As much as we enjoy piloting modern machinery, there's something special about vintage vehicles, and that something is the pure, unvarnished connection between man and machine. But it's not always good. Things get dicey when the driving experience is a little too vintage. Despite our supreme adoration of the racing greats of yesteryear, clawing at the wheel, pulverizing the brake pedal, dumping buckets of sweat onto the leather seat and having our sphincter perform kegels isn't always our preferred flavor of fun. Some days, we're just not that hardcore. So the vintage vehicles we've come to love most aren't genuinely vintage at all – they're classic bodies wrapped around modern mechanicals.
The Rizk RA is a prime example, and now there's this: the Superformance GT40 MkI, a car so raw that if it were edible, they'd slap "organic" on it and sell it at Whole Foods.Superformance says it builds the GT40 so close to the original specifications that "over two thirds of the rolling chassis's parts are interchangeable with that of an original car, including the monocoque style chassis." That steel monocoque chassis is covered in a steel body, and then fitted with either a small block or big block engine, depending on customer preference.
Features tying our tester to the original are everywhere, while others variants have been upgraded to bring the standards into the new century. Seats with silver rivets make you feel like Gurney, but the specially designed air-conditioning unit up front means you don't sweat like the F1 legend. The replica also sports an aluminum crossflow radiator and oil cooler with dual electric fans, braided lines, and a shifter and handbrake moved to the center tunnel instead of the door sill. And Superformance does its tuning homework, dialing in the suspension based on the engine mounted behind your back.
The best way to describe driving a GT40 is to imagine one of those car adverts where people are suspended in air, driving a few seats and an engine, but no body. Now put those people's butts about seven millimeters off the ground and make them go really, really fast. Then add a lot of noise. That's driving a Superformance GT40... only better.
In keeping with its name, the GT40 only spans 40 inches from the ground to the roof, but it's surprisingly easy to enter (running starts at races like Le Mans meant easy ingress and egress had to be engineered). Open the door and step over the transom, then lower yourself under the large, round wheel. Doing the math, if your head is less than four feet above the ground, then your rumpus is just inches off the tarmac. When you get settled in, the seat feels like you're about to pilot a skateboard – only a little lower. Your view of the hood falls away through the windshield, with the fenders providing the sole frame of reference out front. Thankfully, they're about as far away as your calves.
Source: Autoblog Ford GT40
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment