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Old 03-26-2004, 05:17 PM   #1
yg60m
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: France
Posts: 5,373
Default Mclaren F1 vs F50 scan

Hi mates, this is a french translation of a japanese article, i translated it but i am not sure everything is understable










And the translation :

We drove the Mclaren F1 and the F50 at several occasions. We even recorded their performances, which is a Sport Auto exclusivity. However, they are kinds of cars phantom, which one cannot approach unless having the complicity of an owner... or to be himself an owner. And we never had the two cars at the same time to organize a confrontation, each of the two manufacturer avoiding a confrontation carefully. Our friends of the magazine Car Graphic had, them, this opportunity.
A serie of photograph put this event on the block and the chief-tester, Kazuaki Saka, wrote his impressions, here they are...
"If it wasn’t a McLaren F1, to go up on board would be rather unpleasant. The low and narrow cockpit almost requires to make some limbering up exercises before. But once arrived at the central seat, small paradise of the drivers, it is time to carry out its phantasms of action. What a space! Thanks to this position of the seat, advanced compared to the others, the field of vision evokes a single-seater but gets an extremely different feeling.
First, one is not hinched up as in F1; then the elements of "furniture" (gear shift lever, starter, switches of the air-conditioner or the stereo chain) are gathered on the tunnels on both sides seat. To appreciate the width well is easier than one could not think it. One can even see the top of the cap whereas, of outside, one would have sworn the opposite. Pedals and wheel are located so perfectly opposite the driver that this cockpit is most pleasant to live of all the cars of production, of some category that it is. Only truth defect, the visual field postpones, completely blocked by the air intake which caps the 12 cylinders. The two interior rear view mirrors were to compensate but it is hardly better than anything, the more so as they are useless with two passengers.
"Difficulty of access, back visibility, all that is forgotten as soon as one starts to drive. 610 bhp, 66 mkg of torque, 1070 kg (note: we weighed it to 1263 kg full tank), it is quite simply extraordinary. The answer is such that it is impossible to regard Mclaren as a road car. A light pressure of the foot and the needle of the rev counter leaps all alone. As soon as started, the 100 km/h and the moment to spend the second come at the same time. Prodigious engine.
A force which goes constant, without never falling down: 175 km/h in second, 224 in 3°, 275 km/h in 4°, 330 km/h in 5°... "this emergency to change speeds one after the other points out the Jaguar XJ220 and its V6 turbo to me. The most astonishing, it is that this storm blows all carefully. If one disregards landscape which ravels at an alarming speed, noise of V12 in full effort (even if it is a controlled little), and great pressures against the back of the seat, the power are connected with that of a luxury car. No rise of vibration, not of mechanical "stress". The 0-100 km/h is reached in 3"3, the 400 m standing start in 11"1, the km in 19"6 with a fluidity equal to that of a BMW 750i, whose engine is besides at the base of Mclaren.

"Compared with such a car, F50 Ferrari makes a quite different impression. The awaited characteristics of a true racing racing car are there, much more present and understable.The V12 at 65° comes from an F1. The life of the engine is quite perceptible, and if one plays of the accelerator, the vibrations are propagated. The breath of this wild mechanics gets along in your back, as if a simple board separated you from the engine (the block is bolted to the fine carbon hull).

The pleasure of going quickly with such a racing racing car on the road is unutterable. F50 still constitutes in oneself a tastier forbidden fruit than Mclaren. However on a sinuous road, Mclaren exceeds F50 by far, without brutality. The suspension is flexible for Supercar. The turns are caught naturally and one seizes spontaneously the situation of the four wheels, thanks to the central wheel. It is doubtful that one can enjoy until satiety such a power with a not inline wheel. Initially I too was not at ease, feeling too much understeering, because of the differential tared to unusual a 40%. However the car transfers as on a rail, which is quickly reassuring. The direction is soft initially, firmer then, almost perfect. But all this is true only if the road is plane.

On smashed roadway, the flexibility is exaggerated and rebounds are noted, in particular when one must strongly brake on the bumps. The Michelins tyres are ultra-broad but I never found them "heavy" too much to carry. The rigidity of the carossery gives a strong impression. Driving close to twice more quickly than with a sporting normal on inequalities than one usually does not feel, the spoiler rubbed the ground several times, but it did not have unpleasant shocks there. I did not have courage to go further, intimidated with the idea to discharge 540.000 £.
The Mclaren is thus a very comfortable car which exceeds all other Supercars and also remains in the world forefront of the luxury cars. The best car that I drove until now. It has, however, its Achilles' heel: poor stability at high speed due to a lack of obvious support. Not only at the potential speeds that it is able to reach, but even at the speeds which it is possible to reach on road, even in Japan, when good conditions are met. The car reacts to the negalities of the road what can be embarrassing in the large curves.

However, to make as well as the Mclaren is out of the forces of the F50, even if it is superior to him in directional stability. It is rather normal that the F50 cannot be defended: its cubic capacity, its power and its torque are inferiors. But what imports ! Most important is that the F50 gets as much pleasure than the Mclaren, even if it acts of a quite different pleasure. In short, Mclaren is a car of road which has a capital power, but attaches importance to comfort while the F50 is really a sports car, as well in term of motorization or of form. It answers in a very precise way as soon as one rolls enough quickly and its front is placed better than that of the Mclaren. The flattened suspensions sacrifice comfort, up to a reasonable point. A hardness which proves however excessive on broken road, so that the two cars meet on this point: they need roadways with the irreproachable coating.

Difficult to choose of them one... with the approach of the XXI° century, there are no cars which express as directly as the these two cars the dreams of a man. Of course, it is difficult to compare them when their purchase price records a difference in two million francs (200.000 £). But that remains interesting and logical, because they also have different objectives. When Mclaren claims to push on the highest level of the world the compatibility of road and sport (which is the concept of great tourism), F50 dares really the challenge to bring a racing racing car on the public highway. These two ambitions being crowned success, you will have only to choose that which corresponds best to your dream. And it is F50 which has this time my preference. However, I cannot give up my dream of Mclaren. How to make, then, to pile up nearly 1 million $?

note : the french chief-tester had the same opinion, he drove them separatly and would choose the F50 too.
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