My co-worker Mike and I have been having an ongoing discussion about cars. He’s looking for something fun to drive, but is too wimpy to handle the live rear-axle of the Mustang GT. Our last conversation ended with me saying that you really can’t handle high torque that well without a live axle. Here’s an email exchange that took place this morning (a couple days after our previous discussion)
From: Mike
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 10:03 AM
To: Bruce
Subject: 425 ft-lbs
That’s what a BMW 335d puts out, and doesn’t have a live axle. I object to your logic!
From: Bruce
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 10:10 AM
To: Mike
Subject: RE: 425 ft-lbs
Yet it has a slower 0-60 time than my live axle pushing out 320 ft-lbs…hrm
From: Mike
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 10:12 AM
To: Bruce
Subject: RE: 425 ft-lbs
Fair point. The diesel does in fact only have 260xx bhp.<curse you>
From: Bruce
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 10:14 AM
To: Mike
Subject: RE: 425 ft-lbs
Does seem to be a pretty nice ride. I think if I ever gave up, hit a mid life crisis and felt the need to fit in by buying a BMW, I might take a look at it.
From: Mike
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 10:18 AM
To: Bruce
Subject: RE: 425 ft-lbs
Ha!But, if you ever want a car that will actually make a turn at speed without putting you, or everyone within 20 miles, in grave danger, it would be a good consideration as well.
From: Bruce
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 10:30 AM
To: Mike
Subject: RE: 425 ft-lbsThat’s a big assumption, sir.
Well here’s verification of the assumption. I tried to find some Apple’s to Apple’s testing (on legitimate tracks), but apparently people don’t really race American cars on tracks. The Z06 is a nice exception (I will yield to that car) but if by “fitting in” you meant “fast”, then BMW’s among most other european cars perform quite well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nürburgring_lap_times
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear_Test_Track
On the second page, the closest I could come up with is a Mustang GT500. And it’s only 1 second faster around the track than an old M3. Guess that big heavy engine and 200 extra horsepower don’t really help it out.
Now let’s look at a car with equal horsepower to the GT500. Let’s go with an M5. A big clunky SEDAN with 500 hp.
GT500 top gear track time: 1:30.0 – Ford Shelby GT500
M5 track time: 1:26.2 – BMW M5
I rest my case. Thank god all that german engineering wasn’t for nothing. So have fun with your live axle…..or whatever.
Nope, it’s not about driving the fastest around a track. I think Pat Devereux from Top Gear put it best:
“Yes, it doesn’t always give the best ride, and it does hop and jump over mid-corner bumps, but maybe that’s the point. This is a muscle car and they shouldn’t really be too refined. They are supposed to be blunt instruments that you have to manhandle with confidence.”