ROUND 2-1: PROUD TO BE LOUD
Great Lakes Dragaway, September 24, 4 PM
Rob: You know, I still don’t get why you were so dead set on getting here early. Isn’t 4 PM pretty much drag racing amateur hour?
John: That’s the point! Weirdos with bought cars and not much to do show up and post shitty times. We may actually find something that fits in the puddle of parsimony you call a budget. Come 7 o’clock, you’re gonna see all the pro geezers come down in their blown, eight-packed, big-blocked relics that money can’t and won’t buy, and we’ll learn nothing. I mean, I still suggest we stay, it’s a hell of a show.
Rob: Alright, you’ve made your point. Damn, look at that, they’re lining up a shopping cart against a barge!
John: Well, “amateur hour” is right. The barge there is a personal luxury thing called a Fenrir. It’s in your budget, by the way.
Rob: It’s pretty. So, what’s the catch that lets “luxury” pass for 14 grand nowadays?
John: No real go-fast stuff. It’s got a V8 of some sort, but most of them don’t come with a diff worth a damn - so expect a one-tire fire when they take off.
Rob: I bet the shopping cart’s even worse on that front.
John: See, you say that… But that Bravura LC is one mean rat. Sure it’s only got a 4-pot, but it’s also got one of them fancy torque-sensor diffs, and it weighs at least 1000 pounds less than the Fenrir. I hate to rag on a V8, but five bucks says the shopping cart wins.
Rob: You’re on. That thing looks absolutely pathetic.
The two set off, and John’s predictions come true one by one: the Aurgelmir spins a wheel and ends up losing by over half a second - and the Bravura is still pulling away at the finish line.
Rob: God dammit, the barge just cost me lunch. That means I can’t have it. And I can’t have the shopping cart either, because it still looks pathetic.
(The Aurgelmir is a very well-built car, and actually ranks higher than the faster Bravura due to its combination of style, luxury and quality - however, it’s let down thoroughly by its inability to score in either the straight-line or handling sections of judging. It’s fastish and the handling is okay, and neither of those is enough. If the thing had just used a manual and a good diff, it could well have been finals-worthy.
The Globus Bravura won’t get such high praise for a very simple reason: It does a lot to not get very far. It has a premium interior - but its tiny exterior means it’s still not comfortable. It has advanced safety measures, strange to see in this class - which Rob doesn’t care about. It has the most expensive diff available - but uses medium tires and isn’t tuned hard enough to actually corner very well. The reason it’s in this section of reviews is because it’s where I put all the cars which scored better on straight-line performance than they did on handling, and the Globus does so by not handling that well rather than by actually being fast. It is pretty fast for a car of this era and certainly for a four-pot front-drive coupe, though, I’ll give it that.)
Manda Tuono Z @RAZR; Zephorus 305 @Riley
Rob: That’s a wicked-looking modded hatchback in the left lane.
John: I don’t blame you for thinking that, but it’s actually a factory build. It’s a Zephorus - rear wheel drive, and it’s got a custom small block 305 under the hood. And four on the floor.
Rob: Four? Did they just build it to be a dragster or something?
John: I mean, wouldn’t but it past them. Zephorus do weird shit at times. Wanna know something funny, though? That Manda Tuono coupe going up against it is even more out there, and more powerful. It’s a turbo five-banger, 265 horsepower on tap.
Rob: Oh, a turbo. That should be fun.
The Zephorus rockets off the starting line; the Manda… bogs, letting time slip away until the turbo mercifully spools up and enables the car to accelerate. Despite its superior power and lower weight, the turbo coupe fails to make up its bad start, coming up just short of the weird Italian car.
Rob: Well, that just happened.
John: See, that’s the problem with turbos. If you don’t dump the clutch and spin your tires like a madman, you might as well not start at all. I’d think the boost in that car comes around 1000-1500 rpms too high to make it really count. And yeah, seems like that Zephorus was made for draggin’, alright.
Rob: Yep. You know, I’d even consider that thing, if not for how ridiculously blown-up it looks - that, and the rust patch on the left rocker. Thing’s supposed to be new or something.
(The Manda Tuono is just not a very well-made car. It looks fine, evoking an aero styling direction perhaps fit for something slightly newer; it’s in the driving that it falters. First off, as the review says, it is boggy: With a hugely laggy turbo that’s something like a whole inch too large, plus a high cam setting, it provides hardly any acceleration in first gear - thus its 0-60 and quarter mile suffer severely. Despite being the second-most powerful car left in Round 2, it’s only the 8th fastest in the quarter. And in addition, it’s among the least comfortable cars - and the least reliable in this round.
The Zephorus 305 is a better-engineered machine, but still flawed - and hardly realistic. Here we have a liftback hatch with a 305 shoehorned into it - with ITBs on top, to boot. I looked at that and was all: what’s wrong with a 350 with a less complicated throttle setup? It’d be cheaper. That aside: 4 gears, an ungalvy’d chassis, a soft and unsporty suspension, no economy, a maxed price point - all contribute to its chopping-down. And then there’s the looks: striking, to a point, but the front is seriously uninspired. As an aside, this is the most straight-line-focused car left in the challenge when it comes to the scoring.)
Rob: Ooh, now this is a lot more like it. Those are both proper muscle, right?
John: Just about. Both have fuel-injected pushrod V8s with more than 5 liters of go, both with five on the floor. Lotta power thrown around.
Rob: The one in the right lane’s all Tron-looking, and the T-tops are neat; but the color’s a no. Then there’s the Mercer on the left, can’t go wrong with that. It’s all aero but still as mean and stubby as ever.
John: I know the dirt on the both of these cars, and they’re verrrry evenly matched. The Condor is the lighter of the two, and supposedly a bit more simple to handle. The Mercer recently got actual, proper injection, though, whereas the Condor is stuck with a single-pointer. Eats like one, too - though on the plus side, it’s got an independent rear end.
The two muscle cars blast off, and one would be forgiven for thinking they’re all synced up as they go down to the end. Each shift is a change in leadership, with the car that’s shifted having to make up time. By the end, it’s the Mercer that ends up around 50ms ahead.
Rob: Damn, now that’s what I call a performance!And just look at ol’ Johnny-boy, predicting the dead heat like that.
John: Well, it only made sense. There’s your choice of classic pony car: The one that’s slightly more sound - that’s the Mercer - and the one that leans into the muscle schtick a little harder.
Rob: Well, the Mercer did just win, so I think we have an answer here.
(I was very pleasantly surprised by the Condor’s strong showing here. Properly tuned - if low-revving - engine, mostly wise techpool and parts allocation, the works. It sits right at the cusp of finals-worthy cars. Its greatest failure is the existence of the Mercer - a machine that fills the exact same niche but does so a little bit better, which I will elaborate on a bit later. That aside, a smattering of minor issues bring down the Condor’s impression as a quality build: an overdamped rear end, zero attempts to mind the fuel economy, and a wall of negative quality on basically every component seen as less than crucial - meaning the car ends up with a -5q top end, and -2q on aero - which is how the Mercer eventually (literally and figuratively) pulls away from it.
Then there’s the Mercer, which is a Mustang. Let’s face it. That said, it’s a pretty one, and pretty fast as well, with the 5.2 V8 out-punching the Condor’s due to a higher rev limit and MPFI. It’s decently well-tuned and ultimately beats out the Condor in handling, thought it pays with worse drivability. If I were to level complaints against it, I’d note the half-assed rear bumper - and also the gearbox, which is close-ratio with a short final drive. Within this challenge’s framework, that means it’s both slower than it could be and doesn’t get as much fuel economy as it could, even of the port injection does mean it’s an improvement on the Condor nonetheless. People, fear not raising the redline up a bit to get more out of your gearing, I beg of you. Either way, this car makes it to the finals.)
Rob: Man, there’s been nothing interesting since the Mercer and Condor. Buncha ricers and nothing else. This next one looks like an actual sportscar, and… what on Earth is that!?
John: I knew you’d ask. That there is a Nightslayer… Edgy, right? But it’s also probably the fastest thing here that still has a warranty. I don’t know what possessed Norðwagen to stroke a small-block V8 out to 407ci and stuff it in a stripped out 2-seater coupe, but… that’s what they did. It’s been the ready-made dragster of choice for anybody who doesn’t want to customize a car for themselves.
Rob: Could I afford this thing? It looks way too gaudy. It’s like somebody tried to make a car for Ozzy Osbourne.
John: Well, they made it out of whatever they had on hand. You could probably spec one right at 14 grand. Iron heads, stick axle - though apparently the leather gets optioned for cheap.
Rob: How about that other car?
John: It’s a Matsumoto of some sort. Probably pretty fast, but I don’t know much about them so I don’t know what to expect from it.
The two cars set off, scurrying off the line quicker than anything else that day. Astonishingly, though, the unassuming green Japanese coupe seems the quicker off the line. And while the loud-and-proud Nightslayer begins to gain towards the end of the straight, the Matsumoto is still ahead as both cross the line. The times are both in the 13-second range - for context, the last 2 runs were low-to-mid 14s, and the ‘amateur’ faceoff between the Fenrir and Bravura was in the 15s.
John: Well, I definitely didn’t expect that. Was the guy in the Nightslayer short-shifting?
Rob: Nah, I heard a rev bang, too. I think it’s just capped too early. And those gears were long, too! Dude was still in third when they crossed.
John: Still, you gotta appreciate the way that Matsumoto thing flew. They actually have a pretty strong rep for livability and handling, too.
Rob: Yep… Definitely something to check out.
John: And the Nightslayer?
Rob: Nah, I don’t think so. It does look pretty cool, but it seems to be a total toy. And, I mean, is there anything less satisfying that an engine that doesn’t let you rag it out?
(The Matsumoto Judan is… Well, to put it simply, the fastest car left in Round 2. Light enough that the 230hp boxer-6 doesn’t run out of juice before its job is done, it’s also got one of the best handling scores in the power-car category - beaten only by the do-it-all Mercer and its vanquished rival here, the Nightslayer. It also comes with good reliability and costs, being fairly efficient, cheaper to service than most other cars in the power category, and having a whole 100 dollars of budget left over. A finals-worthy deal, even if the looks aren’t that striking.
The Nightslayer is the second-highest performer here overall, and fifth-highest in Round 2 including the handling-type cars. It looks very cool, if not at all realistically 80s, and I personally think credit is due for converting the C4 body into this low-slung musclebeast. However, even setting aside the realism concerns of a $14,000 solid-axle car with a 407ci truck engine under the hood, certain things keep it down. The price is the maximum permitted, the environmental resistance is very so-so, the service costs are relatively tall, it’s difficult to drive - and wagonbacked though it may be, it’s still a 2-seater, hurting practicality. Finally, there’s the engine - which is ridiculously undersquare for a V8 in a performance car, forcing an unenviable 5000 RPM redline with its cast components - which, in combination with the tall and wide gearing, leads to the rev-bang-shortshift that the characters were talking about. It might be an admirable effort and a great feat of modeling, but its journey ends here.)
John: I’ll be honest, if I had the money I’d buy something like that and then put a forged bottom end in - and a new cam. Just imagine that engine if it could get up to 6500 RPM or thereabouts… The road not taken.
Rob: Still, this is pretty productive. I already have two candidates to think about.
*The duo stayed at the Dragaway until late, watching the geezers that John forecasted run 10-second times in their ludicrous tricked-out ride. It was a wicked sight - and a deafening sound that Rob would, as it turns out, spend years trying to replicate with his throat.
FINALISTS FROM ROUND 2-1:
@LS_Swapped_Rx-7
@TanksAreTryhards
