Bob Rouleau

Nick - it was widely reported that Walter Rohl drove the CGT prototype and told onlookers that the car needed additional stability. He did not crash it. Porsche tweaked the aerodynamics of the car to provide more stability at high speed. Walter is a factory test driver and a rally champ but I don't think he designed the car.
The CGT was to have been a race car, but a rules change eliminated that. Perhaps the power increase to over 600 was prompted by the Ferrari ENZO?

One other thing to note, mid engined cars can be quite a handful at the limit. With a low polar moment of inertia (mass in the middle) once you start to spin, it is very difficult to recover. This is not defect, since mid engine cars resist spinning better than front or rear engined cars. Ferrari's have the problem too, ask any Challenge 360 racer.

While the 996 and 997 Turbos come with PSM, the GT class cars are targeted to more experienced drivers who prefer not to have electronics driving the car. The Turbo is indeed a wickedly fast car but has less of a track vocation than any of the GT models. By the way, I bet we could find plenty of TT wrecks too, in spite of PSM.

Jeeva - excellent wit. The funny part is that in this environment of silly litigation you are probably right.

Best,

Nick

Rohl, had input in the design of the car. I am pretty sure he crash a couple but not sure if they were prototypes and if so, whether they were close to the final product.

I am a big fan of the mid-engine car even with its warts.

Your reference to the GT cars may be correct but I am of the opinion, if your going to sell them to the general public, they should be equipped with safety devices. Don't forget these cars put most of their miles on public streets and highways and many of us use the same roads. If your position is personal responsibility should be the criteria in decided whether to provide cars with the latest technology in safety what about those of us who drive the same roads? Do we matter?

Bob Rouleau

Nick - I think the general public has the right to choose. If a buyer feels that PSM is a must have, then buy a car that has it. Many of us chose the GT because it does not have PSM or any other device which interferes with our operation of the car.

As to people sharing the roads, that is a huge can of worms. If we were to seriously consider that, the first thing I would do is ban SUVs. They are more likely to lose control and in an accident, they are more likely to kill occupants of a smaller car. Fact is many people buy as SUV because they feel safer in one, knowiing that if they collide with a regular car (never mind a Porsche) the other car will suffer greater damage.
This sounds like a great class action opportunity for the ambulance chasers. Jeeva, what do you think?

Sanjeevan

Bob, I am not a lawyer,..I hear to be one, I have to put a sentence together properly

Nick

Shame on you and bit your tongue. That is all we need is for the soccer mon's to join in this debate.

This much I know. Electronic Stability Control systems will be mandatory in the not too distance future at least in the US. The evidence is compelling that it saves lives.

What I am puzzled about is this forum participants are generally savvy car people and yet I find myself defending safety technology which would make the roads and track experience safer.

gabbagabbahey

Audi retrofited its TT with ESP and a rear wing and a suspension retuned to understeer more, circa 2000, after its debut that saw a few high speed Autobahn crashes from lift off oversteer.

Bob Rouleau

Nick, condoms make sex safer. PSM is like that.

Icon - I am insulted that you call me a lawyer. I'm an engineer who made the mistake of going to law school. There is a difference.

Rgds,

gabbagabbahey

So why not have a law restricting engine HP to 200 for any car used on the street? Or require speed governors set at say 100 mph? Surely this would be a safety feature.

Bob Rouleau

gabb (tell me about your user name please!) Horsepower limits and governors .. Nick, I told you that you were opening a can of worms!

Now, we'll have the tree huggers claiming that we can not only be safer, but we'll save gas too. Stupendous idea (arrgh!).

gabbagabbahey

Hi Bob.. Ted from Akron, Ohio.. former tire capital of the world &big fan of the Ramones .... anyhow.. ... aren't tire pressure monitors going to be mandated soon too as a result of folks not keeping the Firestone tires on their Ford Explorers properly inflated and then rolling them? A friend has a Lexus IS350 with tire pressure monitoring and it set him back I think $100 a wheel !!!! to have the sensors put into his snow tires or look at a CEL.

Expense aside, part of the problems with these mandates.. lots of good tech whilst they work, but who is going to fix these components when they get older? Sure if you can afford to lease and turn in a car every 3 years, not your problem, but for the average Joe that holds onto his car for 10 years it is.

I am all for ESP or PSM but I loath being forced to buy something because a bureaucrat or lawyer thinks its in my best interest or theirs.

pcar964

Many of us feel the same way - but what are we actually doing about it? Writing your congressman doesn't seem to be cutting the mustard anymore.

Bob Rouleau

Hey, we're writing Nick, isn't that a start? Once we get his thinking corrected, we run him for President and life will be good. OTOH, we could run Jeeva, he has all the right moves and we won't have to re-educate him.

I am very wary of mandated safety features. Joan Claybrook shoved airbags (literally) down our throats only to discover that auto induistry engineers were right all along; they killed small people.

The right solution was to mandate the use of seatbelts, something that politicians in the US were afraid to do. Whether PSM would or would not have prevented a car from having a fatal accident is a matter for scientists, not politicians and lawyers.

I remind us all (again) about ABS, logic and common sense said it was a vital safety feature, yet it proved to be ineffective. The survey results were astonishing. Drivers of ABS cars felt they were invulnerable and tended to brake too late.

I worry that PSM might have a similar effect, people will learn to drive even more agressively and when they finally exceed the ability of a diagonal braking system, they'll have a bigger crash than before.

pcar964

Don't get me started on airbags!

Your take on the issue is correct and logical - but you will be impuned by people for whom emotion and intentions trump logic.

Bob Rouleau

pcar - thanks for the support. The good news is that I am used to being impugned .. it's one of the joys of being a mod!

gabbagabbahey

I agree. In the transition period to airbags in the late 80's-90's, some auto makers resorted to "Automated" belts which led to folks just using the shoulder part and not buckling the lap belt. You can guess how that turned out for them when they stopped suddenly.