QUOTE
Driving Impression:
20 Aug 2004 by: Paul Horrell
Chrysler boss Zetsche says ME a possibility if enough interest is shown
Let the numbers speak for themselves: power is 850bhp, engine capacity six litres, cylinders 12, turbochargers four. The car weighs roughly 1310kg, less than a Porsche 911, itself considered a relatively skinny machine. But we've two-and-a-half times the power of a 911. The rear tyres are 335/30 ZR 20 ultra-stickies. Transmission is a seven-speed sequential, with two clutches so there's no lapse in going from one cog to the next. All of which means a zero-60mph sprint of 2.9 seconds, and zero to 100mph in 6.2. Those performance numbers aren't targets, they've actually been achieved, which means this is no ordinary show car.
But show car it is. Just a one-off. So far anyway. What the blazes is Chrysler playing at, putting all this engineering effort into a car that it won't sell? Ah well, it might sell it. Which is how come I'm at Laguna Seca Raceway in California, strapped in to the ME Four-Twelve, its removable steering wheel clipped into place between my hands, and I'm sweating profusely despite the fact it's a cool morning. If the result of articles such as this is a series of pleading letters (and fat cheques) floating down on Chrysler's doormat in Detroit, then Chrysler chiefs might just relent and put it into production. At anywhere between £150,000 and a cool million. We'll look more at the car's past - and possible future - in a minute. But if you'll excuse me, right now there's 850bhp at my back and an empty racetrack in front.
Four turbos nestle up to the massive V12
The mighty V12 - an AMG V12 six-litre unit, not dissimilar to the one supplied to Pagani, but with four turbos - is already rumbling away at idle. There's no clutch pedal. The transmission, built in Britain by Ricardo, is similar in principle to the one that debuted in the Audi TT V6 DSG, and indeed the one Bugatti intends to use in the Veyron, the only car that will eclipse the ME Four-Twelve for power - if not performance because it's at least a third as heavy again. To the left of the steering wheel is a downshift paddle, to the right one for upshifts. At rest, a selector in the centre console is pointing at N. Pressing the brake pedal to activate a safety interlock, I twist it to D (there's also a R position obviously). Clunk. The machinery drops the first set of cogs into place. I tickle the throttle.
Off we shoot. No danger of an embarrassing pit-lane stall, as the clutch-brain takes care of things in response to my input of revs. Down the pit-lane, out into the first corner, a sharp left that opens into a broader right. It's a fascinating track, Laguna Seca, with plenty of rises and falls, and corners that tighten or open out. A bit like a good road in that sense, though the surface is almost supernaturally smooth and even.
Whatever speed any of these corners brings the car down to (there are slow and very fast ones), its engine can catapult it out of them with colossal vehemence. Early in the morning the track is damp, yet there's still huge traction. Later in the day I have another go in the dry, and simply don't have the bottle to locate the limit. Reserving full throttle for the straights just seems a more sane strategy.
Edgy design was penned by Brian Nielander
It's a tsunami of forward rush. The torque is always there, whatever the revs. A near-bottomless pit of dark unfathomable elastic surge. It's not a high-revving, strung-out engine like the Porsche Carrera GT's. In fact, the noise, from within the cabin, is a mild disappointment. The V12 revs only to 6300, and the turbos muffle any blare. More important, the noise doesn't change in quality as you feed in revs and throttle. In the European hypercars, that varying aural feedback is a vital part of man-machine interaction. Still, this is very much a prototype and obviously there's plenty of scope for making acoustic adjustments to intake and exhaust systems. Besides, the notion of seamless, fussless torquey urge is perhaps more in the spirit of what an American supercar should be about. No point in slavishly copying what Ferrari and Porsche do. To comprehensively out-perform them while barely seeming to try is a bit of a party-trick. Oh and you should hear the noise from the outside. A deep thunder that makes your chest wall vibrate. It's 'just about legal' say the engineers.
Upshifts happen automatically if I let the revs stray much beyond 6000. They're as smooth as promised, reinforcing again this sense that the horizon is but a time-warping ankle-flex away. Downshifts, called up by the paddle, are less prompt. It seems that to protect this one-off, the software has been written to prevent downshifts under brakes which might unsettle the back of the car. If I'm not braking, they happen on the button. The transmission uses two clutches, which operate on alternate gear ratios. Thus while you drive in one gear it pre-engages the next, and when you activate the shift one clutch opens on the old gear while the other closes on the new one. So there's absolutely no time wasted in neutral, just seamless urge to the next braking point.
Ah yes, braking. Carbon ceramic composite discs are, at 15 inches across, as big as most cars' wheels. The technology is borrowed from the SLR McLaren (remember, Mercedes and Chrysler are sister companies, hence the AMG engine). The retardation in this car is vicious, almost painful, hit-a-wall staggering. Believe me, with that gargantuan acceleration available, it's easy to get disoriented and arrive at a corner apparently way too fast. That's what I thought I'd done a couple of times. But no. Just stomp on the left pedal. It pulls up short and straight and true, the ABS modulating everything to save my silly skin. They've been tested at an eye-popping 2g deceleration.
Cornering? Yes there's plenty of that. Huge grip as you'd expect, no real roll, a quick turn-in. The body and rear wing produce about half a tonne of downforce at 180mph, and the ME has made 1.5g lateral in fast cornering tests. Mild understeer had been dialled in today, to save us hacks from spinning if braking into a bend. But there's work to do, I'd say. The steering has a very fast ratio but feels a bit dead, and that's not what you want at all. This is the kind of thing that needs experience and sympathy in what is basically a black art, and Chrysler hasn't yet proved it has that. So does a real-roads spring and damper set-up.
Sleek shape pins half a tonne of downforce at 180mph
But let's not pre-judge. To get a car to this stage in so short a time is a remarkable achievement, something that could only be done by a big car company with huge computer power - plus a small, mad-keen team of engineers working all hours of the day and night. See, the ME Four-Twelve was designed and engineered on computer for the Detroit Show in January. And at that show, though the car had never run, the company made performance claims that have been borne out in fact. It's a testament to the amazing predictive power of today's supercomputers in the car industry, and proof that even in everyday cars we all drive, that bandwidth can dramatically reduce development times and therefore costs.
There was a reason Chrysler decided to engineer the virtual car so thoroughly (it had done structural simulations, aerodynamics and cooling modelling, and crash tests too). The company's bosses had a hunch a few patriotic American buyers might one, and it would have been drastically expensive and probably impossible to engineer a real car to match fantasy designs and plucked-out-of-the-air performance targets. This car had to be feasible even while it was still entirely virtual.
Immense strength comes from a carbonfibre and aluminium honeycomb central tub. Cro-mo steel subframes support the engine and suspension front and rear, and there are aluminium crash structures. Suspension is racecar-type double wishbone with horizontally mounted dampers for extra leverage and therefore control. At the moment, Chrysler doesn't expect to use electronic adaptive damping.
It's dressed in a body of carbonfibre, designed by Brian Nielander. Chrysler chiefs are well chuffed with the look. For a start it embodies some Chrysler cues - the straked bonnet and crisp lines, even the boat-tail if you squint, are a bit Crossfire - but it integrates all the necessary aerodynamics very neatly. An Enzo Ferrari looks like an aero test-bed to some eyes and could never be called lovely. The ME is far more handsome. The show car's cabin used blue LED-light and polished aluminium to dress up the featured carbon structure, but the test car was strictly basic, with a racecar LCD instrument/datalogging pod and generic switches. Even the seat was fixed, but fortunately I fitted.
So what's happening next? There's deep significance in Chrysler's choice of having it run at Laguna Seca. This was the weekend of the Monterey Historic Races, when the track is filled with the best old cars in private hands. Eight recent Ferrari F1 cars were there. A couple of dozen 1963-64 GTOs. They are several million apiece. The richest car enthusiasts in the world congregate there by the thousand. There were three Enzo Ferraris and a Carrera GT just in my hotel car park. Chrysler wanted these people to see this car, because if they reacted positively there might be sense in pushing the project further.
Chrysler boss Dieter Zetsche says he had 10 people ask to buy the car after its first Detroit showing, but at 10 copies they'd have been roughly a million pounds a go. If Zetsche approves investment in more tools, the price could come down to say £150,000 for 1000 copies. But to make that investment and then fail to sell the cars would be a huge loss - of face and of money. So Chrysler needs to know where the right point is on the price-numbers curve. Or even if an economically viable point exists at all. Zetsche is adamant that if there's no profit he won't say yes.
If it's hand-made in tiny numbers, Zetsche says it could be done in about a year. If he elects to tool-up for a longer run, he reckons 18 months should do it, after the decision is made. Mind you, the SLR was hit by months of delay, despite McLaren and Mercedes having vastly more combined fast-car experience than Chrysler.
But why would people buy it, Dr Zetsche, when Porsche and Ferrari and Mercedes-McLaren have apparently saturated the market? Why pay their prices and get a Chrysler badge? Because, he says, it's American and there are rich Americans who want to see a bit of Euro ass kicked (OK, I paraphrase him here). Because it's better looking than they are. And because it's not just insanely fast, it's the insanely-fastest.
On that last point at least, I can't argue.
20 Aug 2004 by: Paul Horrell
Chrysler boss Zetsche says ME a possibility if enough interest is shown
Let the numbers speak for themselves: power is 850bhp, engine capacity six litres, cylinders 12, turbochargers four. The car weighs roughly 1310kg, less than a Porsche 911, itself considered a relatively skinny machine. But we've two-and-a-half times the power of a 911. The rear tyres are 335/30 ZR 20 ultra-stickies. Transmission is a seven-speed sequential, with two clutches so there's no lapse in going from one cog to the next. All of which means a zero-60mph sprint of 2.9 seconds, and zero to 100mph in 6.2. Those performance numbers aren't targets, they've actually been achieved, which means this is no ordinary show car.
But show car it is. Just a one-off. So far anyway. What the blazes is Chrysler playing at, putting all this engineering effort into a car that it won't sell? Ah well, it might sell it. Which is how come I'm at Laguna Seca Raceway in California, strapped in to the ME Four-Twelve, its removable steering wheel clipped into place between my hands, and I'm sweating profusely despite the fact it's a cool morning. If the result of articles such as this is a series of pleading letters (and fat cheques) floating down on Chrysler's doormat in Detroit, then Chrysler chiefs might just relent and put it into production. At anywhere between £150,000 and a cool million. We'll look more at the car's past - and possible future - in a minute. But if you'll excuse me, right now there's 850bhp at my back and an empty racetrack in front.
Four turbos nestle up to the massive V12
The mighty V12 - an AMG V12 six-litre unit, not dissimilar to the one supplied to Pagani, but with four turbos - is already rumbling away at idle. There's no clutch pedal. The transmission, built in Britain by Ricardo, is similar in principle to the one that debuted in the Audi TT V6 DSG, and indeed the one Bugatti intends to use in the Veyron, the only car that will eclipse the ME Four-Twelve for power - if not performance because it's at least a third as heavy again. To the left of the steering wheel is a downshift paddle, to the right one for upshifts. At rest, a selector in the centre console is pointing at N. Pressing the brake pedal to activate a safety interlock, I twist it to D (there's also a R position obviously). Clunk. The machinery drops the first set of cogs into place. I tickle the throttle.
Off we shoot. No danger of an embarrassing pit-lane stall, as the clutch-brain takes care of things in response to my input of revs. Down the pit-lane, out into the first corner, a sharp left that opens into a broader right. It's a fascinating track, Laguna Seca, with plenty of rises and falls, and corners that tighten or open out. A bit like a good road in that sense, though the surface is almost supernaturally smooth and even.
Whatever speed any of these corners brings the car down to (there are slow and very fast ones), its engine can catapult it out of them with colossal vehemence. Early in the morning the track is damp, yet there's still huge traction. Later in the day I have another go in the dry, and simply don't have the bottle to locate the limit. Reserving full throttle for the straights just seems a more sane strategy.
Edgy design was penned by Brian Nielander
It's a tsunami of forward rush. The torque is always there, whatever the revs. A near-bottomless pit of dark unfathomable elastic surge. It's not a high-revving, strung-out engine like the Porsche Carrera GT's. In fact, the noise, from within the cabin, is a mild disappointment. The V12 revs only to 6300, and the turbos muffle any blare. More important, the noise doesn't change in quality as you feed in revs and throttle. In the European hypercars, that varying aural feedback is a vital part of man-machine interaction. Still, this is very much a prototype and obviously there's plenty of scope for making acoustic adjustments to intake and exhaust systems. Besides, the notion of seamless, fussless torquey urge is perhaps more in the spirit of what an American supercar should be about. No point in slavishly copying what Ferrari and Porsche do. To comprehensively out-perform them while barely seeming to try is a bit of a party-trick. Oh and you should hear the noise from the outside. A deep thunder that makes your chest wall vibrate. It's 'just about legal' say the engineers.
Upshifts happen automatically if I let the revs stray much beyond 6000. They're as smooth as promised, reinforcing again this sense that the horizon is but a time-warping ankle-flex away. Downshifts, called up by the paddle, are less prompt. It seems that to protect this one-off, the software has been written to prevent downshifts under brakes which might unsettle the back of the car. If I'm not braking, they happen on the button. The transmission uses two clutches, which operate on alternate gear ratios. Thus while you drive in one gear it pre-engages the next, and when you activate the shift one clutch opens on the old gear while the other closes on the new one. So there's absolutely no time wasted in neutral, just seamless urge to the next braking point.
Ah yes, braking. Carbon ceramic composite discs are, at 15 inches across, as big as most cars' wheels. The technology is borrowed from the SLR McLaren (remember, Mercedes and Chrysler are sister companies, hence the AMG engine). The retardation in this car is vicious, almost painful, hit-a-wall staggering. Believe me, with that gargantuan acceleration available, it's easy to get disoriented and arrive at a corner apparently way too fast. That's what I thought I'd done a couple of times. But no. Just stomp on the left pedal. It pulls up short and straight and true, the ABS modulating everything to save my silly skin. They've been tested at an eye-popping 2g deceleration.
Cornering? Yes there's plenty of that. Huge grip as you'd expect, no real roll, a quick turn-in. The body and rear wing produce about half a tonne of downforce at 180mph, and the ME has made 1.5g lateral in fast cornering tests. Mild understeer had been dialled in today, to save us hacks from spinning if braking into a bend. But there's work to do, I'd say. The steering has a very fast ratio but feels a bit dead, and that's not what you want at all. This is the kind of thing that needs experience and sympathy in what is basically a black art, and Chrysler hasn't yet proved it has that. So does a real-roads spring and damper set-up.
Sleek shape pins half a tonne of downforce at 180mph
But let's not pre-judge. To get a car to this stage in so short a time is a remarkable achievement, something that could only be done by a big car company with huge computer power - plus a small, mad-keen team of engineers working all hours of the day and night. See, the ME Four-Twelve was designed and engineered on computer for the Detroit Show in January. And at that show, though the car had never run, the company made performance claims that have been borne out in fact. It's a testament to the amazing predictive power of today's supercomputers in the car industry, and proof that even in everyday cars we all drive, that bandwidth can dramatically reduce development times and therefore costs.
There was a reason Chrysler decided to engineer the virtual car so thoroughly (it had done structural simulations, aerodynamics and cooling modelling, and crash tests too). The company's bosses had a hunch a few patriotic American buyers might one, and it would have been drastically expensive and probably impossible to engineer a real car to match fantasy designs and plucked-out-of-the-air performance targets. This car had to be feasible even while it was still entirely virtual.
Immense strength comes from a carbonfibre and aluminium honeycomb central tub. Cro-mo steel subframes support the engine and suspension front and rear, and there are aluminium crash structures. Suspension is racecar-type double wishbone with horizontally mounted dampers for extra leverage and therefore control. At the moment, Chrysler doesn't expect to use electronic adaptive damping.
It's dressed in a body of carbonfibre, designed by Brian Nielander. Chrysler chiefs are well chuffed with the look. For a start it embodies some Chrysler cues - the straked bonnet and crisp lines, even the boat-tail if you squint, are a bit Crossfire - but it integrates all the necessary aerodynamics very neatly. An Enzo Ferrari looks like an aero test-bed to some eyes and could never be called lovely. The ME is far more handsome. The show car's cabin used blue LED-light and polished aluminium to dress up the featured carbon structure, but the test car was strictly basic, with a racecar LCD instrument/datalogging pod and generic switches. Even the seat was fixed, but fortunately I fitted.
So what's happening next? There's deep significance in Chrysler's choice of having it run at Laguna Seca. This was the weekend of the Monterey Historic Races, when the track is filled with the best old cars in private hands. Eight recent Ferrari F1 cars were there. A couple of dozen 1963-64 GTOs. They are several million apiece. The richest car enthusiasts in the world congregate there by the thousand. There were three Enzo Ferraris and a Carrera GT just in my hotel car park. Chrysler wanted these people to see this car, because if they reacted positively there might be sense in pushing the project further.
Chrysler boss Dieter Zetsche says he had 10 people ask to buy the car after its first Detroit showing, but at 10 copies they'd have been roughly a million pounds a go. If Zetsche approves investment in more tools, the price could come down to say £150,000 for 1000 copies. But to make that investment and then fail to sell the cars would be a huge loss - of face and of money. So Chrysler needs to know where the right point is on the price-numbers curve. Or even if an economically viable point exists at all. Zetsche is adamant that if there's no profit he won't say yes.
If it's hand-made in tiny numbers, Zetsche says it could be done in about a year. If he elects to tool-up for a longer run, he reckons 18 months should do it, after the decision is made. Mind you, the SLR was hit by months of delay, despite McLaren and Mercedes having vastly more combined fast-car experience than Chrysler.
But why would people buy it, Dr Zetsche, when Porsche and Ferrari and Mercedes-McLaren have apparently saturated the market? Why pay their prices and get a Chrysler badge? Because, he says, it's American and there are rich Americans who want to see a bit of Euro ass kicked (OK, I paraphrase him here). Because it's better looking than they are. And because it's not just insanely fast, it's the insanely-fastest.
On that last point at least, I can't argue.
Want one :dribble:
me first!
