My sentiments exactly with above post(JIM). Your best judge is yourself and though mags are great as a starting point but you can't literally base your decision on that. Test drive the cars and see what makes your blood boil. Regards. Mike

 

Be wary of magazine tests! Every make of car has up to 10% or so hp differences. The manufacturer will always submit one of their very best cars for testing (so if it was a +5-10 percenter and your car is a -5-10 percenter that is quite a difference...) And then. as mentioned above, the driver... And then for the acceleration tests, some guys are very brutal and almost ruin the car... etc.

 

"Just one thing that still confuses me- how is it possible for the skyline to be so fast? It clocked an even faster time than a 993 turbo.....how could a 206Kw car like that beat a 300Kw 911 turbo? I know skylines are fast, but how is that possible?"

It's nothing to do with the driver, circuit or whatever. The Skyline that set that time was a highly modified example (of the GT-R33), not a stock production version. It had about 50bhp more than standard, was stripped out, fitted with race suspension etc. That is why it was faster. A normal R33 would have been much slower (maybe 8'25-30s?).

Don't believe everything you read!

 

"Don't believe everything you read! "



Yeah, just like the stripped RaceLogic/Blitz Supra that did 7:49 or somethin' at 2-bar boost. Certainly not your normal production car; at least it did it on street tires. They also recorded an unofficial 7:39 at 3-bar boost. Again, not your normal production car as this thing did 0-200km/hr in 10.5 seconds!

 

I just enjoy my car! 'nuff said!

 

jamberl:

For more magazine info take a look at the May 2002 issue of Automobile Reader's Choice All-Stars.

Best GT - Porsche 911 Carerra

Best Sports Car over $40,000 - Porsche 911 Turbo

Readers were polled to pick their All-Star vehicles in several different categories. The masses have spoken...

Faster isn't always better nor more desirable.

 

Another consideration is durability and reliability. The 911 has always been a car that you could be driven from the showroom floor to the track and be competitive and reliable all day long. Not all other “performance” cars can do that. Take for example the new M3. Read the BMW boards and you will hear stories of warped rotors and fading brakes after a few laps. This does not happen with 911's. When you go to the track the Porsche guys sit back and watch when their run group is not out while many drivers of other cars are bleeding brakes playing with turbos, etc just so they can go out again.

Unfortunately living in the US, I have never had the pleasure of driving a Nissan Skyline (wish I had) but I bet that the original factory brakes would not hold up like the brakes of 911 after a tough track day. I think the head engineer for the Honda Formula One engine said it best recently when talking about the lack of horse power in the Honda F1 engine...he said something to the effect... “The engine can make a lot more HP but we just can’t make it last, so we reduce the HP for durability reasons (which by the way still doesn’t help )” A Porsche has always been about being driven on the road reliably and enjoyed on the track without modifications.

 

Rock on Brian!

My thoughts exactly. Drive to the track with the cruise control on, A/C blasting and the CD player thumpin, thrash it on the track all day, then set the cruise for the trip home. Oh, and the lap times keep getting better and better.....

 

Brian's comments are spot on. Can't empahsize how fun Porsche's are on the track and driving back home with a grin on my face : ). Regards. Mike

 

[quote]Originally posted by StephenB:
<strong>jamberl:The masses have spoken...</strong><hr></blockquote>The masses are usually a collective bunch of idiots bound to mediocrity by the law of averages. However, this example appears to be exceptional.

1000 mi to go for break-in and then I start to look for PCA events. Even at a 4200 rpm self-imposed limit the car amazes me.