Spirtual Successors

Bruce · 11-10-2006, 11:59 AM

I was thinking about vehicles and their successors and a few specific vehicles struck me as spiritual successors.

I apologize for any spelling or sentence errors, didn't have time to look it over

The first pair being the Pagani Zonda and the Ferrari F40

The spirtual similarties between these two vehicles are obvious in my opinion. Starting with the exteriors, now obviously the two vehicles are not identical but they share some common shapes and features.

For instance, both have wide, blocky rear end, with an engine air grill made from mesh and lastly both have spoiler at the rear. From a side profile we can see both vehicles have long rear's and short, edged fronts. I've attached a few pictures to show you want i mean

Aside from this both vehicles share the concept of being light. The F40, as with the Zonda are both lighter than their competition, for instance, when the F40 came out in 1989 it weighed 1254kg fully loaded, for comparsion the 959 weighed 1566kg, it's the same story for the Zonda today, the Zonda F weighs 1371kg fully loaded, which compared to it's competition is quite frankly light, for comparsion the Carrera GT weighs 1471kg fully loaded. They both appear to both have the same concept: tons of power propelling through the rear wheels. Hell AutoCar compared the two saying how similar they are.

Of course the Mercedes Sauber Group C racers should be mentioned

The second one i wanted to bring up is the Carrera GT & the F50, in fact i think i've even got a stronger point here

Now when the F50 came out in 1995 it was a technological feat, as was the Carrera GT when it was released. The F50's engine, like the Carrera GT's was based off a racing engine, in fact the F50's engine's came from Ferrari's 333SP. Same story for the Carrera GT, the V10 was borrowed from an abandoned racing project. For the F50, Ferrari decided to get that engine and make it legal for the road, so among other things they increased the displacment figure to 4.7 litres for a more usable, road worthy engine. The F50 was pretty much a first of it's time, combining both racing and road in one package. Porsche also did the same thing, they got the V10 and increased the displacement for a more road worthy engine and like the F50, the Carrera GT's V10 uses smaller displacement than it's competition. When the F50 came out it's 4.7 litre of displacement was bigger than the Bugatti EB110 (3.5 litres) but it was far behind the McLaren F1's V12 with 6.1 litres. It's the same story today, Porsche has gone with a conservative displacement figure of just 5.7, for comparsion the Ferrari Enzo has 6.0 litres, the Murcielago LP640 has 6.5 litres and the Zonda has 7.3 litres.

The actual engine set up of the two is even more incredibly similar, for instance both have a redline of over 8,000 (8,400 for the Carrera GT and 8,500 for the F50) Both vehicles have a torque figure which arrives in at around 6,000 rpm (5,750 for the Carrera GT, 6,000 for the F50) and both engine's, now and then have less torque than their competition. The F50 had 471 Nm of torque (347lb-ft), which compared to the Bugatti EB110 which boasted 611 Nm (451lb-ft) of torque and the McLaren F1 had which 650Nm of torque (479lb-ft) Same story with the Carrera Today, the Porsche boasts 590 Nm of torque (435lb-ft), for comparsion the Enzo has 660Nm (484lb-ft) and the Zonda F has 760 Nm of torque (561lb-ft). The F50 and the Carrera GT also share a key feature, they both have their transmission's bolted to the rear subframe.

Aside from the technical similarties i think it's obvious that both vehicles have targa style removable roofs

Anyways that's just my opinion, i'd like to hear what you guys have to say, agree? Disagree? Have a pair which you think is Spiritual successors too?