Slashdot Mirror
Is the Porsche Carrera GT Too Dangerous?
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "CNN reports that the 600 horsepower Porsche Carrera GT is notoriously difficult to handle, even for professional drivers. Known as the car actor Paul Walker was riding in when he died, there is no suggestion anyone was to blame for Walker's crash but Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson says drivers are on a 'knife edge' handling the car and described it as 'brutal and savage". 'It is a phenomena — mind blowingly good. Make a mistake — it bites your head off.' Todd Trimble, an exotic car mechanic in Las Vegas, says the Carrera GT is a 'very hard car to drive.' It's (a) pure racer's car. You really need to know what you're doing when you drive them. And a lot of people are learning the hard way.' The sports car has a top speed of 208 mph, a very high-revving V10 engine and more than 600 horsepower says Eddie Alterman, editor-and-chief of Car and Driver magazine. 'This was not a car for novices,' says Alterman. Having the engine in the middle of the car means it's more agile and turns more quickly than a car with the engine in the front or in the rear so it is able to change direction 'very quickly, very much like a race car,' adds Alterman. The Carrera GT is also unusual because it has no electronic stability control which means that it's unforgiving with mistakes. 'Stability control is really good at correcting slides, keeping the car from getting out of shape,' says race car driver Randy Pobst. Alterman concludes that learning to drive a car like a Carrera GT can be extremely tricky. 'Every car is sort of different. And this one, especially since it had such a hair-trigger throttle, because it changed directions so quickly, there is a lot to learn.'"
How safe is the car when you follow all driving laws like speed limits especially through turns?
"...there is no suggestion anyone was to blame for Walker's crash..." unless you follow that link which says that the police suspect that speed was involved. No question that anyone not in the car was to blame is a different sentence indeed. Looking at the pictures of the scene its hard to imagine that they were driving anywhere close to the 45mph speed limit.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
I would call this a case of driver error, not car. If you slap a bear, don't act all surprised if it mauls you.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Cars don't kill people. Stupid people driving cars kill people.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
You know, some of us remember driving cars that didn't have airbags, antilock brakes, traction control, rear view cameras, auto felch, auto transmission, etc. Neither then nor now were those cars "too dangerous".
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Every car behaves differently once it's over the edge.
Porches are notorious for "biting your head off" when you make a mistakes (of course not all of them). But the road is not the place to pull this stunts and if you want an "easy" handling car you should do your homework first.
Besides the Carrera GT is an iconic car and should be kept on a pedestal and not driven on the edge on the roads. Especially if you don't have the skills and the focus required to drive above the edge.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I think part of the point as described is that even in the hands of an excellent (professional) driver it is still a dangerous car to use. Also given its unforgiving behavior and steep learning curve, a good driver has an unusually difficult time gauging how well they are handling it and mistakes ballon. That is the problem with unstable equilibrium, one learns how to handle a vehicle by hitting edges of stability but still having enough margin to correct. It sounds like a recurring problem with this car is that band is thin enough that one goes from 'ok' to 'massive failure' with little room for learning. A highly skilled professional driver can feel the band sooner, but the implication is that even for them it is a bit too thin.
Can anybody give me a reason not to have stability control where that reasons does not contain “fun” or “because”? (which might be sufficient – just looking for any other reasons.)
'Cause, uh, it's a sports car designed for racing?
Mid-engined cars are designed solely to get around corners fast, and they're extremely unstable compared to your average Ford or Honda. The problem is that many are bought by people who have no clue, and end up in a ditch the first time they take their foot off the gas in a corner.
Fast and Furious actor gets killed in a car accident... Sort of like if Arnold Schwarzenegger got crushed by an industrial robot.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
It sounds like this guy was actually a professional race driver, or at least part of an amateur racing team. He shouldn't have been trying to push the envelope on a public road though. It's horrible and sad news, but obviously the driver was being an idiot on public roads, and the type of car he was driving shouldn't really be relevant.
which is totally what she said
...we have a fair number of accidents involving wealthy men in airplanes that exceed their training and skill level, which they bought on the assumption that "If I can buy it, I can fly it." This would seem to be similar.
...so someone doesn't accidentally buy a $335,000 600hp sports car without realizing IT MIGHT BE DANGEROUS.
In other news: the government has banned running with scissors.
-Styopa
And blaming the driver. A little background. While not professional drivers Walker and the driver were on a race team together and did plenty of circuit races. The guy driving has a GT3 so is more than familiar with the class of cars in question. Each had many more hours logged racing than any pilot would have flying before being able to get his flight license. It's easy to blame the driver, and it could rightly end up that way. However, the question of whether the car malfunctioned or should not be considered street legal should also be asked. Point being, if you believe these guys had no business driving this car then nobody shy of an F1 driver should be able to by them, hence they are too dangerous to sell to the general public.
The Porsche has a very counter intuitive trait which helps to make it dangerous in the hands of an untrained driver. They exhibit oversteer when you lift your foot off the throttle. This means that as you begin to slide taking your foot off the throttle is exactly the wrong strategy as it will make the slide worse leading almost immediately to loss of control. At the point where the tires begin to bite again you will either dart quickly in a random direction or roll the car.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
An internal system operation returned the error "The operation completed successfully.".
As someone that's driven 1,000+ HP cars, worked over a decade around high performance cars ... yes.
There are some cars that have a reputation of trying to kill you, but the Carrera GT is on the far side of that spectrum. Clutch engagement range compared to a light switch and no ground clearance makes this car difficult to drive on the street.
This isn't a 911, or anything remotely streetable. Many crazy high performance cars come with very advanced stability controls and AWD for a reason.
Because it is designed to be a simple car, and traction control is != simple.
And a car of this caliber, if driven in a fashion typical of how most sane people drive, would be operating so far below its limits that traction control would be unnecessary.
Furthermore, in its purest form, traction control only helps grip on acceleration, and the only actions it can perform is reducing engine output and/or selectively applying braking. It does not help grip when in a four-wheel drift. It does not help grip when braking. It does not help when ... [I could go on, but why?].
Kid-proof tablet..
I'm sorry, but not they don't!
I as an enthusiast car driver wish I could buy cars with less safety equipment. There is actually a demand for that sort of thing because they're faster, better handling and yes, more fun. The drawback is, you must know what you're doing. And if you say there's no need for something like that, remember, I like to take cars to track days at race tracks where it's perfectly legal to do all that. And it is nice to be able to drive there in a car, race it, and then drive it home.
Somebody buys a car like this, they should already know what it can do. It's not like they went out and bought a $20,000 family sedan. This car is famous for being hard to handle. The buyer must be aware at some level what they're purchasing. Christ, the thing costs what half a million dollars? You'd think buying a sports car like that you'd have the sense to learn how to use it as it might be able to get you into trouble. I can't afford cars like that, but I do ride motorcycles. I ride a 750cc Suzuki GSX-R, it's a damn fast bike. It will do 80 MPH in first gear and gets there in about 3.5 seconds. You screw up, and you're dead. Period. It's unforgiving with no safety equipment. Should that stop being sold because it's unsafe as well? Hell no, the purchaser should be responsible and know what the hell they're buying. It's not like it was labeled in such a way to make it appear safer than it actually was, it was put out as a hardcore race car, and it behaved exactly like you'd expect a hard core race car to do. Yes, there should be something done if it was being sold as something it wasn't, but if your upfront that something is dangerous, then what's the problem?
If you operate a vehicle in an unsafe way (including speeding) then it's your own damn fault. If you want Top Gear Jeremy Clarkson is a master of exaggeration. He called the 19'inch wheels on a mercedes AMG "the size of neptune".
did you forget to take your meds?
Don't forget, we're dealing with wholesale ignorance on the part of the media.
Having recalled stories from back when the Carrera GT was introduced there weren't many reports that the car was particularly dangerous. This is a track-oriented high end sports car. Most cars in that performance category are challenging to drive near the limits. I do have to admit a caveat; most in the automotive press gush over every new model that comes along, saving criticisms for when the car is well past it's prime. But the fact remains that there are a multitude of performance cars out there that are notorious for being difficult to drive.
Just because a car handles well doesn't mean it does the driving for you. Unfortunately, this is where the vast majority of people display massive ignorance, because they do believe that a car will save you from mistakes and incompetence. And they're convinced that the better it performs the better it will do the job.
The two guys in that Carrera GT were supposed to be more competent than most given that they have race cars. But given that they weren't career racers doesn't mean they were actually competitive, let alone any good at it. There are gentleman races all over the country where rich men bring high priced toys to the track and many show an embarrassing lack of skill.
But let's assume these guys were decent. That still doesn't change the fact that they were on an unpredictable public road, engaged in a dangerous activity. These guys crash all the time at tracks, even when they're good; they aren't pushing hard enough to win if they aren't risking a crash. So take that mentality to the open road and problems ensue. There's a reason why car insurance rates are higher for race car drivers.
All this doesn't consider the possibility that the Carrera GT might have been modified by Paul Walker's shop. I don't think that's particularly relevant, because the stock car was fast enough. But if it were the car would likely have been even more difficult to control.
Unfortunately, we've got all this ridiculous analysis when the reality is actually quite simple. A couple of guys went out for a joyride, wrecked and died. It's no different than when some kid does the same in a Honda Civic.
Lift off oversteer isn't exclusive to Porsche - pretty much any car that adheres to the laws of physics will do it. It stems from the weight transfer off the rear wheels when you lift off the throttle (due to less forward acceleration pushing the body of the car "back"), this decreases the normal force on the rear tires, causing the total grip to decrease in the rear (while the exact opposite is happening at the front end), and shifts the grip balance towards the front.
The only reason most "other" cars don't exhibit this behavior as strongly is that they aren't setup (from the factory) with such a neutral balance - they're setup to understeer so strongly that the balance window you play in goes from "more understeer" to "less understeer" - not "understeer" to "oversteer".
Not to mention that they make very nice rich boy toys, just like all of the other super cars.
I as an enthusiast car driver wish I could buy cars with less safety equipment. There is actually a demand for that sort of thing because they're faster, better handling and yes, more fun. The drawback is, you must know what you're doing.
The problem is that if you're driving an unsafe vehicle on public roads, you're not just putting your own life at risk, but that of other drivers (and pedestrians) as well. You might be willing to take the risk of not having Electronic Stability Control and anti-lock braking, but why should the other people on the roads have to put up with the unnecessarily increased risk that you'll crash into them?
Stability control and anti-lock brakes are two very different things.
I clock a lot of time on track in my basic mid-80's RWD sports car and I'll tell you what, I'll take electronic driver aides on the road. I bought a new car a few years ago with stability control and thought "why do all new cars have this?" All it took was one night when I was driving and the water on the road froze into black ice WHILE I was driving. I was in a warm driver seat and had left my house a few hours earlier in 50 degree weather. Stability control reacts much faster than a human can and do many things a human can't do (like braking individual wheels).
That being said, the Carrera GT was manufactured in 2004, when car electronics where simply not that good. I completely understand why it wasn't included. On new cars, it should really only be an option. But if it was an option, I would select it every time on a road car. You simply cannot predict what will happen when you're driving home on a cold night and maybe a little tired.
I have cars that are performance cars and they can handle this easily. I've driven them all my life, I know HOW to handle them too.
Well, just say you've never been in a situation where you couldn't handle them yet.
Call it survivor bias or Dunning–Kruger.
bickerdyke
That is incorrect. There was never a reason to ban an aid that allows a vehicle to go faster, it is racing after all, the point is to go faster.
The primary reason many of the driver aids were banned was to level the playing field between race teams. It literally all came down to money, where some teams (like Williams back in the day) had 10 to 20 times more money for R&D. Other teams just did not have the finances to develop all the advanced functions that some teams were coming out with. Traction control for example was banned, which is a shame as that would have saved Senna's life (traction control is different from stability control). At the time the cost of the system put it out of reach for many teams, so FIA decided to ban it.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Stability control and ABS are two totally different systems. Although some modern cars use the brake system to aid in stability control (also in place of proper differential, the cheap mans diff) where the vehicle will selectively apply braking to 1 or more wheels. They are not the same.
Stability control monitors wheel slip and in some cases lateral gravitational movement and adjusts power/braking/gearing to compensate for when the vehicle breaks loose. It is a pain in the ass, and can in many cases put you in danger in the event that you are in a situation where you may have to accelerate quickly to get out of a situation, say turning left and someone in oncoming traffic is not paying attention to the red light since you have a green left arrow and almost tbones you, if traction control kicked in, which I generally turn off, or atleast put into sport mode) I would have been in the intersection instead of 2 feet further and would probably have been killed.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
This is a known drawback of ABS -- longer stopping distances in snowy conditions. You actually stop faster if the wheels are allowed to lock up, because the tires effectively become plow blades and a wedge of snow accumulates in front of each, helping to slow you down. This doesn't happen if the tires never stop rotating. http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/motorvehiclesafety/tp-tp13082-abs2_e-215.htm
Since Slashdot is supposed to be a place for nerds... and nerds like to know the technical details more than just sensationalizing the latest headlines (or at least like to think so).... here's some technical information on why cars like the Porsche Carrera GT is so difficult to drive. I unfortunately don't have time to write out all the details here, but here are some basic principles of automotive suspension tuning to keep in mind:
As you can see... the more aggressive you tune a chassis (which the Carrera GT was designed to be very aggressive, as that's the market they were after), the less compliant the car will be, and the more apt it will bite you if you make a mistake. Is this unsafe, or just a fact of the physics involved that you can't drive an aggressive sports car and expect it to handle like your Camry?
The point of ABS is to give you control at the cost of stopping distance.
Looking at the pictures, it's pretty freakin' obvious the driver went "Lemme show you what the car can do - I got skillz yo, no worries!" and pegged it on a public street. Regardless of any risk to others, it's insanely moronic to drive like that off-track simply because there's zero margin. You fuck up, you die. No nice kerbs or runoff or gravel pits or SAFER walls to hit...just trees and lightposts. At 45mph, that car was perfectly safe, probably safer than anything else on the road that day because it's designed to go, and crash, much faster.
But it wasn't exactly going 45 now, was it? Even IF something in the car broke, and that was why there was a loss of control - there was a loss of control at MASSIVELY EXCESSIVE SPEED. The gearhead-hooligan in me is sad, but the Responsible Adult is pleased these idiots sanitized the gene pool.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Yeah, every *novice* race driver claims that they can stop faster without ABS.
This has been debunked even on 20 year old ABS systems. In Finland - with professional rally drivers. Yes - on perfect conditions when the driver has the power to start whenever he likes - the non-ABS braking distances were a little bit shorter. But when you introduce even 1 unknown variable (not knowing when to start braking, unknown traction below the wheels, distraction during braking) even the professionals failed to stop faster on non-ABS car.
Other drivers are putting my life at risk because they simply can't drive and are inattentive. No amount of gadgetry makes up for that.
I'd rather have a competent driver in a bare-bones sports car on the road with me than a clueless housewife in an Escalade with all the "safety" gadgets, putting on makeup and reading her texts while trying to keep the kids quiet.