Nurburgring 7:59.32

[Jpjr]

Originally Posted by HiTechRV

Don't you remember the doom and gloom? Power does not matter. Power to weight ratio does not matter. The new V is a pig and will never compete with the original on the track. The electronic goodies are all for naught. Weight - it is only weight that matters!

I don't think anyone can argue with the results, but the weight perception continues to dog american performance sedans. They are viewed as pigs, and even a pig can be extremely fast. It's really just a justification that BMW-esque buyers can use not to look at American cars, which I just wish they would address one day without removing the radio and air conditioning as a solution lol.

[Jpjr]

Originally Posted by thebigjimsho

I don't know the specs, but I think it would be very difficult to replace the s/c. Actually, anyone in the Advanced class at the Lindsay Cadillac V-day at Summit Point had the opportunity to wrangle with the '09s. They had all 3 in our class...

I'm not sure of the context here, but I guarantee 1) there will continue to be a huge aftermarket for LS performance, and 2) that means someone will make an aftermarket blower or figure out how to maximize the performance of the existing one through pulleys or some other boost/efficiency enhancing mod. It's only a matter of time.

[NormV]

Originally Posted by HiTechRV

Don't you remember the doom and gloom? Power does not matter. Power to weight ratio does not matter. The new V is a pig and will never compete with the original on the track. The electronic goodies are all for naught. Weight - it is only weight that matters!

The 09 has allot of potential for the non-race track driver but it is no Corvette C4 to C5 revolution compared to the first generation V1. Just because you have an 09 does not mean you'll have a faster car than a competent driver in the V1.

With factory hot shoes in 09 test mules at Summit Point there were a few of us in that got to run with them. Now these are not production car but have drivers that have to show competency to show skills within 2% of John Heinricy, GM's in house race car driver(i.e. really fast!). I consider myself competent but no race car driver and my car was not sliding around at the limit when I let them pass.

The test cars have non-production brake systems and who knows what kind of power as the hoods never went up in the pits. A tight course like Shenandoah didn't let them get to far fast compared to my car with headers and an extra person. A bigger course with more straight aways like a VIR or Watkins Glenn might prove differently(I am guessing my car would trap in the 1/4 mile - 112-114 MPH based on following C6 on a road course).

They did have good corner exit speeds but I really expected the the 150 or so horsepower to more damage down the front straight and the bigger, wider torque curve to put the distance on my student and me but they did not. Figure with my student/me and them with extra test gear and we are within a few hundred pounds. So weight does matter in this case in the twisties. When the auto mags get a hold of production V and get some times on local road courses we'll better be able to see the differences vs. the V1.

Norm

[Blackout]

Originally Posted by JEM

As for the GT-R...yeah, whatever, it's not a car that really appeals to me no matter what the lap time. And I like the comment about "the same Japanese market tires found on cars in showrooms". What tires are those?

The JDM GT-R has Bridgestone Potenza RE070R RFT's on it

[CIWS]

Originally Posted by Blackout

The JDM GT-R has Bridgestone Potenza RE070R RFT's on it

YAK RFTs. Glad to see GM/Cadillac has finally woke up and stopped putting them on the newer cars.

[70eldo]

Originally Posted by Jpjr

I don't think anyone can argue with the results, but the weight perception continues to dog american performance sedans. They are viewed as pigs, and even a pig can be extremely fast. It's really just a justification that BMW-esque buyers can use not to look at American cars, which I just wish they would address one day without removing the radio and air conditioning as a solution lol.

If a pig flies, you're not gonna criticize how it's flying, right?

[HiTechRV]

Originally Posted by 70eldo

If a pig flies, you're not gonna criticize how it's flying, right?

And if a pig outflies a hawk, you better hope it doesn't dive bomb you...

[GNSCOTT]

Originally Posted by StealthCTSVJJL

The V2's time is less than 4 seconds slower than the Z06, considering it is a big spacious 4 door sedan with an awesome luxury interior, thats good enough for me, if I wanted a a sports car like the GT-R I would wait for the Corvette ZR-1, which may not be quicker than the GT-R at that German race track but will certainly spank one on good ole Interstate 95. Plus let's see if that GT-R's times are real, even Car and Driver on their test of the GT-R last month stated that it was an "engineering test mule" not even a pre production car.

I think you need to do a little more research. The C6 Zo6 ran 17 seconds faster. Maybe you saw a C5 Z06's numbers??


7:42.9Chevrolet Corvette C6 Z06505 hp / 1450 kgJan Magnussen2005Motor Trend[10]Muggy conditions

[I~LUV~Caddys8792]

So does this mean the 2009 V is the fastest sedan of all time? That's the impression I'm getting....

[JEM]

Originally Posted by Jpjr

I don't think anyone can argue with the results, but the weight perception continues to dog american performance sedans. They are viewed as pigs, and even a pig can be extremely fast. It's really just a justification that BMW-esque buyers can use not to look at American cars, which I just wish they would address one day without removing the radio and air conditioning as a solution lol.

No, they're not viewed as pigs. They're viewed as crudely built and giving away too much refinement to go fast.

Further, Detroit has built very few 'real' performance sedans.

There was the '75 9C1 Nova cop car, which is pretty much forgotten now. No power, of course, but not much else did then either. And it had maybe the best leaf-spring chassis Detroit ever did (okay, so that's a little like saying it was the quickest-firing muzzle-loading smoothbore ever done, but...) Every so often I think a '75 Nova sedan with an LS2 or LS3 and a T56 would be a Really Nice Driver. This is California, so for certain reasons it'd have to be a '75 (I just passed up a nice one on eBay that went for under $300 that'd have been a good start for my //M$5; I wasn't about to face down the wife about bringing another car home given that I've got four project cars and a total of nine cars between the two of us.)

Then fast-forward to the late '90s and one gets to a couple Fords, the LTD LX (which wasn't all that 'sporty' but it was as close as Ford ever got to putting Mustang GT bits in a four-door Fox) and the first-gen Taurus SHO which - crudely built and unrefined as it was - was as good as one was going to get with FWD on a Detroit budget. Was it as good a car as, say, a 2.3-liter Saab 9000 Turbo? No. But it was cheaper.

There were a couple wannabes along the way, mainly turbo Dodges that were built even worse than the Taurus.

From the end of the Gen 2 SHO (IMO the Gen 3 doesn't quite carry the 'sport sedan' burden very well) until...what? The '04 CTS-V? The SRT Mopars? I don't care how much motor they've got, you can't reasonably call the current Impala SS a sport sedan.

Their big muscle-sedans may be priced attractively, but the '09 CTS-V is the first one that actually offers the promise of having detail design and material quality more or less competitive with the German offerings (I'll forgive the lack of a power tilt/telescope steering column if they come up with a wagon...)

And Detroit's never done anything to compete at the 3-series/A4 size level, even the SHO was fully as big as the M5 of the day. The only 'polished' small sports item that's come out of Detroit has been the SVT Focus, which was a Mexican-built version of the Euro Focus ST170 and a very nice piece of hardware. The Neon SRT-4 is incredibly fast and incredibly rude, some of the worst seats I've ever experienced in my life.