Click
here for more on Porsche
There have been a handful of scientific breakthroughs in the past few weeks
that I suspect may have slipped under your radar.
A couple of Dutch boffins, for instance, have developed a new kind of fabric
that could be used as a television screen. So pretty soon you’ll be able to
watch Matrix Reloaded on your tie.
Then we have the British satellite that can spot rainfall and vegetation
growth in Algeria. As a result, farmers there will be able to bring some
shock and awe to the locust breeding grounds before the insect sex even
takes place.
Or what about the vibrating shoes that have been developed in America?
Apparently these compensate for a loss of balance in the elderly and will
cut the number of falls and broken hips.
Best of all we have the 2580 service on your mobile. Dial the number, hold the
phone against a speaker and within 30 seconds, for just 9p, you’ll be sent a
text saying what the song is and who it’s by.
So now you can wave goodbye to the misery of trying to find out what it was
you heard on the radio by attempting to sing it to your friends. “You must
have heard it. It’s brilliant. It goes ner ner ner de dum dum on the beach.”
Even China is riding the techno wave. We were told this week that the sheer
weight of skyscrapers being built in Shanghai is squashing the rock on which
the city is founded. And we mustn’t forget that extraordinary dam that will
provide limitless power for everyone until the end of time, or their rocket,
which next week will keep the red flag flying in space.
Nearer to home, scientists have developed a heat-resistant plastic which
they’re using to make a light that goes on in a handbag every time it’s
opened. Wonderful. No more standing around on the doorstep for 15 minutes
while our wives rummage for the keys.
And then there’s the world of computers. Seismologists have been able to work
out just how big the tidal wave will be when Tenerife splits in half and
falls into the sea. Very, seems to be the answer.
They’ve even been able to determine why tortoises on the Galapagos Islands are
all mental. It seems there was a genetic bottleneck 100,000 years ago when a
volcano went off and only the biggest, daftest tortoises survived.
It’s astonishing. We can trace a tortoise’s family tree without trawling
through parish records and looking at gravestones. We can watch moving
pictures on our clothes of locusts “dogging”, safe in the knowledge that our
mothers have not fallen over while we weren’t looking.
And there’s so much more. We can genetically modify crops, we can measure the
smell of cheese, we can track stolen cars from space and teach our
television sets to skip the adverts. We can do anything. We are invincible.
And yet we are still being propelled from place to place by a series of
small explosions.
It doesn’t matter whether you drive a McLaren or a McDonald’s delivery van,
you are still relying on exactly the same technology that was dreamt up more
than 100 years ago.
In some ways this is a good thing, because when change is slow there’s a
chance for engineers to plane away at the rough edges, leaving you with
something close to perfection.
If there had been a completely new type of technology invented every 20 years
or so, none would have been refined to the same extent as the internal
combustion engine we have now.
And the most refined, most planed away, most astonishing engine I have ever
encountered is currently to be found sitting in the middle of Porsche’s new
Carrera GT. This is 100 years of human achievement crammed into three cubic
feet of titanium, magnesium, aluminium and raw, unadulterated, visceral,
screaming power.
You’re told, before you set off, that in no circumstances should you apply any
throttle at all while engaging the clutch. The mountain of torque,
apparently, would catapult you and your £320,000 hypercar into the nearest
piece of foliage.
The Porsche engineers talk about the clutch pedal as though it’s the trigger
for a nuclear bomb. It may as well be.
The engine started out as a 5.5 litre V10 that was all set to be used in the
back of a racing car at Le Mans. But a last-minute rule change favoured
smaller turbo units so the programme was scrapped.
"The Porsche feels finished...the right blend of luxury, style and weight
saving"
Nearly. In fact Porsche’s racing division handed over its stillborn engine to
the road-car people, who had to worry about emission regulations. That meant
adding a third piston ring, which meant fitting longer pistons, which took
the engine up from 5.5 to 5.7 litres.
But the ceramic clutch remained. The Skunkwork stealth materials remained. The
racing power remained too, all 612 brake horses of it. And you should hear
the noise this thing makes. It’s like driving around with the bastard love
child of Jaws and Beelzebub in the boot.
Strangely, though, it’s not the engine that impresses most of all about the
Carrera GT. It’s the weight. Unlike any other road car ever made, all of it
— the body, the tub, even the support struts for that monster V10 — are made
from stuff that sure as hell wasn’t in the periodic table last time I
looked.
The result is an extraordinary lightness. The targa-style roof, for instance,
lifts out in two panels, each of which is light enough to be carried away by
a strong ant. The seats weigh less than a bag of sugar. This car is so light
I would be loath to leave it parked in a high wind. Certainly, you’d feel
guilty driving it after a big lunch.
The result is simple. Mix an anorexic body with a heart made of pure fire and
you are going to go with a savagery that’s hard to explain.
I’ve been in some pretty fast machinery over the years, but nothing prepared
me for the neck-snapping, spleen-bursting, hammer blow explosion of power
that came the first time I floored the Carrera’s throttle.
I was on an arrow-straight forest road in eastern Germany and it was like I
was caught up in a Dr Who special effect. 0 to 60 was dealt with in 3.9
seconds. 0 to 100 took eight and then it really started to fly. Even at 175
there was no let-up, no sense that the engine was having to fight the
headwind. There was just more power, more acceleration, more speed and more
of that amazing noise.
What made the experience even more bizarre was the way the engine lost its
revs between gearchanges. Because the ceramic clutch is so light, there’s
nothing for it to fight. You just get that wawawawa, like you do from a
Formula One engine.
Now we have seen this kind of blood and guts stuff before, from Ferrari and
McLaren and even some of the new boys like Pagani and Koenigsegg. But the
Porsche feels different than any of them.
It feels finished. The quality of the body is as good as you’d expect from a
Toyota Corolla and inside there’s exactly the right blend of luxury, style
and weight saving. Ferrari just tends to nail a speedo to the dash and leave
it at that. Pagani uses too much chintz. The Carrera is perfect.
And there is no doubt that from any angle it is utterly beautiful. I had a
long discussion recently with a friend about the difference between art and
design. And without wishing to sound like Alan Yentob, the Carrera seems to
sit at a point where the two disciplines meet.
It looks like the result of a liaison between Henry Moore and Isambard Brunel.
It is engineering at its artsy-fartsy best.
The next time a car comes along that is better than this, it will be using a
completely different technology. Because when you’re limited to what we have
now, this, quite simply, is as good as it gets.
VITAL STATISTICS
Model: Porsche Carrera GT
Engine type: V10, 5733cc
Power: 612bhp @ 8000rpm
Torque: 435 lb ft @ 5750rpm
Transmission: Six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Suspension: (front and rear) Double wishbones, pushrod links,
coil springs with horizontal gas dampers
Weight: 1,380kg
Dimensions: Tyres (front) 265/35 ZR 19 (rear) 335/30 ZR 20
Fuel/C02: 15.9mpg (combined)/429g/km
Top speed: 205mph
Acceleration: 0 to 62mph: 3.9sec
Price: £330,000
Verdict: As good as it gets
Rating:
