oldrascal

Well, almost. Here is what happened.

I had seen the Vanquish maybe twice on our local freeway. It looked stunning in pewter/red and the sound was just soooooo mean. Pretty impressive and with 460 bhp.....well, that is heavy. As is the car, by the way, at 4004 lbs. So I started thinking and wondering. Could I?

Now, a quick couple of minutes on my calculator showed me that we run about 10.5 lbs per bhp whilst the Aston carries 11 lbs per bhp. Hmmmmm. Time to go a hunting.

Of course, I didn't see the guy for weeks and had pretty much forgotten about my musings when, coming home from work late one evening, I joined a row of cars filtering onto the freeway. And who do I spot 2 cars ahead of me........yup.

He sees me in his mirror, and I don't know if he read my mind, but the moment he hit the open road he mashed the pedal to the metal and took off. By the time I cleared the car in my way and joined the chase I was 250 yards behind him and he was flying.

We hit 120 mph (the road was clear and clean) but he could not alter that 250 yards difference. The best feeling..... for me at least, although I don't know how he must have felt as the Aston runs at £160,000 here in England and I don't think he knew what was behind him at night. Just some old black Mercedes.

Anyhow, I felt that I had upheld the honour of the marque and just wonder what would have happened had I started level with him. Like I said, hmmm.

JustinTRW

Your calculation for the Aston is a bit off. By your figures, the Aston weighs over 5000 lbs. In a fair race, the C32 cannot keep up. I have not driven the Vanquish, but the DB7 GT little brother in manual box form. At freeway speed, the weight starts to not matter as much and hp takes over. 70-120mph certainly feels faster.

What about your Ferrari?

oldrascal

Pesky calculator..................you are, of course right.

But I saw what I saw.................and old V couldn't shake me off, up to pretty high speeds. That said, prudence kicked in with me at 120 and I slowed down whilst he disappeared. So I am happy to acknowledge the higher speed advantage.

But Autocar magazine in England gives the C32 a 10.8 second time for 0-100 and a similar time for the Vanquish. I still say I could 'whup' him from a standing start to 100mph. Actually, Astons are having so much trouble with the paddle shift and fading clutch that you could probably 'whup' his a$* in an Accura.

As to the 360M.......that is in a whole different performance league and would walk it. The same venerable magazine gives 0-100mph in 8.8 seconds. That's a big, big difference....and it feels it. I used to own a '97 ViperGTS and the Ferrari is even quicker in a straight line. We won't mention the twisties.

JustinTRW

You make a good point about the paddle shift system. It is made by the same company that does Ferrari and Lambo's. They have switched to a conventional 6-speed auto for the DB9. A manual is of course still available. In the Vanquish, if you try to do a hard launch, the box sometimes gets confused, is what I'm told.

Accomplice8

Hmmm. Does the GTS Viper get de-tuned for the UK?

The best 1/4 Mile mag tests I've seen has the Viper GTS whupping up on the Modena from any speed:
Viper GTS 12.0@119.8 MPH
Ferrari 360M 12.2@113.5

The times seem similar, probably because the Ferrari has a launch advantage because the Viper's torque makes getting traction tough. Those trap speeds are WAY different though. Its an indicator of how hard a Viper GTS would pull a Modena from a roll. Picture the Viper driving away from a fixed object at 6.3 MPH.

Kevin

CarlssonCRS

maybe the vanguish driver was just a p*ssy and didnt dare to punch it.

oldrascal

The Viper GTS as delivered in the UK is detuned to 370BHP but it is very easy to regain the lost power, which is exactly what I did. There is a massive restrictor put into the airbox (noise drive-by regs in the EU) which accounts for 50BHP and a couple of other tweaks get things back to normal.

As to quarter-mile times, well we don't pay that much attention over this side of the pond. The normal measures are 0-100mph or 0-200kph. Also, the Viper is very, very long geared in the intermediates (well, 8 litres don't need sissy gearing, after all).

All I can say is that I couldn't take a 996TT in the Viper, but I sure can in the 360. Go figure. I wonder if our super high octane fuel availability has anything to do with the discrepancies.

None of them, though, haul off the line up to 40-50mph like the C32 which feels like the dogs of war are after it.

steve s

Accomplice8

Hmm. That's odd also as the 996TT is also a good bit faster than the 360. Maybe your 360 is some type of factory ringer that came out a few hp over most?

Kevin

oldrascal

Funny you should mention that, Kevin. It seems that Autocar's times are significantly faster than other mags as well. So I spoke to a Ferrari techie about this and here is what he told me.

It appears that there is a variance at manufacture of up to 25bhp and the factory has seen up to 415 bhp on the dyno. Also, the way the car is driven and the mileage will also affect performance.

In other words, a hard-driven 360M with 20,000 miles will be a lot quicker than a low mileage car which is ***** footed around for cruising and show. Mine lives in deep countryside and is always worked hard for its living. And really, truly eats 996TTs.

oldrascal

Vive la difference!

How wonderful is the yawning chasm between the British and American variation of the English language.

In my previous post, I refered to...........and here I will have to be careful or the forum auto-censor will insert ***stars again.............."(kitten-footing) around".

Now, the vernacular of kitten is not considered offensive in England in the context in which it was employed. I didn't consider the extended use of the 'kitten' word as practised in the USA would cause alarm bells toring and the dead hand of censorship to fall.

Like they say in the North of England, "there's nought so strange as folk".

torenzicht

Nice cars oldrascal...

Finnish C32

Find out someone with W211 E55 and try if your 360 is faster that would be nice video also!

btw. my nickname is c32 instead of e55 again?

Thanks,
Ville