crazy car

[SeanBlader]

Look what showed up in the parking lot at work this morning, driven in by my new low level manager:



Going to go for a ride sometime around lunch.

Poor guy has never had it on the track. I'm hoping he'll just go out, exercise some self control and remember the objective of a track day, "drive home". Although someone who springs 140k for a car, might not be the self control type. Although now that I look at it, they're selling now in the 200k and up range, that's pretty amazing. I still figure he'd probably make himself sick before he overdrove the car.

It's pretty crazy, but it's a dedicated racecar pretty much, well other than the big subwoofer that's mounted to the firewall between the seats. Also you can't be over 5'9" to race the car since you can't get a helmet in there, the roof is just a little too low.

[BlaineWasHere]

Can I have a job at your work? Thankfully I make enough that the FR-S is basically a disposable car for me, but I'd love to make the kinda money were a Ford GT is a disposable car!

[SeanBlader]

Of course I just watched the Top Gear episode, and with a 17 gallon tank, and 4mpg, it's got a 75 mile range. Although if you baby it, you can get 12 mpg, which is still unfortunate at 204 miles, and still gets you less range than a Tesla Model S.

And they mentioned the parking issue, I imagine he'll need to push the car out of the parking spot in order to get into it since the door has a roof, we'll see.

[Diode Dynamics]

$140k?

Yeah that's what they sold for new, lol they've been selling around $200K IIRC

If he's a "low-level" manager, I must be in the wrong business! Silicon Valley never ceases to amaze me

Nick C.

[SeanBlader]

It gets crazier.

We go to drive out for lunch, and as we're walking up to the car, he points the key's at me! I had to double check if he was sure he was cool with that, I've never driven anything with more than like 200 hp. He's like "Sure as long as you can drive manual."

So today I drove a Ford GT. I didn't get on it or anything, didn't want to do anything stupid. The clutch is stiff and the engine is really quiet especially for an 18 year old car. The weird part though was the stickiness of the shifter, it really didn't want to move laterally, and the centering springs felt like they were missing or too weak to overcome the transmission fluid viscosity. But it's seriously imminently drivable as a normal car, I didn't go mashing the gas, nor did I even stall it which I normally do on new to me manual transmissions, which I'm sure had more to do with the low end grunt the thing has than anything else.

He drove on the way back and got on it a little for the onramp of the one exit ride we had on the freeway, and it took off, but it wasn't like shocking ridiculous fast. It was more like, "yeah that's pretty good". Maybe that's my own bias, I've never been a drag racer, you can do more g's in cornering than you can anywhere else on normal roads. I think some of that came out in our brief foray into acceleration when there was a bit of steering wobble because he doesn't have any historical training on performance driving and he's holding the steering wheel at 12 and 3 like a commuter.

Overall though nice machine, for a race car. It however is completely unsuitable for just about anything else. Which seems weird coming from a guy who's had a Mk1 MR2 forever, but there you go.

[Flat Black VW]

Originally Posted by SeanBlader

It gets crazier.

We go to drive out for lunch, and as we're walking up to the car, he points the key's at me! I had to double check if he was sure he was cool with that, I've never driven anything with more than like 200 hp. He's like "Sure as long as you can drive manual."

So today I drove a Ford GT. I didn't get on it or anything, didn't want to do anything stupid. The clutch is stiff and the engine is really quiet especially for an 18 year old car. The weird part though was the stickiness of the shifter, it really didn't want to move laterally, and the centering springs felt like they were missing or too weak to overcome the transmission fluid viscosity. But it's seriously imminently drivable as a normal car, I didn't go mashing the gas, nor did I even stall it which I normally do on new to me manual transmissions, which I'm sure had more to do with the low end grunt the thing has than anything else.

He drove on the way back and got on it a little for the onramp of the one exit ride we had on the freeway, and it took off, but it wasn't like shocking ridiculous fast. It was more like, "yeah that's pretty good". Maybe that's my own bias, I've never been a drag racer, you can do more g's in cornering than you can anywhere else on normal roads. I think some of that came out in our brief foray into acceleration when there was a bit of steering wobble because he doesn't have any historical training on performance driving and he's holding the steering wheel at 12 and 3 like a commuter.

Overall though nice machine, for a race car. It however is completely unsuitable for just about anything else. Which seems weird coming from a guy who's had a Mk1 MR2 forever, but there you go.

I'm assuming you meant an 8 year old car?

[SeanBlader]

Originally Posted by Flat Black VW

I'm assuming you meant an 8 year old car?

Heh, yeah. Let's go with that.... Although in that case it wasn't quite as impressive, my mom's Celica is in better condition and it's an '01.

[cactus]

Low level manager? I need to get into management...