter pan said:
It appears that an Ultima did go around the Top Gear track, and set a speed which beat everything else
on the board (1 minute 12.8 seconds) but was deemed not to be a road car , and consequently not put up on the board along with a Ferrari FXX and Caparo whioh were not put up for the same reason (but I seen caparos on the road quite a few times around the Norwich area as there is a garage which has them in the showroom at Long Stratton.
Actually Ultima drove the track themselves as topgear would never feature the car on topgear, so they hired the track and did there own timed runs to prove a point. on the board (1 minute 12.8 seconds) but was deemed not to be a road car , and consequently not put up on the board along with a Ferrari FXX and Caparo whioh were not put up for the same reason (but I seen caparos on the road quite a few times around the Norwich area as there is a garage which has them in the showroom at Long Stratton.
The Ultima that did the 1:12 lap was also driven to the track where it went over a few roadbumps to prove that it was road legal, i would guess topgear cannot have a car like the Ultima GTR on, as if they had put it on the track in the first season it would pretty bad watching all the other mega money cars not coming close to its performance and would not make for a very interesting show.
Also I think a big part of the show is slowly getting cars that are a bit faster each season so people go wow, the ultima would have remained at the top for years and would ruin that.
They might also not want to upset car manufacturers... Would Porsche lend Top Gear a car for a feature if they knew that a little £50k British car was going to be above it on the lap time chart?
RobM77 said:
CarMad426 said:
peter pan said:
It appears that an Ultima did go around the Top Gear track, and set a speed which beat everything else
on the board (1 minute 12.8 seconds) but was deemed not to be a road car , and consequently not put up on the board along with a Ferrari FXX and Caparo whioh were not put up for the same reason (but I seen caparos on the road quite a few times around the Norwich area as there is a garage which has them in the showroom at Long Stratton.
Actually Ultima drove the track themselves as topgear would never feature the car on topgear, so they hired the track and did there own timed runs to prove a point. on the board (1 minute 12.8 seconds) but was deemed not to be a road car , and consequently not put up on the board along with a Ferrari FXX and Caparo whioh were not put up for the same reason (but I seen caparos on the road quite a few times around the Norwich area as there is a garage which has them in the showroom at Long Stratton.
The Ultima that did the 1:12 lap was also driven to the track where it went over a few roadbumps to prove that it was road legal, i would guess topgear cannot have a car like the Ultima GTR on, as if they had put it on the track in the first season it would pretty bad watching all the other mega money cars not coming close to its performance and would not make for a very interesting show.
Also I think a big part of the show is slowly getting cars that are a bit faster each season so people go wow, the ultima would have remained at the top for years and would ruin that.
They might also not want to upset car manufacturers... Would Porsche lend Top Gear a car for a feature if they knew that a little £50k British car was going to be above it on the lap time chart?
Frankly I find that rather shocking.
While it's definitely an amazing car, the figures for power to weight ratio are going to be a bit misleading. I don't know if they quote it with dry weigh, or fully wet, but fluids alone will make a chunky difference on a car this light. More importantly, so will a driver.
If the numbers are for a real comparison of a car's performance, rather than just boasting rights, then it'd make more sense to quote them with oil, half a tank of petrol, and say 80g for an average driver.
It's even worse when you look at bikes' figures. A modern superbike is at about 1000bhp/tonne now, truly staggering figure compared to most cars, but that's using a dry weight with no rider. Do it mor realistically, and you're down at something more like 650bhp/tonne.
Doing things this way, of course, you see that the Atom witha driver is going to accelerate harder than a GSXR-1000 with a rider, and so is quite likely to be faster than it just about everywhere. I'ma biker myself, and have always been a fan of the huge acceleration that bikes have, but am still happy to admit that when you see bikes against cars being driven very hard in real conditions (such as at the 'Ring), the bikes rarely manage to get as close to their theoretical performance levels as the cars do, and so you get relatively pedestrian cars (base model 911, for example) more than keeping up with R1s and blades a lot of the time.
When I was last there, on my agricultural R1200GS, I was more than holding my own against a lot of the superbikes, but not against the sports cars.
If the numbers are for a real comparison of a car's performance, rather than just boasting rights, then it'd make more sense to quote them with oil, half a tank of petrol, and say 80g for an average driver.
It's even worse when you look at bikes' figures. A modern superbike is at about 1000bhp/tonne now, truly staggering figure compared to most cars, but that's using a dry weight with no rider. Do it mor realistically, and you're down at something more like 650bhp/tonne.
Doing things this way, of course, you see that the Atom witha driver is going to accelerate harder than a GSXR-1000 with a rider, and so is quite likely to be faster than it just about everywhere. I'ma biker myself, and have always been a fan of the huge acceleration that bikes have, but am still happy to admit that when you see bikes against cars being driven very hard in real conditions (such as at the 'Ring), the bikes rarely manage to get as close to their theoretical performance levels as the cars do, and so you get relatively pedestrian cars (base model 911, for example) more than keeping up with R1s and blades a lot of the time.
When I was last there, on my agricultural R1200GS, I was more than holding my own against a lot of the superbikes, but not against the sports cars.
NorthernBoy said:
While it's definitely an amazing car, the figures for power to weight ratio are going to be a bit misleading. I don't know if they quote it with dry weigh, or fully wet, but fluids alone will make a chunky difference on a car this light. More importantly, so will a driver.
If the numbers are for a real comparison of a car's performance, rather than just boasting rights, then it'd make more sense to quote them with oil, half a tank of petrol, and say 80g for an average driver.
It's even worse when you look at bikes' figures. A modern superbike is at about 1000bhp/tonne now, truly staggering figure compared to most cars, but that's using a dry weight with no rider. Do it mor realistically, and you're down at something more like 650bhp/tonne.
Doing things this way, of course, you see that the Atom witha driver is going to accelerate harder than a GSXR-1000 with a rider, and so is quite likely to be faster than it just about everywhere. I'ma biker myself, and have always been a fan of the huge acceleration that bikes have, but am still happy to admit that when you see bikes against cars being driven very hard in real conditions (such as at the 'Ring), the bikes rarely manage to get as close to their theoretical performance levels as the cars do, and so you get relatively pedestrian cars (base model 911, for example) more than keeping up with R1s and blades a lot of the time.
When I was last there, on my agricultural R1200GS, I was more than holding my own against a lot of the superbikes, but not against the sports cars.
I agree with you on the kerb weight. According to EG 92/21, the car has to be in full running order (fluids like oil, coolant required), has 90% petrol in the tank and an 68 kg driver with 7kg luggage. Don't know where this could probably be stored in the Ariel, but doesn't matter. This should be a standard for these figures an dbe respected by the manufacturers. Else it's like saying "the car weights 10 weight units". If the numbers are for a real comparison of a car's performance, rather than just boasting rights, then it'd make more sense to quote them with oil, half a tank of petrol, and say 80g for an average driver.
It's even worse when you look at bikes' figures. A modern superbike is at about 1000bhp/tonne now, truly staggering figure compared to most cars, but that's using a dry weight with no rider. Do it mor realistically, and you're down at something more like 650bhp/tonne.
Doing things this way, of course, you see that the Atom witha driver is going to accelerate harder than a GSXR-1000 with a rider, and so is quite likely to be faster than it just about everywhere. I'ma biker myself, and have always been a fan of the huge acceleration that bikes have, but am still happy to admit that when you see bikes against cars being driven very hard in real conditions (such as at the 'Ring), the bikes rarely manage to get as close to their theoretical performance levels as the cars do, and so you get relatively pedestrian cars (base model 911, for example) more than keeping up with R1s and blades a lot of the time.
When I was last there, on my agricultural R1200GS, I was more than holding my own against a lot of the superbikes, but not against the sports cars.
But it's still an impresive power/weight figure.
Still don't understand why this car will be produced...
...with only 25 units!
Bonefish Blues said:
RobM77 said:
CarMad426 said:
peter pan said:
It appears that an Ultima did go around the Top Gear track, and set a speed which beat everything else
on the board (1 minute 12.8 seconds) but was deemed not to be a road car , and consequently not put up on the board along with a Ferrari FXX and Caparo whioh were not put up for the same reason (but I seen caparos on the road quite a few times around the Norwich area as there is a garage which has them in the showroom at Long Stratton.
Actually Ultima drove the track themselves as topgear would never feature the car on topgear, so they hired the track and did there own timed runs to prove a point. on the board (1 minute 12.8 seconds) but was deemed not to be a road car , and consequently not put up on the board along with a Ferrari FXX and Caparo whioh were not put up for the same reason (but I seen caparos on the road quite a few times around the Norwich area as there is a garage which has them in the showroom at Long Stratton.
The Ultima that did the 1:12 lap was also driven to the track where it went over a few roadbumps to prove that it was road legal, i would guess topgear cannot have a car like the Ultima GTR on, as if they had put it on the track in the first season it would pretty bad watching all the other mega money cars not coming close to its performance and would not make for a very interesting show.
Also I think a big part of the show is slowly getting cars that are a bit faster each season so people go wow, the ultima would have remained at the top for years and would ruin that.
They might also not want to upset car manufacturers... Would Porsche lend Top Gear a car for a feature if they knew that a little £50k British car was going to be above it on the lap time chart?
Frankly I find that rather shocking.
It is, yes, but it's also perhaps not sensible for a programme that survives on being loaned valuable cars by high end car manufacturers to show that a £50k kit car can lap quicker than one of these expensive cars.
RobM77 said:
It is, yes, but it's also perhaps not sensible for a programme that survives on being loaned valuable cars by high end car manufacturers to show that a £50k kit car can lap quicker than one of these expensive cars.
I should think a 25k Caterham R300 can lap quicker than an awful lot of expensive cars!Allways found it a bit amusing when they showed power lap runs on the re-plays of Top Gear on Dave
when they were showing cars like Zondas, Koeniggseggs and Ferraris etc, where the `boys' were exclaiming WOW, thats fast!!! after the Stig had just punted one of the above around the track with figures of around 1 minute 23 seconds.
Little did they know what was to come in the (not so distant) future, with even a Caterham recording a time of 1 minute 17.9 seconds in the Stigs hands!
I wonder though, if we are getting near to the absolute limits of what is achievable? Mind you I guess they were saying things like that just a few years ago!!.
Whilst you would think they would `big up' UK cars like the Ultima, Caterham and Atom which blow the doors off all that foreign muck (when it is not catching fire that is!) for a fraction of the price, as someone has pointed out the big manufacturers are hardly going to donate cars to the program only to see them being comprehensively beaten by cars at a fraction of the price...and kit cars at that!
when they were showing cars like Zondas, Koeniggseggs and Ferraris etc, where the `boys' were exclaiming WOW, thats fast!!! after the Stig had just punted one of the above around the track with figures of around 1 minute 23 seconds.
Little did they know what was to come in the (not so distant) future, with even a Caterham recording a time of 1 minute 17.9 seconds in the Stigs hands!
I wonder though, if we are getting near to the absolute limits of what is achievable? Mind you I guess they were saying things like that just a few years ago!!.
Whilst you would think they would `big up' UK cars like the Ultima, Caterham and Atom which blow the doors off all that foreign muck (when it is not catching fire that is!) for a fraction of the price, as someone has pointed out the big manufacturers are hardly going to donate cars to the program only to see them being comprehensively beaten by cars at a fraction of the price...and kit cars at that!
peter pan said:
when they were showing cars like Zondas, Koeniggseggs and Ferraris etc, where the `boys' were exclaiming WOW, thats fast!!! after the Stig had just punted one of the above around the track with figures of around 1 minute 23 seconds.
Little did they know what was to come in the (not so distant) future, with even a Caterham recording a time of 1 minute 17.9 seconds in the Stigs hands!
I wonder though, if we are getting near to the absolute limits of what is achievable?
The F1 cars are < 1m, and F1 cars are constrained by regulations.Little did they know what was to come in the (not so distant) future, with even a Caterham recording a time of 1 minute 17.9 seconds in the Stigs hands!
I wonder though, if we are getting near to the absolute limits of what is achievable?
In response to the above posts, don't forget that a Formula Ford will outpace the vast majority of supercars around a race track. For instance, around Brands Hatch Indy circuit the quickest road car times I've seen have been about 50 seconds (Noble M400, Caterham R500, things like that), whereas a Formula Ford is currently at around 46 seconds around there. Four seconds may not seem like much, but bear in mind that's 8% quicker! 8% around the 'ring is the difference between an 8:30 minute lap and a 7m49s lap, which is a hell of a lot in car terms as we all know. FFords are available very cheaply indeed. It's mainly the requirement to be road legal and useable that the Top Gear lap time contenders are battling against with respect to their pace.
otolith said:
Yes - just saying that even the fastest road cars are still a long way off what is demonstrably possible, and that even the F1 cars are slower than they could be if they weren't constrained by technical regulations.
Yes, sorry, I was agreeing with you 
F1 is very interesting actually, as it shows the advances in automotive technology by the fact that the FIA try to slow them down constantly, but they just keep getting faster. WRC also shows this, with the current cars thought to be on the stages than Group B were, despite the FIA cutting down hugely since the Group B accidents.It'd be interesting to see what F1 cars could do with the regulations removed.
I'd favour completely abandoning the current ones, and simply setting out safety requirements, and maximun fuel tank size, then letting them have free reign over whatever they wanted to come up with. Maybe you'd want to specify a maximum size, but nothing else.
It might drive out some teams who couldn't compete with the budgets needed, but, on the other hand, could also make it easier for them, as they could instead come at things from a completely different angle (much like when lower division teams play a top-tier one, they are crushed if they try to play the same football as the top team, but can sometimes pull off a result if they do things that the top team just isn't used to).
At the moment we have little overtaking, the top teams all staying close to the top every year, and huge amounts sunk into exploiting any little loophole, followed by complaints that the rule in question has been breached.
I'd favour completely abandoning the current ones, and simply setting out safety requirements, and maximun fuel tank size, then letting them have free reign over whatever they wanted to come up with. Maybe you'd want to specify a maximum size, but nothing else.
It might drive out some teams who couldn't compete with the budgets needed, but, on the other hand, could also make it easier for them, as they could instead come at things from a completely different angle (much like when lower division teams play a top-tier one, they are crushed if they try to play the same football as the top team, but can sometimes pull off a result if they do things that the top team just isn't used to).
At the moment we have little overtaking, the top teams all staying close to the top every year, and huge amounts sunk into exploiting any little loophole, followed by complaints that the rule in question has been breached.
NorthernBoy said:
It'd be interesting to see what F1 cars could do with the regulations removed.
I'd favour completely abandoning the current ones, and simply setting out safety requirements, and maximun fuel tank size, then letting them have free reign over whatever they wanted to come up with. Maybe you'd want to specify a maximum size, but nothing else.
It might drive out some teams who couldn't compete with the budgets needed, but, on the other hand, could also make it easier for them, as they could instead come at things from a completely different angle (much like when lower division teams play a top-tier one, they are crushed if they try to play the same football as the top team, but can sometimes pull off a result if they do things that the top team just isn't used to).
At the moment we have little overtaking, the top teams all staying close to the top every year, and huge amounts sunk into exploiting any little loophole, followed by complaints that the rule in question has been breached.
I think we'd quickly end up (no pun intended!) with four or five teams that could afford it spaced out by quite a bit on the grid. The trouble is, the whole point of formula racing is that a formula controls the cars, so the skill of the drivers counts for something, otherwise it becomes like those open club races you get where someone in an ex BTCC car wins by about a minute.I'd favour completely abandoning the current ones, and simply setting out safety requirements, and maximun fuel tank size, then letting them have free reign over whatever they wanted to come up with. Maybe you'd want to specify a maximum size, but nothing else.
It might drive out some teams who couldn't compete with the budgets needed, but, on the other hand, could also make it easier for them, as they could instead come at things from a completely different angle (much like when lower division teams play a top-tier one, they are crushed if they try to play the same football as the top team, but can sometimes pull off a result if they do things that the top team just isn't used to).
At the moment we have little overtaking, the top teams all staying close to the top every year, and huge amounts sunk into exploiting any little loophole, followed by complaints that the rule in question has been breached.
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