Lotus Article in "0-60" magazine

[mopho]

Originally Posted by Bavarian Motorist

You said they don't test the cars and offer performance numbers, so I wondered what they do talk about.

There is more to cars than just performance numbers

Murix pretty much described it.

Evo Magazine hardly ever tests cars either, 90% of the time they publish the manufacturers numbers.

[mopho]

Originally Posted by XPcarguy

0-60 is the worst and least useful performance stat in the industry. And it's the first one anybody talks about. Not happy to see this magazine's name.

Don't really want to get into this discussion in this thread, but I think it is a useful figure, far more than 0-100, or 1/4 mile times, both of which I almost never get to replicate in real life. It replicates being able to accelerate up to freeway speeds or pull away from a light, etc.
Personally, I could care less how well a car accelerates much past 60mph (or how fast it can go around the Nurburgring) because I don't drive on race tracks very often.

I don't know why they named it that, but "0-60" goes hand in hand with motoring enthusiasm, so it makes as much sense as any other magazine name.

[XPcarguy]

Originally Posted by mopho

There is more to cars than just performance numbers

Murix pretty much described it.

Evo Magazine hardly ever tests cars either, 90% of the time they publish the manufacturers numbers.

"Evo" has The Knowledge which is a table of laptimes much like TopGear does. This is way better than 0-60.

Judging a car with 0-60 is like judging a camera on megapixels. Megapixels don't matter at all on the normal print size and they say nothing about whether the image will be true to color, sharp, or if you'll have good control over whitebalance or depth of field.

0-60 is a test that nobody does in the real world. People do 15-60 way more often than 0-anything. And 50-80 is even more common. But a car that wins in 0-60 is often slower from 15-X or 50- and above. A car might have no traction but lots of torque. That car will likely beat the snot out of an Elise if the Elise driver isn't fully stopped and prepped with a 7k rpm launch.

What do driver's really want to know? We want to know if we'll be able to pass and merge easily. We also want to know we'll get a nice rush when we run through a gear. But we don't line up at stoplights at 7k rpm hoping the guy in the SUV beside us wants a race. BTW, an X5 with an auto tranny is faster to 40 mph than a Boxster S if the Boxster S does a roll rather than a launch. That information is lost on someone who just scans the mags for 0-60 times.

The cold hard truth is that while we all enjoy the feeling of acceleration, drag racing is unpleasant, uncivilized, and socially unacceptable on the street. If you're not drag racing, 0-60 is absolutely meaningless.

[Bavarian Motorist]

Originally Posted by XPcarguy

BTW, an X5 with an auto tranny is faster to 40 mph than a Boxster S if the Boxster S does a roll rather than a launch.

That's sadly true. Probably the same with an Elise as well.

[XPcarguy]

Originally Posted by Bavarian Motorist

That's sadly true. Probably the same with an Elise as well.

Even more so with the Elise. If you don't drop the clutch, the Elise is slow as hell to ~25mph. From about 25 and above, you can keep it in the sweet spot and it accelerates hard until ~100 when the power underwhelms the aero drag.

Seriously, this could be a fun exercise. Pick on a car that can't beat 7 sec to 60 but it has an auto. On a closed course (of course), roll evenly to 5mph and engage in a contest. Both cars should punch it at the same time. I bet the 7 sec car with an auto wins every time. Those of you with DLs can do a similar test solo and just look at how bad the 5-60 is.

[mopho]

Originally Posted by XPcarguy

Judging a car with 0-60 is like judging a camera on megapixels. Megapixels don't matter at all on the normal print size and they say nothing about whether the image will be true to color, sharp, or if you'll have good control over whitebalance or depth of field.

Judging a car by a laptime is not much better

Evo only has those lap time figures on a handful of the cars they feature. Most of the time they quote the manufacturers stats.
The times around their track is completely useless except for internet measurebating. I don't drive my cars on their track, nor could I even come close to replicating their times if I wanted to. And when I do get to drive on a track (which is only a few times a year and not in my car), I don't care how fast I go around, I am just having a good time.

Only a few very fortunate people in the "real" world actually get to track their cars. I only get track time because of my job, if it was not for that, I would likely never get to drive on a track.

The cold hard truth is that while we all enjoy the feeling of acceleration, drag racing is unpleasant, uncivilized, and socially unacceptable on the street. If you're not drag racing, 0-60 is absolutely meaningless.

Now I do get to accelerate 0-60 nearly every day (how fast I do it depends on mood). We have to stop at freeway on ramps here and while I may not get to accelerate all teh way to 60 from a stoplight the figure gives me a very good impression of how hard I will get pushed into the seat if I go for it, and that is why it is a useful figure.


Now enough with this hijack!!

[XPcarguy]

Originally Posted by mopho

Don't really want to get into this discussion in this thread, but I think it is a useful figure, far more than 0-100, or 1/4 mile times, both of which I almost never get to replicate in real life. It replicates being able to accelerate up to freeway speeds or pull away from a light, etc.
Personally, I could care less how well a car accelerates much past 60mph (or how fast it can go around the Nurburgring) because I don't drive on race tracks very often.

I don't know why they named it that, but "0-60" goes hand in hand with motoring enthusiasm, so it makes as much sense as any other magazine name.

The reason it is not useful is that we rarely launch our cars. Am I wrong? And if we don't launch our cars, the 1-25mph is horribly off from what it would be if we had launched properly. The first 25 mph represents 41% of the range tested so 41% of the test is invalidated. That's why it's worthless.

The reason why the 1/4 mile is a little more useful is that it gives the cars a lot of time to "settle down" after the launch and show the relevant speeds of 25- ~100. Instead of 41% of the test being invalidated, only 25% doesn't count. Also, people are more often accelerating to freeway speeds from 20 than they are from 0. You might be unique in this but, I think most people here will admit that they gently engage the clutch and roll off the line more often than dropping or burning the clutch. Personally, I know that that the torque is lousy below 6k rpm so I never floor the car much below 5k. But okay, I'll give you that 1/4 mile is not perfect either. IMO the best acceleration number for real world driving would be 30-70 (in the proper gear). Most mags even screw this up by only covering this range in top gear if at all.

[mopho]

Originally Posted by XPcarguy

The reason it is not useful is that we rarely launch our cars. Am I wrong? And if we don't launch our cars, the 1-25mph is horribly off from what it would be if we had launched properly. The first 25 mph represents 41% of the range tested so 41% of the test is invalidated. That's why it's worthless.

The reason why the 1/4 mile is a little more useful is that it gives the cars a lot of time to "settle down" after the launch and show the relevant speeds of 25- ~100. Instead of 41% of the test being invalidated, only 25% doesn't count. Also, people are more often accelerating to freeway speeds from 20 than they are from 0. You might be unique in this but, I think most people here will admit that they gently engage the clutch and roll off the line more often than dropping or burning the clutch. Personally, I know that that the torque is lousy below 6k rpm so I never floor the car much below 5k. But okay, I'll give you that 1/4 mile is not perfect either. IMO the best acceleration number for real world driving would be 30-70 (in the proper gear). Most mags even screw this up by only covering this range in top gear if at all.

I launch my car quite often to get across traffic, to get on the freeway ahead of the slow car next to me, etc.. I almost never keep my foot in it much above 60 so how the car pulls beyond that means even less. I'd bet far more people launch their cars hard in this country than ever get to do track days. This forum represents a very small sampling of car folks, most people don't live near tracks or can't afford to do track days. Most people care more about 0-60 than lap times.
Again, the 0-60 figure gives a good IMPRESSION of how hard the car will put you in the seat if you give it everything, whether you actually do 0-60 in your life is IRRELEVANT.

If you really want to keep going on this, please start a new thread, because I really don't care and I don't want to hijack this thread anymore than it is already

[BrendanDolan]

I picked up my copy a few days ago, and I was happy with the article. Nice little blurbs on all of the cars, how they all relate, and interesting bits of info on the owners.

All around, to a good read. Wish I was there to see them getting flogged in person.

[patsfan4ever09]

i will try 2 go and find it soon

[shay2nak]

that's a nice collection...i'll check it out. thanks.