I just got through giving my 2005 VW Jetta TDI Wagon a thorough washing
and deep waxing (e.g. complete detailing). My VW Jetta TDI Wagon is an
amazing machine. I love that car.
Someday, in the not to distance future, cars will be able to drive
themselfs, or the person in control of the car could opt to drive it
manually with a stick shift, or put it in automatic shift. The latter
statement is already here.
Now, if you have a need for speed, this would be the way to go:
__________________________
*Bijoy Kumar Y in Mumbai*
*The magnificent Porsche 911 Turbo
*
Take a pencil, put it flat on your desk, hold it by the sharp end and
pull forward. It moved in a straight line, right? Now place the pencil
back and try pushing it with a finger from the eraser end. It went
sideways? Please get back to the newspaper and read on.
You know what makes the Tower of Pisa so famous, right? Yup, it is
flawed. Ditto Cleopatra's famous nose. And the engine laid well behind
the rear axle of a Porsche 911 Turbo.
You see, it was all right for a certain Ferdinand Porsche to start his
sports car project with inspiration coming from the Volkswagen Beetle.
Like the Beetle, the sports cars Porsche built had air-cooled boxer
engines (albeit slightly more powerful) stacked away where your luggage
should have been.
Resulting in cars that needed real men to drive them -- they were
oh-so-dynamically flawed that it needed real talent to go fast around
corners without having to pause and figure out whether the Pearly Gates
have a calling bell.
But people bought Porsches after paying huge amounts of money for the
same reason. When Porsche tried getting around the flaw by launching
more balanced cars with engines up-front, they found few takers. And
that resulted in a car company that kept trying hard to make their core
sports cars handle.
As years went by, Porsches -- especially the 911 -- got way too powerful
and what you see on this page is the most outrageous of them all -- the
911 (997) Turbo with a derriere-mounted engine developing a colossal
480 bhp and 68 kgm of torque. The result? Read on.
Do you know what it feels like looking straight into the corner that you
are about to take? You do? Well, how about doing that through your
window instead of the windscreen? With a 911 Turbo this is not the
exception, but the rule. Especially on a race track like the one in
Dubai where I got to sample the new Porsche 911 Turbo.
To hardcore enthusiasts, the 911 Turbo means divine performance, a car
that could be driven to office, to the race track and around the world
if you insist, flat-out. And thanks to the aforementioned numbers, it is
on top of the supercar food-chain.
It will wag its tail and swim with the best plastic bits put together by
Ferrari, Lamborghini and Aston Martin and it will keep on running when
these temperamental beasts get parked owing to overheated engines and
cooked clutches.
When it goes, it really goes. After pulling to an almost zero and
tapping the sports chrono package button, I floored the bright yellow
test car which came equipped with the Tiptronic S autobox.
Now Porsche would tell you that their new baby can manage a 100 kph run
in 3.9 seconds and 200 kph under 12 seconds. If I may politely add
something, I would say that such sheer acceleration widens the human eye
to the extent you never thought was possible.
Porsche have been fine-tuning turbocharged 911s from 1974 onwards and
have equipped their latest with two turbochargers with variable turbine
geometry which negates the lag characteristic to exhaust-driven turbos.
When I did find time to check the speedo (in other words, when I was not
busy ensuring that the Rs 1.2 crore (Rs billion) kit pointed in the
right direction), I found it on the bright side of 180 kph! The truth.
Ah, the brakes. Forget all that you have read till now because it is
easier to drive a very fast car fast than drive an underpowered car
fast. Because the very fast car, like the 911 Turbo, also comes equipped
with extremely good brakes.
While the normal discs can give the largest from Dominos a complex, the
Porsche ceramic composite brakes available as an option can make you
feel like a true racer -- touch 220 kph, point the nose to the apex and
slam the pedal for best results.
These brakes are so good that you start pushing the car even more once
you get used to the stopping power under your command.
One day spent driving the wheels off 911 Turbos around the race track
meant understanding how Porsche engineers have cleverly coupled
four-wheel drive and information technology to make sure that the 911
Turbo stays the right side up always.
The new car gets Porsche-patented traction management system that
communicates with the stability programme and shares all this
information with its braking functions.
With all this technology working with me, let me say it was difficult to
bring the hooligan out of the 911. That means when driven fast over
autobahns or even on Indian Expressways, the 911 Turbo will remain a
stupendously fast yet safe supercar.
But on a race track you can cross the dreaded limit and experience what
has made the 911 a legend. After years of salivating over glossy
magazine shots of tail-out 911s with scared looking drivers trying to
control their cars with opposite-locks, it was my turn to experience the
'wag' in real life.
And when I managed it on a wide right hander (of course, by carrying a
wider than ideal line and mashing the throttle all the way), the mighty
Turbo obliged with what began as a mermaid wag.
And just as I thought I corrected it, the back of the car cut loose the
other way and then the other way... Picture a turbocharged, bright
yellow pendulum with me driving it and you'll be spot on.
Still I pressed on (since I was certain that a new book of dynamics can
be written on what happens with a mid-corner lift-off in a Porsche 911
Turbo) and soon the car settled back on the intended line and gunned for
the next corner.
So go ahead, pick up your diary and write down one more thing you have
to do before you pop: Go sideways in a Porsche 911 Turbo.
Seriously, it is far better than pushing a pencil on a desk.
http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/jul/01motoring.htm
or
http://tinyurl.com/pjuvx
#--------------------------------------------
Regards,
LelandJ
Hal Kaplan wrote:
Interesting ...
Reminds me of something General Motors did about 55 years ago. The
technology is much improved now but how will they reconcile this feature
with the marketing hype about the thrill of driving?
OTOH ... If VW could do this, do you think, maybe, Boeing could figure
out a way to fly a 757 with no pilot?
HALinNY
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Leland Jackson
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 23:44
To: [email protected]
Subject: [OT] VW car drives itself at 150 mph
Here is a glimpse of the future:
#-------------------------------------
*Tuesday July 4, 2006 6:09 PM EST* - By: T.O. Whenham
Source: The Register
Volkswagen wants you to buy a Golf GTi, and eventually they don't want
you to have to worry about the little details - like driving it.
You won't have to worry about that, because the car drives itself. It
uses electronic eyes which feature both radar and laser sensors in the
grille of the car to read the road and relay what it sees to the onboard
computer. A satellite navigation system tracks the car and tracks its
location to within an inch.
This thing isn't a toy, either. It can handle speeds of up to 150 mph
while under its own control, and drove with more precision than the VW
engineers could. It's not like a glorified cruise control system, either
- it can steer, brake and accelerate when needed. It should,
theoretically at least, be able to handle traffic, too. I think it will
be a while before you can head down to your dealership and pick this as
an option, though.
http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/354/C8566/
or
http://tinyurl.com/hrzay
#--------------------------------------
Regards,
LelandJ
[excessive quoting removed by server]
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