Damn you global warming!
Sports cars are so much fun.
Someone, who I have not been able to track down, said "A gentleman's hobbies must be at least one of expensive, dangerous, or loud."
Sports cars/bikes are all three.
1: I dunno, I imagine I'd have a good time driving a Tesla around. It's possible to be every bit as stupid with electricity and corn oil as it is with petroleum. People just haven't figured out how to do it with the same level of expertise Ferrari brings to the game. It'll happen.
I toured Left Coast Conversions about a year ago, when they were working on (among other things) a triumph conversion (pictured on the front page) and a chopped '48 Olds conversion for Tommy Chong, and man, those things looked fun as shit. Endless, shift-free burnouts with no sound but the tire squeal and the sound of the stereo? Awesome.
That review is not at all exaggerating. The rapid reports of Formula 1 transmissions can be very disconcerting, even among the heavy noise of the engines generally, and even throught the earplugs that one had better wear. Best heard at, say, the latter part of a hairpin turn.
As for "expensive, dangerous, or loud," it's easy to get so comfortable with "expensive" that invoices that shock your friends and family seem ordinary, and sooner or later what is "dangerous" becomes fun, too, or you wouldn't keep doing it, but hobbies that are "loud" are just crude.
You can certainly make grilling dangerous if you work at it.
You certainly can. And expensive, depending on what and how you grill.
4: Loud pipes close trails, it's true. But given remote areas and suitable values of "loud", I think it still holds.
3: You're definitely right. The day of the electric sports car is coming. Maximum torque even at idle. The whiplash will be spine threatening.
That never got old, frankly.
Nether does hitting the steep part of the power curve on a big bike. Some amusement park rides can sort of get that sensation right but having it available at a toe tap and twist of the wrist is awesome.
As for loud, I think it' covetted because for the most part loud = power. When electric motors finally begin to outperform internal combustion engines, silence will become the new signifier of cutting-edge.
Oh I dunno, loudness in and off itself can be pretty satisfying, if deployed close enough to the middle of nowhere as to not be totally antisocial.
I don't know if electric motors will ever outperform internal combustion engines, if only due to the higher energy available when you don't mix your fuel and oxidizer until the point of energy release and the ability to reject a lot of waste heat out the exhaust pipe.
Loud noises raise one's adrenaline level.
There's a lot of efficiencies still to be had in electrically powered cars, and hybrid powertrains (which would easily be run on biofuels) open up a whole new world of ways to manage power delivery. There's already diesel supercars. Somebody should convert one of those to run on fry grease.
The other thing, outside of strict power to weight considerations, electric motors are a lot more flexible as far as where they can go, which lets you get rid of a lot of power train inefficiencies.
I think once high-end automotive engineers start really putting their minds to how to harness this technology, you'll start seeing some shockingly rad things.
I will point out this, built by high school students.
being anti0social is also related to dangerousness and funness.
Somebody should make an electric car which has an intentional arc in the 50kv line. The "scary amounts of electricity ionizing air" noise is every bit as exciting as the "barely contained series of explosions" noise, in my experience.
Motorcycles and sports cars rock.
There is no more substance to this comment.
But it looks like the link in 15 points to an idea for a car, not something that actually exists. And 9 also understates things a bit. If you whack open the throttle on a late-model literbike in third gear at 50 mph, it gives a pretty convincing imitation of the Millenium Falcon scenery-moving-by-you effect.
Loud noises raise one's adrenaline level.
No need to be demure. Just say it: banging excites you.
21: Actually loud noises evoke the "fight" part of the fight and flight response for me, personally. Hate them.
A bit more detail on the Hybrid Attack.
23: ditto, unless I'm expecting them. Then they're awesome.
The Hybrid Attack is cool. So is a breathed-on Caterham Seven.
Those are lovely. Believe me, I don't mean to imply that badasss internal combustion vehicles aren't badass. Just that there's increasingly a (somewhat) guilt-free way to be wildly transautonormative.
But given remote areas and suitable values of "loud", I think it still holds.
Or a racetrack. The sound of a 450 single (stuffed into a TZ125 frame, natch) at full throttle cannot be beat.
It turns out that Clijsters' straddle is one of her great strengths. Almost no other women's tennis players can do that. (If Wiki can be trusted.)
Also, very dramatic looking.
'Scuse me is this an appropriate place to narrate Independence Day festivities or ought I to get my own blog?
I knew there would be an 'awsome' or two in this thread......
Somebody should make an electric car which has an intentional arc in the 50kv line. The "scary amounts of electricity ionizing air" noise is every bit as exciting as the "barely contained series of explosions" noise, in my experience.
Open-wheel design, like a Formula One bolide, so everyone can see those hub-drive electric motors's nasty great air-cooling fins.
And the casing of the Li-Ion batteries (or hell, why not ultracapacitors?) should be visible from outside the car...and certainly, there should be somewhere where you can see SPARKS. Big blue fuckers.
After all, electric trains can be pretty damn cool - the TGV doesn't roar, it screams, riding sort of slightly drunkenly over the terrain, sparks flying from the pantograph.
I don't know if electric motors will ever outperform internal combustion engines
Even the "diesel" locomotives that power freight trains in North America are actually "diesel-electric" engines, where the internal combustion engine only serves to generate electricity to drive a traction motor. Above certain levels of torque, an internal combustion engine becomes useless for driving wheels, because the transmission cannot withstand the power of the engine. Hence, the use of electric power for really fast locomotion.
