The Saleen S7 - this is worth $395,000?

In My Humble Opinion
41

ROFLMAO :smiley:

I have no idea whether the Corvette vs. Talon is silly or not (although it does sound a bit out there) but the reply was great.

42

I thought this came about because of the Audi Quattro cars? Frankly I have no idea what the hell I am talking about but I had a friend tell me this once and for some reson I remembered it.

43

If you DO have the cash to spare, go ahead and buy the S7. My dad designed the transmission.

44

“If you DO have the cash to spare, go ahead and buy the S7. My dad designed the transmission.”

I always thought your dad looked a bit shifty.

45

Hey rick volks are volks, too

46

Um…pardon.

RICH volks are volks, too.

47
      • I can’t find anything helpful at the SCCA website, and most of the Talon fansites seem to be DOA. I don’t know all the different types of racing they run now, or ran then.
  • Sorry to rain on your parade, but the less traction available, the more advantage all-wheel-drive is: rear-wheel-drive vehicles have the shocking tendency to stay in one place, and just spin their back tires. At the time that AWD was banned, either Car and Driver or Road & Track did a 3-way comparison of the three-different Talons available at the time: front-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive. On a clean track the rear-wheel-drive car did slightly best with the all-wheel-drive #2, but as the amount of traction dropped, the AWD had an increasing advantage over the other two.
  • And even when the traction’s pretty good, AWD still helps: ever heard of the GMC Syclone and Typhoon? Two other cars with less power but AWD, that accellerated quicker than a Corvette… - DougC
48

The horsepower to weight ratio is .2! TheCar Talk Guys must be having aneurisms! Good thing nobody’ll be buying this baby for their kid anytime soon (I hope).

49

From what I’ve read, only 400 will be produced. So if you’re a millionaire who likes to own exclusive things, this may well be the car for you.

Saleen is well known for his work with Mustangs. It will be interesting to see what this car sells for in 5-10 years.

50

AUDI QUATTRO versus EAGLE TALON

I believe Audi’s Quattro AWD was banned in the early to mid 80’s because of the AWD advantage, but this was in European racing, and I apologize for not knowing the sactioning body.

If the Eagle Talon was banned in SCCA (Sports Car Club of America)racing, that was more recently and in the U.S.

51

Corvette versus Eagle

“around town”: I am not suprised that any smaller car feels better than a larger car, especially if the smaller car has decent power.

This is a common feel by many drivers and is hardly indicative of a cars potential. Also, you could be feeling the ‘zippiness’ and be going no faster than in a car that makes it seem easy. Corvettes and larger cars often make things feel easy to the driver, so that very high speeds have to be attained to get the car to feel nimble and respnsive…things like engine noise, exhaust and body roll make you feel like you are pushing it. It takes a lot to push a corvette, while modest driving could feel very performance oriented in a modest car like a Talon.

Subaru knows this, for example, and their AWD WRX is hardly a world class handler in terms of total grip, but the feel is so unique and balanced that you would bet your life savings that it could outperform a vette. Fact is, the feel is wonderful and rewarding, while the actual results versus a corvette would be unimpressive. Is a AWD drive nimble car like the Talnon and WRX great? YES.

But, that doesn’t mean an AWD Talon is worthy of comparisons to world class hi performace cars like a vette.

IMHO

52
      • I said, overall, the vette would do better under ideal racetrack conditions. You don’t find ideal racetrack conditions very often in the real world, except on the interstate, and I said “When it came down to really blasting around city streets, the Talon (turbo, actually) was always a bit quicker”. Under poor traction conditions, an all-wheel-drive car will accellerate quicker. Let’s say it snows six inches, and a Subaru WRX and a Corvette race on regular tires (in six inches of snow). Which do you think is going to win, and why? - DougC
53

Well, Dougie, thanks for making a fool of yourself.

You can re-read your post to figure it out.

How exactly do the brakes work in a AWD car that makes them more snow friendly than in a RWD car?

“Win” …“City Streets”…“Race” …“Snow”…(half foot nonetheless)

Lot’s of things don’t belong in the same brain fart.

54

Hey, when it comes to driving on the beach, I’d much rather have the quicker Dakota 4WD truck versus the Porsche Boxster.

55
      • Your problem is that you’re imaging a division which isn’t there: comparing a Corvette and a Dakota 4WD, the Corvette will do better on a large clean paved racetrack, and the Dakota would do better in six inches of snow. The reason that is, is because the all-wheel-drive vehicle has better traction. The overall power a vehicle has doesn’t mean anything if it only spins the tires, and driving in the snow is a perfectly valid demonstration of that. On a clean racetrack the difference isn’t significant; in six inches of snow, it is. So at some point, the advantage of more power overtakes the advantage of all-wheel-drive, so, the question here is, , , where does that occur?
        On a gravel road?
        On a sandy road?
        On a paved road covered with gravel?
        On a paved road covered with sand?
        On a paved road with sand or grit on the edges?
  • And why do so many European rally cars have all-wheel drive?
  • And if 2WD is better than 4WD (as some claim), then wouldn’t one-wheel drive be better than 2WD?
56

This is true. I had a car equipped with a 100 hp 4 cylinder that I totalled and replaced with the same vehicle equipped with a 150 hp V6. I swore to God that that V6 was a lemon because the revs climbed so slowly compared the the 4, I would have bet lots of money the 4 was faster, at least through third gear. Until my friends and I timed my V6 and got within a second of the car mags 1/4 mile times for the V6 and my V6’s 1/4 mile time was faster than the car mags time for the 4.

A four cylinder turbo is going to rev very quickly, especially through the power band, but that doesn’t make it faster than a lazy ohv V8. It’s not fair to compare two vehicles by “seat of the pants” measurement. Instrumented testing will get a lot closer to the truth most of the time.

I’m going to see if these two were ever in the same comparo.