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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."
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.
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
...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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?