After having met an intelligent alien species which also has and uses cars in their daily life, our two planets decide to have an Olympics of automobiles. A selection of major manufacturers (i.e. any company which currently produces road-legal vehicles that are sold at professional dealerships) have been tasked to work together to create the ultimate car (and optionally a set of vehicles for particular events). The development cycle can last up to 5 years.
Who would you assign to what task for the ultimate car?
(Optionally, who would you assign what task for the event cars?)
I’m thinking something like this for the ultimate car:
BMW - overall product management and decision maker
Audi - Exterior design
Lotus - Chassis
Mercedes? - Interior design and instruments
BMW or Mazda - Engine
Subaru - Transmission
Lotus - Tuning
Toyota - Safety equipment, testing, assembly
Ultimate in what way? The best off-road vehicle isn’t going to be the best auto-cross vehicle isn’t going to be the best long trip vehicle, etc.
Hence why this is in IMHO. It’s up to you what you think would produce the best and what that means.
I love the Bugatti, but really only for the exterior. Personally, I’d think that the ultimate car needs back seats and room for a suitcase or two. Straight line speed isn’t “the ultimate”, regardless that it is one large feat of engineering. Making the indestructible pickup truck would also be a large feat of engineering – it’s just less glamorous.
I wouldn’t use the production automakers. This is a prototype. These are just the team leaders; they will bring along whoever they want. I’ll assume that most of them can work together. The schisms will happen after the car hits the track.
Gordon Murray (Brabham, McLaren, Gordon Murray Design) would be the overall project and packaging leader. His master drawing board is where all the parts end up before being built.
Adrian Newey (RedBull) and Nick Wirth (Simtek) would handle aerodynamic and thermal design and simulation. We will need to use the Chip Ganassi coast-down tunnel as well as the Ferrari and Red Bull wind tunnels.
Dassault would build the chassis - they did the Peugeot 905 and 908, advanced machines that just plain worked from day 1. Detail component machine design would be handled by the motorcycle manufacturers as their day job consists primarily of weight and stress optimization. They do every bit as good a job as the “bird works” at this at a far lower cost.
The manufacturer of the drivetrain would depend quite heavily on the type of contest. Selection would be handled by Texas A&M University’s motorsports program as they have won major design-build-drive events with a wider variety of engines than anyone else. If peak power required is determined to be 1000+ horsepower then a Rolls-Royce CTS800 helicopter turbine will have superior power-to-weight than a piston engine. Ferrari will probably be able to handle anything between 300 and 900 hp with a lighter and smaller engine than anyone else but they’d need a good reason to do it - Cosworth builds a wider variety though. Below 250 hp Yamaha leads; below 30 hp Honda has a wider variety of engines and is more willing to build an unusual engine. If we’re building an electric instead, ThunderPower RC has the best lithium-polymer batteries out there and AstroFlight can fit 30 hp in a baked bean can.
Chad Knaus would handle event day preparation; we need every advantage we can find and the #48 has by far the fewest raceday screwups of any team in all of motorsports. The main characteristics we’ll want in a driver are development feedback, small size, and raw speed.
We will need a tire war. Any of the tire manufacturers is capable of building the tire we need but it will take competition to have them actually do it. Failing that, Hoosier makes all sorts of weird, good racing tires and would have almost what we want off the shelf.