Before building this car, I had never really had anything fancy so I wasn't quite prepared for the experience of driving something like this. Our fake plastic Cobra is not a supercar like a McLaren or a Ferrari but good heavens it gets a lot of attention. You certainly cannot just nip inconspicuously to the shops. Literally everyone is watching you, and having no roof you are very very obvious, but don't worry, most people are looking at the car, not at the berk behind the wheel. I think its because its so very different to everything else on the road and is such a distinctive shape it just can't help get people's attention, and of course you can hear the car coming a mile away. I'm not kidding either, family and friends I have visited have told me they can hear the car a good 5 minutes before I pull up on the drive.
I have yet to park up anywhere without getting some reaction, a comment, request for a photo, or just a nod and a thumbs up. Even when pulling onto my own drive I thought I was safe but someone walking their dog stopped to ask questions. Stop at a petrol station and you may as well open the bonnet as a matter of course as someone is bound to come over and ask questions.
Driving this car, you give up your privacy. The car is a spectacle for the amusement of everyone else. People take photos and video of the car everywhere. I've driven down the road and seen phones surreptitiously flash up against the window of a passing car for a quick snap, and I've also had people fully leaning out of the window with an iPad filming us cruising along. I've been out for a drive and breakfast at a cafe, came back to the car and two young lads are sat down next to the car waiting for us to return just to hear it start up.
One of my favourite things is driving along the motorway and as you pass other cars their windows crack open to listen 😊
First Impressions
Everything about the car is so far removed from what your used to with refined modern cars. Even before starting the engine things are a bit strange. I don't bother using the doors, I sit on the rear deck, swing my legs over the door and drop/slide in. Next its the 4 point harness. That's a faff for new passengers I can tell you, but it add's to the general theatre of the whole thing.
Now turn the key one click. The fuel pump comes on, a low pitched buzzing which is probably louder in itself than a lot of modern petrol cars. 3 years on the road and I still get nervous about actually starting the car. One pump on the throttle then hold it about a quarter open, then turn the key. It normally starts on the first rotation of the engine, unless the air temperature is very low and it might take an extra pump. It goes without saying that it is very very loud. It sets off alarms of parked cars. Due to the hot cam it sounds downright dirty at low revs. At idle it sounds like its on the constant verge of stalling. The engine thumping away makes the whole car shake visibly at low revs.
I removed the choke from my carburettor so the engine needs tickling for the first few minutes to keep it alive. It's best just to set off and start driving as that warms it up a lot faster than just sat stationary. Within 2-3 minutes it will idle with no help from the driver but the water temperature gauge will need another 10 minutes before that starts moving. The oil temp gauge will need another 5 minutes on top of that before that even thinks about moving.
So... the car is running, its up to temperature. You've mentally adjusted to driving the car, got back into the habit of constantly scanning the temp and pressure gauges. Everything feels good so lets have some fun....
Acceleration
Obviously with over 400bhp in a sub 1200kg car (that's sub 2600lbs) it's going to be fairly entertaining. 0-60 is somewhere between 4 and 4.5 seconds. I've never had a car as fast as this before and it turns out its actually quite hard to launch the car at its maximum. The wheels spin so easily its ridiculous, in 1st, 2nd, often 3rd gear and sometimes 4th gear if its cold and/or damp. Even with the 285 section rear tyres its just laughable. 1st gear is all about trying not to spin the wheels too much, you don't need much throttle to get a good sharp start but you have to be patient. There's so little weight over the rear wheels that Cobra's tend to get pretty disappointing 60ft times at the drag strip. Going for 2nd gear is where I find things get trickier, its so easy just to get another massive lump of wheelspin and lose a lot of momentum. You have to be brave but still quite delicate to try and sit on the edge of traction. That said, even if you fluff it up and just get a load of noise and tyre smoke, simply by being light and powerful its still fast, so no worries at losing traffic light grand prix by being clumsy with the launch.
I have yet to park up anywhere without getting some reaction, a comment, request for a photo, or just a nod and a thumbs up. Even when pulling onto my own drive I thought I was safe but someone walking their dog stopped to ask questions. Stop at a petrol station and you may as well open the bonnet as a matter of course as someone is bound to come over and ask questions.
Driving this car, you give up your privacy. The car is a spectacle for the amusement of everyone else. People take photos and video of the car everywhere. I've driven down the road and seen phones surreptitiously flash up against the window of a passing car for a quick snap, and I've also had people fully leaning out of the window with an iPad filming us cruising along. I've been out for a drive and breakfast at a cafe, came back to the car and two young lads are sat down next to the car waiting for us to return just to hear it start up.
One of my favourite things is driving along the motorway and as you pass other cars their windows crack open to listen 😊
First Impressions
Everything about the car is so far removed from what your used to with refined modern cars. Even before starting the engine things are a bit strange. I don't bother using the doors, I sit on the rear deck, swing my legs over the door and drop/slide in. Next its the 4 point harness. That's a faff for new passengers I can tell you, but it add's to the general theatre of the whole thing.
Now turn the key one click. The fuel pump comes on, a low pitched buzzing which is probably louder in itself than a lot of modern petrol cars. 3 years on the road and I still get nervous about actually starting the car. One pump on the throttle then hold it about a quarter open, then turn the key. It normally starts on the first rotation of the engine, unless the air temperature is very low and it might take an extra pump. It goes without saying that it is very very loud. It sets off alarms of parked cars. Due to the hot cam it sounds downright dirty at low revs. At idle it sounds like its on the constant verge of stalling. The engine thumping away makes the whole car shake visibly at low revs.
I removed the choke from my carburettor so the engine needs tickling for the first few minutes to keep it alive. It's best just to set off and start driving as that warms it up a lot faster than just sat stationary. Within 2-3 minutes it will idle with no help from the driver but the water temperature gauge will need another 10 minutes before that starts moving. The oil temp gauge will need another 5 minutes on top of that before that even thinks about moving.
So... the car is running, its up to temperature. You've mentally adjusted to driving the car, got back into the habit of constantly scanning the temp and pressure gauges. Everything feels good so lets have some fun....
Acceleration
Obviously with over 400bhp in a sub 1200kg car (that's sub 2600lbs) it's going to be fairly entertaining. 0-60 is somewhere between 4 and 4.5 seconds. I've never had a car as fast as this before and it turns out its actually quite hard to launch the car at its maximum. The wheels spin so easily its ridiculous, in 1st, 2nd, often 3rd gear and sometimes 4th gear if its cold and/or damp. Even with the 285 section rear tyres its just laughable. 1st gear is all about trying not to spin the wheels too much, you don't need much throttle to get a good sharp start but you have to be patient. There's so little weight over the rear wheels that Cobra's tend to get pretty disappointing 60ft times at the drag strip. Going for 2nd gear is where I find things get trickier, its so easy just to get another massive lump of wheelspin and lose a lot of momentum. You have to be brave but still quite delicate to try and sit on the edge of traction. That said, even if you fluff it up and just get a load of noise and tyre smoke, simply by being light and powerful its still fast, so no worries at losing traffic light grand prix by being clumsy with the launch.
Unless its a particularly hot day and you're on nice fresh
grippy tarmac, you can't fully nail the throttle until you get to 3rd gear and
even then the car often gives a little bit of a wiggle but now your really
moving and the wind noise starts to add to the roar of the engine. 4th gear and
its beginning to get silly now, the speedo is in 3 figures and the acceleration
is showing no signs of letting up. Only when you go for 5th at about 130mph
does the terrible aero start to blunt the performance a little bit, and then
you notice the top of the windscreen starts to get lower and lower as it bends
backwards..... Lift off and coast back to sensible speeds and breathe a sigh of
relief. Wow, the fuel gauge has moved a whole needle width!
Cruising
Now driving a little more calmly, initially I thought that
it was geared too low for cruising. 70mph is approximately 2400rpm which sounds
high for a big V8 however due to the hot cam, single plane intake and large cfm
carburettor, this actually works out ok as it means the engine is just on cam
when cruising. Comp cams state the operating RPM of the XE284H cam is 2300 -
6500rpm but it will tolerate dropping down to 1800rpm (just under 50mph) in 5th
gear and pulling cleanly without lugging but I only do this at part throttle,
for example cruising 60mph, need to gain a bit of speed to overtake a lorry (50-70mph) on the motorway but do it smartly so you don't bother the executive german parade in the outside lane. For
proper overtakes on a normal road obviously I'd be in 4th or 3rd for maximum
shove.
If the engine spec was a little softer with a milder cam, lower CFM carb and dual plane intake then chugging around at 1500rpm would be fine, but not on this fairly racy engine. I don't think that would suit the character of the car anyway.
On the overrun, slowing with no or partial throttle the engine makes all sorts of pops, bangs and general chuntering as if its highly annoyed at having to slow down.
Handling
I've not driven the car on track and I'm just a normal human
being so I can't tell you in too much detail about every tiny nuance of the car
on the limit. You do notice the heavy steering below about 25mph but once you
get moving on the open road it lightens up nicely. Being un-powered the
steering remains direct and you feel connected to the wheels, not all floaty
and woolly like a lot of modern power steering ends up feeling like.
Even though the car is light at under 1200kg, you really can feel the
stubborn inertia of that massive lump of iron spinning away just roughly where
your knees are when you initially turn into a corner. Even with my completely
mediocre driving skill I can feel the car initially resists when you tell it to
change direction but then once your in the turn it settles down and the wide
tyres mean the cornering speed is very good if you are brave enough. I've
become more confident over time with cornering and it will tolerate a surprising
amount of throttle before the rear starts to break free on corner exit, mainly
due to the De Dion beam rear end. It probably gives up a little in ultimate
cornering performance compared to a more conventional double wishbone IRS setup
but for a fairly inexperienced average person like me its not snappy and breaks
free quite gently so you have half a chance to react.
Obviously if you mash the throttle like a loon then all this goes out the
window but it's more forgiving than I expected it to be.
The servo'd brakes just feel like any other production car, probably because they are from a production car. I'm running standard OEM Jag road compound pads so they're not grabby or
squeaky. I didn't build the car for the track so although I'm obviously giving
up some braking performance compared to more exotic setups its completely
acceptable for what I use the car for but having no ABS is always at the back
of your mind. On bumpy roads braking hard all that weight shifts to the front
and the rear end can become quite skippy and moves around a lot. The fact that
you are sat so far back in the car adds to the sensation of the rear end
swinging around on heavy braking. It's also very very easy to lock the rears
with a clumsy downshift when braking hard, I learned that lesson quite quickly.
No comments:
Post a Comment