making ferrari owners everywhere, jealous..
hohohohohoh!!
I like this guy's writing style, it's a good read. If you want to see
> it in it's whole HTML glory go to latimes.com and check out the Highway > 1 section.
>
> MC
>
>
>
> RUMBLE SEAT / DAN NEIL
> Careful where you point it
> Keep this car away from kids. The racy new Carrera GT responds to your
> every command. And you thought Porsche had lost its edge?
> By Dan Neil
> Times Staff Writer
>
> July 21, 2004
>
> The cop, a full-metal-jacketed member of the Ontario Provincial Police,
> walked up to the car, pushed his cap back and said, "New toy?"
>
> Well, yes and no, Officer Neckfat. The Carrera GT, Porsche's
> half-million-dollar sports car, a 605-horsepower linear-mass accelerator
> capable of more than 200 mph, is certainly new. The car is just now
> going into full production in Leipzig, Germany ? hand assembled at a
> rate of two per day ? and so far only about 50 have been delivered to
> North American customers, mostly juice-intensive celebs like Jerry
> Seinfeld and Tim Allen.
>
> Toy? Oh, yeah. The car is the quintessence of uselessness. The car is
> perfect agony to drive in close-quarter traffic thanks to its
> stall-happy ceramic clutch. My wallet has more trunk space than the nose
> cone of this mid-engine monster. In terms of appropriateness, driving
> the newest, greatest Porsche hyper-car on the street is like deer > hunting with ICBMs.
>
> On the track, however, the Carrera GT sheds its sense of overgrown
> absurdity and becomes what it is: a sumptuously upholstered race car, a
> carbon-fiber lightning bolt hurled from Zuffenhausen at History itself. >
> There is nothing false, shallow or toy-like in the way the Carrera GT
> drives. This car is no gimmick, no vainglorious attempt to keep up with
> the Enzos. It is serious. Adult-strength. For mature audiences only.
> Double-black-diamond with an avalanche advisory. If you are not entirely
> respectful of the car's power, it will hurt you.
>
> This is a good thing.
>
> At a time when, as sports car purists see it, the company's cars grow
> less and less pure, with their multiple layers of traction, stability
> and brake controls, adaptive suspensions, speed-sensitive steering and
> cozening comforts like navigation systems and automatic transmissions;
> at a time when Porsche's bestselling vehicle is, in fact, a truck (the
> Cayenne SUV); at a time when there is talk of Porsche building a
> four-door saloon like the Maserati Quattroporte, the final apostasy to
> the Porsche faithful, the Carrera GT redeems the company's reputation as
> the maker of great sports cars for accomplished drivers.
>
> The Carrera GT is uncompromised and uncompromising. The first impression
> one gets behind the wheel is one of off-the-scale, black-hole density, a
> gravitas that feels rooted in the Earth's iron core. This is the sort of
> vibration-free platform they build giant telescopes on.
>
> Instead of a paddle-shifted, clutchless gearbox, like those in the
> Ferrari Enzo or Lamborghini Murcielago, the Carrera GT has a
> conventional six-speed manual transmission with steel rod linkages
> between its wood-knob shifter and the transaxle. This is velocity, old
> school. Unlike the Ford GT, the Carrera GT uses a pushrod suspension.
> This space-saving design, common in race cars, uses linkages connected
> to a rocker-arm pivot to redirect vertical wheel movements to laterally
> mounted spring-and-damper units. Three-way adjustable anti-roll bars
> spider across the front and rear of the chassis.
>
> Rather than sacrifice a scintilla of handling sharpness to comfort, the
> double-wishbone suspension pieces are connected to the carbon-fiber
> chassis (the tub) with solid-steel joints, without any elastic bushings
> that might otherwise soften the ride. The car's ride quality is
> nonetheless unusually good, while the handling is mercilessly sensitive
> and accurate. There is zero free play in the power-assisted steering.
> The Carrera GT is the kind of car you drive with your fingertips so that
> you avoid putting the slightest pressure on the wheel as you brace yourself.
>
> It goes where you point it, so be careful where you point it.
>
> The reactor core is an all-alloy, naturally aspirated V10 (no
> superchargers or turbochargers) displacing 5.7 liters and breathing
> through 4-valve-per cylinder heads with variable-intake timing. The
> engine is a dry-sump unit (there is no oil pan beneath the engine),
> meaning that the engine's weight can be situated lower in the car, for a
> lower center of gravity. The engine oil reservoir is cast inside the
> alloy transaxle unit. To place the engine's weight (472 pounds) lower
> still, the Carrera GT uses a tiny ceramic clutch assembly, a mere 6.5
> inches in diameter. The distance from the crank center to the bottom of
> the car is only 3.9 inches.
>
> What does all that mean? For one thing, it means that the car has
> enormous dynamic stability and virtually no body roll. The Michelin
> Pilot Sport 2s wrapped around ultra-light cast magnesium wheels might as
> well be made by the Elmer's glue company. And when the car does begin to
> slide, you can just hold it out on the feathery edges of adhesion
> because the car is so effortlessly neutral and reactive. The hardest
> thing about the Carrera GT is to trust that this big car ? bigger than a
> Corvette ? will stay planted at cornering loads over 1 g. But it does. >
> One of the unique features of the Carrera GT is the powertrain frame
> that wraps around the engine and transaxle, a carbon-fiber cat's cradle
> bolted to the tub firewall. Woven of iridescent fibers and infused with
> glassy resins, it's a Faberge egg of car technology. Every place you
> look on this car harbors some glorious bit of engineering detailing. The
> hub-wrench fitting used to take off the center-lock wheel nuts is a
> gorgeous piece of precision milling autographed by the craftsman. This
> is one cool car.
>
> It is also rather sporty. It will accelerate from 0-60 mph in 3.5
> seconds, according to Car and Driver, and cover the quarter-mile in 11.2
> seconds, with a trap speed of 132 mph. That last number is telling: This
> car doesn't find its prodigious stride until it gets over 100 mph. From
> 0 to 100 mph takes a mere 6.8 seconds.
>
> At speeds above 75 mph, the car deploys its rear spoiler to help create
> road-holding down force. At 186 mph the car is subjected to 880 pounds
> of down force, most of that generated from the ground-effects underbody
> and spoiler, but even the suspension arms are shaped like inverted wings
> to extract precious pounds of down force.
>
> During my short stint in the car at Canada's Mosport racetrack, the
> Carrera GT didn't strike me as harrowingly fast. For one thing, you
> can't do anything sudden or violent in this car. In slow-speed corners,
> you can breathe off the throttle slightly to generate some extra
> rotation and then squeeze the power. But you can't toss it or punch it.
> And so the car has this serene inevitability to it, and the laps just > surrender to it.
>
> The Carrera GT also stops handily too, thanks to its four enormous,
> cross-drilled carbon-ceramic disc brakes. The car's excellent anti-lock
> system allows you to stand on the brakes as you approach the corner. The
> car feels like it's hit some sort of braking-zone force field.
>
> I wish that I could report some heroic law-scoffing in the Carrera GT, a
> speeding ticket worthy of campfire tales in future years. But no. I got
> pulled over for 120 in an 80. That's kilometers per hour. I'll do the
> math for you: it's about 74 mph in a 50 mph zone.
>
> I explained that, considering the car I was driving, I had shown inhuman
> restraint. He wasn't impressed and kept on writing.
>
> *
>
> Automotive critic Dan Neil can be reached at snipped-for-privacy@latimes.com >
> *
>
> (BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
>
> Porsche Carrera GT
>
> Wheelbase: 107.5 inches
>
> Length: 181.6 inches
>
> Curb weight: 3,146 pounds
>
> Powertrain: Naturally aspirated 5.7-liter DOHC V10, six-speed manual
> transmission, rear transaxle, rear-wheel drive with limited slip > differential
>
> Horsepower: 605 hp at 8,000 rpm
>
> Torque: 435 pound-feet at 5,750 rpm
>
> Acceleration: 0 to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds
>
> Price, as tested: $448,400
>
> Final thought: Dangerous liaison