Worst drivers are BMW drivers

In a straight line, a motorcycle is obviously faster. On a twisty road, my money's on the scooby-doo (or even a bee-emm-vee).

 

Judging by this promo, the fault appears to lie with the car and not the drivers. Are they trying to tell us that bmws are so bad that it isn't possible to drive them around a corner without loosing control

 

Depends on the driver, i've not come across one yet that was more than a straight line hero.

 

We should have some sport some time, tho you'd need to head south, to damn cold up your way.

 

Were the bikers even trying though?

I'd expect any halfway decent rider who's actually going for it to leave pretty much any car for dust in the dry on a twisty road, given the better power to weight ratio and greater agility of the bike !

I suppose you could have encountered your Sunday afternoon only rider more concerned with getting their knee down and looking flash than actually going fast, that and you could be engendered with Michael Schumacher skill levels yet somehow found medicine more enchanting a prosptect than motorsport (and given how dull F1 can get these days, a reasonable proposition I feel ).

 

will, tho I would love to agree, it is not always the case.
Try to see a video (maybe on google movies) of an R1 vs a Porsche (cant remember model), it was close but the car whoops the R1 on the corners. The car can brake later and slide easier thru the corners, it can also excelerate faster to a point becuase the bike just sticks the front end up when he puts the power on in low gears.
Obviously, it was a driver that knew the car and what he was doing.

I think it was filmed at the ring in Germany

 

Its rapid in a straight line for sure but not that fast, I got my ass handed to me by a TVR Tuscan on the outskirts of Sheffield near Dore one evening a month or so ago. This was straight line stuff.

Once we hit the corners the guy seriously backed off and I was literally pushing him to go faster. In the end he bottled and actually slowed right down and let me past. Bit of anticlimax given that the guy initiated the whole thing. Still its fun smacking down the rich folks with £50k+ cars who don't really know how to drive them and all with a lowely Subaru

So it goes to prove that a really fast car ain't everything.

As for the boy racer chaff that put stupid wheels, subs, neons or whatever other superfluous crap on their cars, well those guys or nothing but show boaters. I strongly believe in buying a car then leaving it as is, you'll notice the STi is completly stock as it left the factory, the only thing I've done is add 6 pots to give more stopping power. Want a fast car? Buy one and don't just make it look fast.

 

The car is a jap import and when I had the car registered in this country that's the registration that was given.

Private plates aren't something that interests me.

 

Agreed, any half decent superbike and good rider wipes the floor with virtually anything but a supercar and a talented driver. I don't even try with those guys, no chance at all in a straight line or on the corners. You might keep up for a short while but the distance increases.

I've often said that the only real step up from the Subaru would be a decent bike. We went to a track meet at Donnington last year and I had a go in a Ferrari F355 and was like WTF? Its a pretty lowely Ferrari but man it was fun. Really felt 'right' with the weight, steering and feedback being near perfect.

 

*snicker*

328i nail against a superbike? What shit is this guy smoking?

 

Interesting, thanks for the clarification.

Still doesn't change the fact that your 328i isn't beating a superbike though. Which is why I laughed in the first place, unless of course it suddenly has 425bhp and massively improved handling? I'm guessing the 328i has around 180-200bhp tops, weighs a couple of tons and has average road holding charateristics at best.

 

Shin,

The BMW dealer that lives behind me also brought home an Impreza that had just been traded-in. It was an STI version and had also been fitted with a "ProDrive" (??) kit. About ~300Hp.

I had a drive of it about 3 days after I had driven the Z4 M Roadster and I had to give the Z4 the edge. The Impreza was faster than the Z4, but the Z4 somehow just felt right. The way it "squatted" under acceleration in ANY gear, was addictive. The power surge in the Impreza was just too much to enjoy on a public road for a decidely average driver like me.

Definately changed my view of the higher end BMW's (wouldn't buy one though as it's a "club" I don't want to join).

 

The video doesn't really 'prove' anything, I mean look here...

http://www.radicalsportscars.com/media/fastfeud/index.php

We have a bike beating all manner of quick cars in a straight line and on track - the stock GSXR beats the Porsche GT3, Lambo and BMW M3 CSL. Only the track day oriented Radical SR3 does better, and it in turn is beaten by a race tuned bike...

In all honesty its swings and roundabouts between a supercar and bike - on a higher speed track like Thruxton things probably favour the car once it gets over 100mph, given the lack of aerodynamics of a bike. Somewhere twistier with lots of low speed turns with short straights between will see the bikers quicker acceleration pay dividends.

A BMW 328i blitzing bikes on the public road though, well to my mind its simple, the guys simply weren't trying or were crap riders, or were scared at being chased by a car (given who'd come off worse, bikers will rarely want to dice with cars) - a 328i is a good handling car but its simply not in the same league as the 911, being down on power and having a far less optimised chassis.

All IMHO of course

 

To be fair however, it seems as if in jeremy clarksons test, he took a fast road bike, and a fast car... in the second link they took a......"£24,000 Crescent-modified and fettled superbike with a full complement of pit-crew and one of the top riders in the world" and compared it to a stock porsche and lambo.

If you're going to take a fettled etc pit-crewed superbike, then perhaps a formulae 1 car would have been closer?

Please correct me if I'm wrong about the 'crescent modified blah blah..thing' it sounds like a track bike to me, but I know nothing about bikes.

 

How about lambo vs ducati..

 

They took along a standard GSXR as well...looks at the times

Fastest: Race prepped Crescent GSXR, followed by Radical SR3 tracksport (essentially a racing car). Then you have the standard GSXR bike, the 911 GT3, the Lambo Murcielago, and BMW M3 CSL. So of the 'road spec' kit, the bikes faster than all the cars!

And think about it - A BMW M3 CSL is *a lot* quicker than a 328i, hence my scepticism about the Devil being faster than any superbike!

 

Anyone that thinks a straight shoot out between a bike and a car on a track both at the same time is fair is out of their trolly quite frankly. On behalf of those of us that have actually ridden a motorcycle I'll let all the rest of you in to a little secret. Being anywhere near the same peice of road as a tonne and a half of wildly swinging metal is going to put you seriously off your riding. Self preservation (no matter how mad you are) will kick in and prevent you from actually riding as well as you might otherwise be apt to do so. Bikes and cars take completly different lines through corners etc and they are always going to get in each others way to a dangerous degree. Cars are big and wide and very hard to pass, (especially on narrow ciruits), bikes on the other hand are not. So irrespective of how Mr Jeremy "i hate motorcycles (because I'm too much of a scaredy cat to actually ride one myself)" Clarkson would like to have you believe he put up a fair test, he has done nothing more than pull the wool over your eyes and contrived a test that he knew full well the motorcycle was going to loose.

GTM

 

Absolutely.

The 328i sport is an M3 wannabe. I've driven a late 90's model M3 when I was shopping around a few years ago. Nice car but didn't have the handling of the STi and the grunt was lacking that rocket under your seat factor. The Subaru takes a bit of getting used to, especially after rear or front wheel drive cars. You almost think its going to understeer going into the corner when you lift the power but accelerate through the corner and it seems to suck back as though its on rails. Extremely stable when cornering at high speed under power and very predictable.

I guess its what you get used to. Most affordable rear wheel drives tend to feel a bit twitchy under cornering and I know I can trust the Subaru in the wet.

My only real complaint is that the balance of the car is front end heavy and the feedback about what the car is doing or about to do isn't as tactile as others, I blame the 4wd which does take a bit of the fun out of it. Because of the balance of the car its quite easy to brake and just continue on, so it understeers with heavy breaking but under power hugs the road perfectly.

Its nice to be able to really use these cars as they were meant. Track days are great fun and a real eye opener. Public roads aren't really the place to act daft because things can very quickly go very, very wrong. A bit of common sense and you can still have a little fun though.

Just returning the favour

 

The somwhat ealier M3's are nice cars.. But the new M3's are nothing more than a luxury coupe. If I was in the market for that type of car I'd take the Audi RS4 over those anyday - if I'd got the money of course.

I also agree about Devil's sceptical claims.

 

'SCM 100 SHT' anyone? Or what about '4OLO PINK'?