Regular Hot/sports Versions Of Everyday Cars Fall Apart On The Track

[arbell9]

Just been reading some of the Clarkson car reviews on the timesonline web site, particularly looking at reviews of cars with similar power to my GT3 (ie in the 210-260bhp range) and came across this admission from Clarkson. Read on, but to preface he basically states that all the cars that get thrashed round the Top Gear track breakdown and that this isnt surprising as they are built for everyday road driving. This all begs the question of why people buy hot hatches etc (even when they dont have kids) rather than used but low mileage bona fida sports cars?

"Clarkson......

Over the past few weeks I

[USAndretti42]

But I bet the only one that would have been mentioned in the programme would have been a Lotus.

I'm not suprised about what he says, though. A guy at work tried to do doughnuts in his Honda S2000. Blew up the clutch instead.

[ajax317]

To be fair there are a lot of variables. What Top Gear do would break a tank. The cars we use for public / corporate days at Caterham are standard and get abused something chronic, "not my car" syndrome, but that's what we're there for. That said they very rarely break, we only do about 2 clutches on each per year and maybe 1 head gasket (k-series ), everything else is routine oil changes etc. Their mileage is about 8k miles a year and we do slaloms (with donuts), drifting and circuit stuff.

It all depends how you drive, personally in one day I did 23 laps of the Nurburgring in a standard routinely serviced 91k mile Clio Williams and drove home again without any problems. Others break them going to the shops. It's not all down to the individual car, just like some Esprit owners never have any of the major problems. For example, how many people sit at lights with the clutch down for minutes on end? From experience this will help prematurely knacker a weak release bearing sure as anything.

I think people get hot hatches and the like because they can still absorb the punishment the average driver dishes out better than most low-mileage sportscars could and the repair costs are probably going to be less. It's also image and reputation, a Lotus will always break before a BMW - or will it? Most won't take the trouble to find out.

It's just my opinion again gained from long experience, but with modern cars pushing the limits for headline power outputs the average driver has no idea how to treat a car approaching 100bhp/litre or over. I do think this is largely why cars are seen as more fragile these days, always remember: with great power comes great responsibility (sorry ). I also don't think anyone should be put off tracking anything, including Esprits (mine's going out on Tuesday ). It's a good idea to take instruction, not only will it keep me in a job, it'll make you quicker and safer and save wear on the car on and off the track.

[gixxer]

I'm not surprised.

A long while back while doing corner duty at the racetrack, the local autocross club came out for an exibition race.

The failures went something like this-

*Brakes failed first.

*Tires second.

*Then cooling system/head gasket.

Racetracks are brutal on cars.