Quote:
Originally Posted by sperry
I think you missed the part where AtomicLabMonkey designed race cars.
To him anything more than this:
Is just unnecessary weight. And he's got a point. Sure that Ferrari "with no mods, [has] what a maxed out tuner car can only hope to have as far as performance". But so what? If you're coming even close to that car's ability on the street, you're an idiot that doesn't deserve a car like that. If you're taking it to the track, you're still slower than real race cars.
So, like ALM says, supercars like the GT-R are in fact overkill and useless vehicles. They are the exact same thing as a Hummer on 24" wheels. They are simply show-off cars. No doubt they're nice... I'd love to own a Ferrari, but I can go just as fast at the race track in a purpose built racer, and drive around in a new Lexus that's nicer, all for 1/10th the cost of a Modena. The Ferrari, the GTR, even the Z06... they're all excessive. Not steaming piles... but definitely wastes of money, unless you've got truckloads of disposable income (or an idiot that wants to look like they do). |
You forget that a world exists outside of the US; countries where there are highways with no speedlimits, "public" roads where a Ferrari or a Porsche will spend more time at it's top speed than it ever will on a track. A world where the pavement isn't perfectly smooth like most track surfaces. Countries where you can pay 20 bucks and you can go out on a closed circuit for a quickie (Nordschleife). I don't know what tracks you frequent but I'd lay money that you only max out your "track" cars cornering performance and brakes and not it's speed performance, unless you visit Daytona often. So by your rationale, sports cars are only ment for the track and they are pointless for everyday driving; just bling for the sake of bling. So why don't you guys just drive karts? They're the epitome of a track only car and will leave any Sti miles behind on the track for a lot less money.
I for one buy certain cars for more reasons than just logic and practicality; I have to have an emotional attachment too or I'm just bored with it. I enjoy driving, if I did not, then I'd own a white box with four wheels and that would be that.
I enjoy fast cars on the street; and I think it's because of the time I spent overseas. I've had more fun driving sports cars through swiss mounatin passes (Grimselpass) and German highways and through some phenomenal Southern France gorges, than I've ever had at a track. But... for the most part (outside of England) the Europeans see driving in a whole different light than most Americans. In Italy some guy flying down a scarily skinny street in a Ferrari gets waves and cheers, here you would get the finger and a call into the Highway Patrol. We see it as careless and reckless, they see it as someone enjoying what it was built for. But then again, 95% of the drivers in this country can't even drive our obnoxiously slow highway speed limit safely. And we hand out drivers licenses like Pez. Ask a German how much they have to spend to get a drivers license.
Ever ask yourself why the Italians make so many performance oriented cars? Because that's their culture, they love racing, they love driving fast, and they do it on public roads and always have. Before they had tracks they would race on the public streets. So their cars are meant for that purpose not just the track. Why do the German cars handle so well at high speeds? Because they drive on the Autobahn where the avg. speed in the middle lane is 120mph (in the no limit areas). So those cars do get utilized to their potential; just not here because we're a bunch of tight-wads.