DrunkFace wrote:
Of course, imagine owning a car that requires this:
A privately owned WRC car will be charged more than 350000 US$ to the buyer, the running costs for one season are twice that amount...engines are replaced after 1000Km of special stages, gearboxes and differentials are dismounted and verified after every race and most parts are replaced regularly but at least once every season.
The cars are built to go as fast as possible and no compromises are made. A car you buy can not in any way be compared because they have to be full of compromises to make it suitable and cheap enough for the public.
Just because Citroen won the WRC does not make there road cars good (or even fast). That being said, French cars are not 'bad', they have wonderful suspension, usually handle well, have comfortable interiors and have fairly good gearboxes. In the past their engines have lacked any kind of guts but this is being remedied in their modern cars. Apart from some average build quality and ugly as shit design (not all the time) there is nothing major wrong with French cars.
(I'd buy a German car though)
Actually a lot of compromises are made...its called a rulebook lol.Compromises for budget, for safety, for the entertainment of the sport, for driver comfort and for communication between driver/co-driver, for the longevity and durability of the car....
True they are quite different then the race version but R&D is R&D. The manufacturer has to start with that car to get to where they want to go, and while many (MANY) parts are replaced along the way some basic of chassis layout and distribution of weight, as well as general knowledge of what it takes to make a car work well go into its design at some level. The price of the stock car, and its target audience may shape that quite a bit, but if something isn't going to cost more, and wont annoy the people who will be driving it casually it will likely make it in to make production of the race car cheaper/easier.
I admit I don't have citrions around to drive, so I can't insist much on that one...But you can see in many cases similar results in comparing amature racing of near stock production cars VS there full race brothers. The production focus may be completely different but its still a popular car for amature racing...Subaru, well do we even need to talk about how rally has influenced the way they build cars? (not just the STI).
Last edited by VicktorVauhn (2008-02-10 14:09:00)
