Lightning Lap 2016

[kevm14]

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/li ... ir-feature

This is one of the best ones that I can remember.

Some highlights:
- The Viper ACR is still a serious performer (but the Z06 last year came within 0.2s in a lower price class, but packaged as a real car, not a racecar that is street legal)
- The Corvette Grand Sport is....extremely, unbelievably impressive. It is 0.3s faster than a McLaren 570S and 0.1s slower than a 911 GT3 RS. A car in which a radio and A/C is optional.
- The NSX posted a time much faster than I expected but I did not read the description yet. This car is not interesting to me at all.
- The Mustang GT350R is fast though nothing in this test really is interesting to compare to. It was significantly slower than the Corvette Grand Sport, and it is cheaper, so that's fine. Except is it really $16k cheaper when you actually try to buy one?
- The real comparison I wanted to see was Mustang GT350 to Camaro SS 1LE. I think the GT350 is the real car and the 350R is more of a marketing weapon that hardly anyone is actually going to get their hands on. We will see if that changes. Anyway, I am pretty sure the SS 1LE would have beaten the GT350, which is what I have been claiming across the internet despite being shouted down by Mustang fanboys.
- Camaro V6 1LE was pretty amazing. They even liked the engine. It was only 0.1s slower than the Focus RS. It was only 0.5s slower than a goddamn Charger Hellcat! That's gotta sting.
- Camaro SS 1LE was 0.8 seconds behind a Cayman GT4. That is not nothing but it is also an order of magnitude closer than you'd expect. Remember, the Cayman GT4 is $53k MORE EXPENSIVE than the Camaro SS 1LE. Perhaps even more significantly, the Camaro was 1.3 seconds FASTER than an Audi R8 V10 Plus. You don't even want to know how much the R8 V10 Plus is. Embarrassing is all I will say.
- BMW M2 was still 0.7 seconds slower than a 2013 Camaro SS 1LE.
- The Lexus GS F is a disappointment imo.
- The Miata Cup Car was out of its element on a fast track like this. But some folks would still probably bench race it as faster than a lot of stuff here. Nope.
- The Tesla was pretty bad. It does not belong on a track. It is for impressing your friends with 0-60 runs. It cannot (yet) compete with the big dogs (slowest lap time in this year's lineup). It went into limp mode, not because the battery pack ran out but because of high motor and electronic temps.

[Bob]

Worst comment of the day, but not unexpected from a Hellcat owner.

I couldn't possibly care less how they do on a track.
When you're up against my Hellcat in TRAFFIC, what you gonna do?

[kevm14]

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/li ... ir-feature

- The Corvette Grand Sport is....extremely, unbelievably impressive. It is 0.3s faster than a McLaren 570S and 0.1s slower than a 911 GT3 RS. A car in which a radio and A/C is optional.

The best part of this review was watching the video to the end (no spoilers here!). That's what having 3 pedals in the footwell is all about. Tony made the car do that, and that feeling is worth a couple seconds of bench racing braggadocio.

The GS is the new GT-R. Unmatched performance per dollar, actually fun to drive when not trying to get the fastest lap time, daily drive-able, and best of all, the ability to row your own gears.

The YouTube video runs of each car are fun to watch. But I was startled at the ending of the Grand Sport video.

[kevm14]

Car and Driver channel: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCOqhTsqySBCBTy571GArcXg

[kevm14]

- The Viper ACR is still a serious performer (but the Z06 last year came within 0.2s in a lower price class, but packaged as a real car, not a racecar that is street legal).

Some interesting discussion:

Agent X wrote on 09/13/2016 at 03:44 PM
"My October hasn't come either. But woohoo! The Viper did it!!! YES"

Indeed it did, and that's highly respectable.
It's awful on the street, though.

Hasn't that always kind of been part of driving a Viper? A beast on the track and a nightmare on the streets?

It's the most thinly disguised racecar ever sold. Even more so than the GT3 RS.
Probably the only car here that you really could not drive every day.

I drove a 2010 Viper, it was awesome for about 20 minutes, but by the 4th or 5th stoplight standing on the clutch, witch was stiffer than my Dad's old Mack 10-Speed and the constant tooth rattling virbations, and haveing to have a very very soft touch on the let up so as not to do a burn out or step sideways I was tired of it. Might as well just get the ACR with no AC or Radio since the AC does little to negate all the heat coming through the fire wall and the Radio has to be blasting to hear it even at idle. If I could own a track only car I would very much consider it, but otherwise no, weekend driver it is not.

[bill25]

- Camaro V6 1LE was pretty amazing. They even liked the engine. It was only 0.1s slower than the Focus RS. It was only 0.5s slower than a goddamn Charger Hellcat! That's gotta sting.

So Ford should be marketing the RS as "Only .4 seconds slower around a track than a Hellcat!!! For half the price!!!"

[kevm14]

Some Corvette respect from a Canadian on a BMW forum:

Corvettes have been over-achievers for their price point for quite a long time. A college buddy of mine had a C4 ZR-1 in the early nineties, what a beast that was for the time.

Two of my very good track buddies run practically stock C5 Z06 (except for tires, pads and some improved cooling) and lap in the same time bracket as I do with my 2015 M4, which makes for fun sessions together. Quite impressive for 15 year old cars . Naturally the C6 Z06 is a step above and the entire C7 line-up is even more so. I am not surprised to see the C7 GS up there at all

[Adam]

What a farce they left out the fastest car there is--the Tesla P100D.

Gross discrimination by Car and Driver of BEV's that's for sure.

Not worth my time reading your columns anymore when you discriminate.

Well it would have overheated just like the P85D and probably put up around the same time.

LOL