twin cam head design+balance shafts+serious lightning of recipracating valve train=7000 reliable rpm from a v10. so if it costs as much as a ferrari who cares.it wont compete with the ferrari in its apeal.i have serious imagination problems.(:>(
--- On Sun, 7/17/11, Richard C. Wagner <[email protected]> wrote: From: Richard C. Wagner <[email protected]> Subject: [alfa] Re: Is this an Alfa? To: "Alfa Digest" <[email protected]> Date: Sunday, July 17, 2011, 2:28 AM Ben wrote: > My only disagreement is that soul isn't always high > performance. Thus, some trucks have soul. So does my Harley. I didn't mean to imply that performance equates to soul in any given machine. My point was that *Alfa's* soul equates to performance--performance achieved through a certain finesse and grace. Indeed, Harleys have a definite soul also, and it's embodied in the styling and sensual experience that they provide. The Harley 45 degree V-twin is an awful design. But a technically beautiful design isn't what Harley owners are looking for. They're looking for the experience that only that design can provide--the loping idle and thrumming note that come from hundred-year-old radial aircraft engine technology. Likewise, the Dodge V-10 has its own brand of soul. It equates back to the 426 Hemi and the 440, all brutes delivering their product through force rather than finesse or grace. And thus, they don't have the same soul as an Alfa. The TZ2 weighed only 1,364 pounds and its 1,600 cc engine produced 165 hp at 7,000 rpm. The engine could be run to well over 9,000 rpm every shift--producing nearly 200 hp in that state of tune--and would last race after race. Is the TZ3 the same kind of car? No, it only *looks* like the same kind of car. Dr. Erazio Sata wrote: "The Alfa is a way of living, a very special way of perceiving the motor vehicle. Its elements are sensations, passions, things that have much more to do with a man's heart than with his brain." Beatle asks: > Do they teach 'soul' in Engineering? I think not :-) Even if you wanted > to, where would you start? You're right, they don't. And that's a big part of the problem. Soul has been handed down from generation to generation of engineering talent in organizations that do that kind of work. I was lucky enough to work with fantastic engineers who knew that machines and systems embodied a soul, and they taught it to me. One of them wrote: "The simple solution has elegance. It is the result of exacting effort to understand the real problem, and is recognized by its compelling sense of rightness. I stress this point because it contradicts the conventional view that power increases with complexity. Simplicity provides confidence, reliability, compactness and speed." Grace. This is very much the philosophy I find in the designs of Alfa and Honda. Like the Tao, it is a Way, and is understood once followed. Accomplished, professional engineers understand it. Those of us who have designed weapons that men trust with their lives in battle *really* understand it. Accomplished engineers know that every machine has a soul. It is the soul of those who designed and built it. Rich Wagner Montrose, CO Mojave, CA Tehachapi, CA And points elsewhere... '82 GTV6 -- to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected] -- to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected]
