The chances are you have already heard about the ‘Saturday Club’, a band of enthusiastic engineers who designed the stunning Jaguar XJ220 in their own time just because they had a burning desire to make their dream into a reality. But what happened after the concept was unveiled and why did the V12 get dropped […]
XJ220: A Hidden Story Read More »
I was testing a compact SUV the other day, it’s spec sheet fits in nicely with the current competition; about 240bhp in a 1400kg car, 4WD and 0-60 in the region of 7.9s. Although this may not be earth shattering performance by modern standards it set me thinking, about two decades ago I was working
How Much Power Does a Sports Car Need? Read More »
Brakes are all about heat, and ditching as much of it as quickly as possible, they work by converting the cars speed energy into heat energy which is then taken swiftly away in the air streaming through them, in theory. But a big car at high speed has an awful lot of energy; for instance
Technology is fundamentally changing journalism and will ‘kill off’ the traditional idea of a journalist, or so I’m told. If you think about it the traditional model of journalism has a very few journalists talking to the many readers much like the Queen addressing the nation, but with more queens. This may be because the
The Future of Journalism Read More »
You may be surprised to hear that there is not always perfect harmony between so called ‘designers’ and the engineers that actually make a car reality. In fact even the word ‘designer’ is contentious, for what actually is a design? Is it a general sketch of the outside of the car or is it the
Engineers and Designers Read More »
So, what is the ‘Ultimate’ car? Well, surprisingly it’s fairly easy to define, on paper at least, because technology is driven by desire.
The pipe the takes the exhaust gas away from the engine and lets them loose at the back of the car so the occupants don’t breath it in. Normally it has mufflers (silencers) to reduce the very high sound levels that the engine produces, without some sound reduction the cars occupants would end up deaf
The Beginners Guide to Exhausts Read More »
As ever rubber-ware is critical, the rubber compounds are carefully engineered with a range of other substances such as carbon powder and silicon and then heat treated to give it just the right properties. There is a hell of a lot of technology in that black stuff. The tread pastern is designed with channels that
Things You Might Not Know About Tyres Read More »
As engineers we have to test cars in all environments, and whilst a lot of time is spent testing in hot and cold countries the bulk of testing is done back at the engineering centre in special climatic chambers. These are basically glorified garages with a high powered air conditioning systems that can chill the
Or put another way how much space do you really need… Phenomena from the parallel world of project vehicles.Indeed, fleet size is related to theoretical storage places thus:Fs = Pth + Ptemp + int(0.5+(Dnew + S))WherePth is the theoretical storage places is based on Mini sized vehicles, stacked.Ptemp is theoretical storage places available on a
How Many Cars Can an Enthusiast Have? Read More »