Ferrari's New Car Tech Idea: Make Car Go Really Fast 226
cartechboy writes "Forget EV batteries and autonomous driving. Ferrari understands old-school advanced car tech — basically, they just want to make the thing go ridiculously fast. The Italians showed off very serious chasis technology today in the new Ferrari Speciale at the Frankfurt Auto Show. The new electronic 'Side Slip angle Control' system uses algorithms that compute and analyze lateral acceleration, yaw angle, steering wheel angle and wheel speed in real-time. The system compares these readings to target data, and then just adjusts traction control and electric differential to be more efficient. Top speed: 202 mph."
Please proofread (Score:2, Insightful)
The word chassis has a double-S in the middle.
Re:Please proofread (Score:5, Funny)
The word chassis has a double-S in the middle.
At +200mph it gets Dopplered down from a double to a single "s"... On the upside, as it passes you the double "s" comes back... but then when it's going away it has three in a row... chasssis.
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Also: 'Side Slip angle Control' and 'top speed' aren't related.
(Except in the USA, where there's no corners on racetracks).
202 mph (Score:2)
That's about 90.3 m/s!
Re:202 mph (Score:4, Funny)
That's about 325 kmph. The Bugatti Veyron has a top speed of over 406 kmph. What's so special about this Ferrari?
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The Veyron costs like 5 times as much.
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The Veyron costs like 5 times as much.
Also contains massive quantities of unobtainium.
Re:202 mph (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:202 mph (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:202 mph (Score:4, Informative)
I'm going on the assumption that people get cars like this to race them.
Umm...no. People get cars like this to overtly display their abundance of wealth to members of the opposite sex while still allowing them to pretend that they're interested in something beyond that wealth. That they go fast is just a happy coincidence.
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No. People with this sort of money realize that just having the money is enough to attract more women than they want.
They buy the cars because they want the status symbols among their (predominately male) peers or even just to themselves.
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The short answer: Yes.
The long answer: The C6 Z06 has a faster lap time around the Nürburgring than any Ferrari.
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Re:202 mph (Score:5, Informative)
When Jeremy Clarkson reviews the ZR1 on Top Gear, he acknowledges that it can go toe to toe with the 458 Italia on the track despite being a fraction of the price. But he points out that the ZR1 is absolutely horrible to drive on the street.
Re:202 mph (Score:5, Insightful)
The Corvette and the 458 are both terrific cars, but in very different ways.
I don't have a ZR1, but I have the 427, which is reasonably close to the ZR1 in many ways. While Chevrolet probably makes very little money on the Corvette, they still have to cut a lot of corners, and it is NOT an exotic. The performance is amazing in a straight line, and not bad on the twisties. The interior is, um, not impressive, although it's improved on the new C7 versions. You're sitting in a plastic car that's fantastic value for money and a lot of fun.
The 458 (Italia version, as I can't speak for the Speciale or Spider) is a luxury exotic. It's an "event" to drive it, and the dynamics, sound and overall experience strictly dominate the Corvette. But the Corvette (the 427 at least) is only $80k, and a moderately specced Italia is over $300k: every one is highly customized for the buyer by the factory, and every option is, um, fully priced, e.g. $32k for special paint, $n,000 for every bit of carbon, etc. For getting from one place to another, the Ferrari isn't worth 4 times the Corvette's price. For sheer fun and excitement, "worth" is in the mind of the buyer.
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I really pity whoever needs to fork out 2 million for a chance at getting laid.
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Well, I'd surely welcome your pity if it really came with the 2 millions.
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The Bug goes very fast in a straight line, but Ferrari goes much faster around curves, which is what wins sports car races.
Ferrari has adapted this technology from their Formula 1 racing cars which have been very successful over the years. What Ferrari is trying to do is compete with Porsche and Audi which have dominated sports car racing over the last few years. Bugatti is produced by a subsidiary of VW-Audi which also owns Audi and Porsche.
Re:202 mph (Score:4, Insightful)
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As I recall - the Talladega could give you 200+ in the late sixties. Washington and Nascar started work on forcing LESS powerful engines to be used, bringing "record speeds" at the race tracks DOWN. I'm less of a Mopar fan than I am a Ford fan - but Dodge was producing cars that went head to head with the Talladega, and sometimes won.
Funny thing is - if you're capable of balancing atop three or more high speed gyros, there are a number of inexpensive motorcycles that will outrun any of the cars being sold
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Re:202 mph (Score:5, Informative)
Try turning in a Veyron at 406 kph and see what happens. You have to switch the car (when parked - you need the ignition key) into a special mode to get to it's top speed, and that mode includes lowering the spoiler to reduce downforce.
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I've got a 79 Trans Am with a 403 Olds that can kick the shit out of wimpy 202 mph. Lets race for titles, buddy.
Ferrari (Score:2)
Innovation is Repetition: The mantra of the film and TV industry
Ferrari is still awesome though. Give me one now.
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Nice video (Score:2)
Just such a shame they asked people to obey "traffic sings" at the very end. Although they may have been talking about the engine note...
201 mph (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:201 mph (Score:5, Funny)
Who cares? You're never going to actually drive it that fast.
Don't get to California much, do you?
There's a classic/reallyexpensive car get together in Monterey/Pebble Beach every years and some of these ultra spiff cars go out to Laguna Seca and drive around very fast.
One year I was driving to work and the road I was on was quite possibly one of the most expensive traffic jams you could find anywhere in the world. About a half mile of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Jaguar, Bentley, Porsche, Maserati, Mercedes, et al. Among the Italian cars alone I hadn't seen so much red since the last time I looked into my checking account. But I fit right in, in my bright red Dodge pickup (c:
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They are going to be really spectacular on wreckedexotics.com
Re:201 mph (Score:4, Informative)
Who cares? You're never going to actually drive it that fast.
Don't get to California much, do you?
Seriously. I was doing about 85 in my Z3 on 101 in Mendocino County and got passed by a silver-blue Ferrari that had to be well over 120. Scared the shit out of me.
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Who cares? You're never going to actually drive it that fast.
Don't get to California much, do you?
Seriously. I was doing about 85 in my Z3 on 101 in Mendocino County and got passed by a silver-blue Ferrari that had to be well over 120. Scared the shit out of me.
I've heard tales of sports car owners going over 150 on I-5. I have no idea when they do this, because every time I'm on there it would seem impossible. Maybe they do this further north, where the traffic is lighter.
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Who cares? You're never going to actually drive it that fast.
Don't get to California much, do you?
Seriously. I was doing about 85 in my Z3 on 101 in Mendocino County and got passed by a silver-blue Ferrari that had to be well over 120. Scared the shit out of me.
I've heard tales of sports car owners going over 150 on I-5. I have no idea when they do this, because every time I'm on there it would seem impossible. Maybe they do this further north, where the traffic is lighter.
I've done 140 easily in my old 4-banger Integra GSR racing another GSR 15 years ago... This was just north of santa clarita where it just starts to get really flat for hours.
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I've done 120 mph with my '95 Nissan Sentra when I owned it... And later with a Dodge Dakota pickup... And even a twice with my current '99 LHS. Not a one anything designed for 'racing'... None in Cali either... Late night (2 am ish) on the interstate in most eastern states in the US are pretty bare...
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The only car I've ever gone off the top of the speedo was an old mini clubman. It was a very long hill, and the speedo did only go up to 90, though. That car had amusingly bad all round drum brakes, and its oil consumption was approximately half its petrol consumption.
I've gone a little faster than that in my Integra type R... 15 to 150 in top gear (to be fair, it doesn't really like chugging at 15 in top, but it can do it ok - 20mph is fine though... 15mph is about 900rpm iirc).
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Who cares? You're never going to actually drive it that fast.
Don't get to California much, do you?
Seriously. I was doing about 85 in my Z3 on 101 in Mendocino County and got passed by a silver-blue Ferrari that had to be well over 120. Scared the shit out of me.
I've heard tales of sports car owners going over 150 on I-5. I have no idea when they do this, because every time I'm on there it would seem impossible. Maybe they do this further north, where the traffic is lighter.
Try Colusa County or anywhere north of Williams after midnight weekdays. Straight, flat, smooth and dark. On 101 it's a bit trickier due to the lack of straights in the rural areas. Best I've done on101 in the Z3 is 110. On 5, I've run it up to the electronic limiter at 128 several times.
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I maxed out my '93 Renault 19 on the autobahn. 200-210 on the tach (125-130 mph). I couldn't count the number of times I was overtaken by someone driving faster than I.
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Who cares? You're never going to actually drive it that fast.
Bullshit. You, sir, have apparently never been to a track day. I may not hit 200mph, but I regularly get my Ducati 1098 (another example of Italian looks-good-goes-fast technology) to a buck eighty-five. There are three pro tracks within a two-hour ride (one is only forty-five minutes away) from my house that have track days nearly every weekend of the year. For a fee ranging from $40 to about $150 per day, I can drag a knee at 120mph and tuck in for a speed run on the straight-away for hours on end.
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Ouch. Living up to the stereotype I see!
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Who cares? You're never going to actually drive it that fast.
Bullshit. You, sir, have apparently never been to a track day. I may not hit 200mph, but I regularly get my Ducati 1098 (another example of Italian looks-good-goes-fast technology) to a buck eighty-five. There are three pro tracks within a two-hour ride (one is only forty-five minutes away) from my house that have track days nearly every weekend of the year. For a fee ranging from $40 to about $150 per day, I can drag a knee at 120mph and tuck in for a speed run on the straight-away for hours on end. There are plenty of racing venues that cater to well-heeled speed freaks so we can ride fast in a controlled, reasonably safe environment for a trivial amount of scratch. So fuck you, coward -- too bad you will never get to enjoy the thrill of piloting an exquisitely engineered machine at the edge of its performance envelope. That takes money and balls, two (three?) things you obviously lack.
Impressive! You first acknowledge that the AC's statement was right in your third sentence and then proceed to insult him?
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To my office? I don't think the formula 1 car would survive the potholes.
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Ferrari built a car that could do 201 mph in 1987. Glad to see they're improving...
Yeah but was that 201 mph around a 90 degree turn ?
(joking of course)
Re:201 mph (Score:5, Funny)
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A rare reverse-car analogy folks
Personally I prefer my car analogies to be in a forward gear.
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Lateral G's are never going to make you black out. Have to drain the blood from the brain (positive vertical G) to do that. F1 drivers these days are routinely hitting 7g laterally.
and like many Italian sports cars (Score:2)
chances are it gets 8 miles to the gallon, thus you get a top speed of 202 mph for three minutes before the next refill... even though that refill might be in another county.
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The previous version (458 Italia) gets 17.7 mpg.
Probably not at 202 mph though.
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Since Top Gear has become biased whining, I don't understand why they are still relevant.
The races they have are fun to watch,.
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All you people can think about is speed. I'm waiting for a nice, economical hybrid [wikipedia.org]. At 78 mpg, this beats a Prius (in more ways than one).
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I could find a single modern SUV with worse MPG(proper not the Imperial crap*)
*see how pointless jingoism doesn't help?
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I could find a single modern SUV with worse MPG
Really? [wikipedia.org] Not [fueleconomy.gov] a single [fueleconomy.gov] one?
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The Speciale doesn't replace the Italia (the coupe) or the Spider (the convertible). It's typical for Ferrari to announce a coupe first, then the convertible a couple of years later, and then the stripped-down go-fast version a couple of years after that.
The Italia and Spider are very luxurious, while also being super-fast sports cars with great sound and drama. The Speciale is targeted to be much more raw, with fewer amenities, a lot less soundproofing and less weight. It's aimed largely at people who want
Could Makes Use of this Every Day (Score:2)
My driveway has several turns that severely limit how quickly I can get down to check on the mail.
Wow, we've come so far. (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_F40 [wikipedia.org]
(1987...top speed, 201.4 mph)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaFerrari [wikipedia.org]
(2013...top speed, 220 mph)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaFerrari [wikipedia.org]
(2013...top speed, 220 mph)
The LaFerrari? That is Ferrari's hybrid.
Some say... (Score:5, Funny)
Can't wait for The Stig to take it round the track. Some say his home computer is a Commodore Amiga, and he still believes 640K is more than enough RAM for anyone.
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If 512k is enough then 640k (being more than 512k) is more than enough.
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Can't wait for The Stig to take it round the track. Some say his home computer is a Commodore Amiga , and he still believes 640K is more than enough RAM for anyone.
ITYM 512k then!
Why not 256kB then? Because statistically everyone with an A1000 got at least 512kB?
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Oh come on, the Stig would know better, the first thing everyone bought was the FAST-ram expansion.
(although, looking it up on wikipedia it now turns out the trapdoor expansion actually contained "slow ram"... wtf ?! Even though it's been 25 years, I feel cheated now =)
Come to think about it, my A4000 had 18Mb's of ram [**] a gigantic luxury at the time. Although I had no VMM (68030) and thus no virtual-memory I hardly ever ran out of ram. Amazing how the need for memory has gone through the roof... My lapt
I'd like to know... (Score:2)
Oooooh. Aaaaaah. Sorry about Bill...
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Um did you you miss the 'Ferrari' part? You might as well buy the nearest repair shop, that way you'll cut your losses.
So, it's the exploding one, then. Ok.
so finally (Score:2)
cars are using tech to go fast. It's about time~
Too slow (Score:2)
Germany vs Italy (Score:4, Interesting)
My 996 Porsche 911 Turbo had steering wheel angle, yaw rate and lateral acceleration sensors and could brake each wheel independently. It also had a viscous coupling in the center diff to keep up to 90% of the power to the rear wheels, only giving the fronts as much as they needed. The 997 model introduced an electromagnetic coupling for even more precise control (and the ability to run different diameter tires). Even in a 50 MPH slide with all four wheels spinning, that thing would go almost exactly where you pointed it. That feeling is one of the finer things in life.
I didn't RTFA, but I don't see what Ferrari has done here that Porsche didn't have 9 years ago.
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Mitsibishi did this way before Prosche (Score:2, Informative)
They introduced AYC in 1996 with Lancer Evolution IV. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Yaw_Control .steering angle .lateral acceleration .longitudinal acceleration .throttle position .wheel speed
The system takes inputs:
And actuates the hydraulic system to split the torque on rear axel helping the car in turn in and out of the corner.
In 2001, with Evolution VII in addition to rear differential they introduced ACD - Active Center Differential, that would modulate torque between front
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My 996 Porsche 911 Turbo had steering wheel angle, yaw rate and lateral acceleration sensors and could brake each wheel independently. It also had a viscous coupling in the center diff to keep up to 90% of the power to the rear wheels, only giving the fronts as much as they needed. The 997 model introduced an electromagnetic coupling for even more precise control (and the ability to run different diameter tires). Even in a 50 MPH slide with all four wheels spinning, that thing would go almost exactly where you pointed it. That feeling is one of the finer things in life.
I didn't RTFA, but I don't see what Ferrari has done here that Porsche didn't have 9 years ago.
Put a little horse icon on it?
That'd be a Bitch... (Score:3)
so... (Score:2)
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Yeah, same for computers, it's a pain that there's been no progress since Pentium 4's 4Ghz processors
What is the point of the summary? (Score:2)
Forget EV batteries and autonomous driving. Ferrari understands old-school advanced car tech — basically, they just want to make the thing go ridiculously fast.
What is "old-school advanced car tech"? The original "old-school advanced car tech" was stuff to make cars reliable and serviceable in an environment of poor-quality roads and no service centers. Or maybe the "old-school advanced car tech" that Saab created to make their cars safe. The phrase certainly doesn't equate to making the thing go ridiculously fast in my mind.
Yay! Ferrari made another fast car. But everyone is playing with electronics to do the same kinds of things these days and McLaren road
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Boring person with boring care isn't interested in exciting things. News at 6 (past your bedtime)
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Boring person with boring care isn't interested in exciting things.
Did my stint with drag racing and motocross years ago. Fast and pretty exciting. Eventually, they became..... boring. Don't assume that what you find exciting is what everyone else finds exciting.
Re:No thanks... (Score:5, Funny)
My '96 Corolla can go faster than the speed limit whenever I want it to.
Sure, but it takes 16 city blocks to get up to speed.
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You may jest, but I recently took my '99 Corolla (Automatic, on worn out no-name (Wanli) winter tyres) to a track day with Mustangs and was catching up with some of them :)
Sure, those drivers probably don't know how to drive fast (Everyone has to learn, right!) or were too scared to scratch their precious, but come on, seriously? A Corolla faster than a Mustang? That should not be :)
Made me chuckle inside at least :)
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I want to take the Astro to a track day, though it would almost certainly disintegrate. I embarrass people with it regularly, even on twisty roads.
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If you have not been on the track, do it - it's a different world.
When I first started racing in ~'95, I already thought of myself as a fairly accomplished driver when it came to car control and picking fast lines. Once I got on the track I learned how wrong I was. You simply can't drive like that on the road unless you are on a closed stage or something. There is always too much to think about, too many compromises to worry about. On the track, you don't have to worry about as much of that and you can conc
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I fully intend to attend a track day, but not actually in the Astro. Instead I will take my 300SD and see how fast I can go through the trap, I've always wondered. It's pretty easy to pin the needle at 85. I will need another set of tires though, because otherwise I'll have to go around every turn sideways. I bought these for longevity.
I've only ever owned one car that would reasonably do more than a buck twenty-five, and that was my 1960 Dodge Phoenix Dart. It was still rock-steady at that speed, and would
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Oh and I thought the Corolla would disintegrate, but it made it. All that really happened was 50% wear on a set of brand new front pads that I put on fresh for the day. :)
Give it an oil change first too
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Fun innit. I know I stung some egos bad that day.
Had a lot of fun too as it was my first time on the track in about 13 years. People talk about some cars not being fun to drive, I reckon any car can be fun if you try hard enough :)
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But does your Corolla show the world how big your dick is?
Yes, it does. It shows that his dick is pretty big and he doesn't have to rely on a flashy car to impress the girls.
Well, either that or he's skint and can't afford a Ferrari. Not sure which.
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Why is it acceptable to say that guys drive cool cars because they have small penises? Would it be ok to say that women get nice handbags because they have small vaginas?
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No, because that would be sexist...
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Who says it's acceptable?
to be a fair comparison small vagina isn't really an insult. But that besides the point.
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In my experience there are lots more large vaginas out there than small penises.
How fortunate for you! Most people with large vaginas think all penises are small.
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Why is it acceptable to say that guys drive cool cars because they have small penises?
Because it's true. Of course, for most of them it's just because they're old, and it's shriveled.
Would it be ok to say that women get nice handbags because they have small vaginas?
If anything, it would be for big ones. But do women really care? Tight, loose, some men will always be interested.
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That's why I bought a Saturn.
Yeah, they're real gone. Literally!
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Unless you're somebody that never turns, the actual top speed of a vehicle is primarily based upon the ability to stop and maneuver at that speed. Going fast in a straight line is relatively easy, maintaining a high speed while maneuvering is substantially harder.
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The real joy is that once you are above about 150 feet, you don't have to worry so much about running into stuff
The 500 kV power line towers out behind my place are taller than that. You'd make a nice plasma arc.
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If you don't even know how to spell Maserati, I seriously doubt you own one.
Whoosh - that's the sound of a Maserati passing over your head.
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Oh you still can go fast in Germany. But I don't need fast nor comfy. The most fun is to be had with a small, unassuming, weak engined and quiet car with good pedals , sufficient feedback from the wheel and tyres that don't squeal to easily . That way you get to use skill often and safely(if you're smart) while not pissing off those who live near the corners where you push it.
Oh, and try to get one with not too much oversteer.