Meeting up with the people at our Pattaya Car Club made me reminisce over some of the supercars I have had the good fortune to drive over the years.
I did manage an afternoon with a Cobra 289 at the Surfers Paradise Race Circuit. That was a real 289, just as Carroll Shelby put it together. Sheer brute horsepower and a race track to play in. What an afternoon.
I did manage to get a steer of a 351 Cobra as well, but this was a replica. However, the excitement was real! Big Ford V8 up front and more horses than the rear axle could safely handle. Unfortunately the owner tried shortening it against a brick wall.
I have driven a Lambo, and it was the Diablo. My test of this vehicle was held on the old Brisbane Airport runway and we clocked 150 mph (240 kays) while filming the speedometer, just to prove the point. That day we also had a Porsche Carrera as a comparison test and we could let it go half way down the airstrip before we let the Lambo loose, and the Diablo was always first at the other end, at a speed by which stage Boeing 747’s would be airborne. The Diablo was an incredible supercar. It was also quite horrible to drive, other than accelerating at speed, during which the engine note just grew until I described it as “aural orgasm”. I also stated that no woman, Russian shot putters excluded, would have been able to depress the clutch. The reason for the raging bull insignia was, I felt then, that you had to be as strong as an ox to drive one!
I have driven most Porsche models, old and new, and have to say that the most exciting of them all was the 1973 2.7 liter RS Carrera. Those early Porsches were not easy cars to drive. The tail end was always nervous if you were at all tentative as you approached a corner. Full throttle produced understeer. Trailing throttle produced oversteer in prodigious amounts. It was not difficult to go through hedges backwards, as many an early Porsche punter was to find.
I also raced an RS, and it was a very exciting race car as well as being one of the fastest ‘real’ road cars as well.
When Dodge in the USA released their mighty V10 engined Viper, this was another exotic that caught my attention. I was given a Viper to play with at the Lakeside circuit in Australia. This was today’s answer to the 427 Cobra of 30 years previous. Just a big bathtub filled with brute horsepower that you steered with the right hand go pedal. The steering wheel was not needed. It was not a car that required 100 percent concentration, or neatness, like driving the Lamborghini or the Porsche. This was a car that you threw at the corner and caught it as you came out the other side, and just stabbed the accelerator again to propel you with an almighty roar to the next corner. It took about a week to get rid of the smile from my face.
There have been others, such as an Aston Martin DB9, numerous Ferrari’s and Maserati’s and even an F5000 Lola T430, but for the sheer lazy thump in the kidneys and the feeling of endless power, the prize goes to America. I could live with a Dodge Viper. In fact I’d rather have a Dodge Viper in the garage than Angelina Jolie in the bedroom. The mark of a real enthusiast!
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