Originally published at: Phenomenal mid-90s review of the 820hp Espace F1 minivan | Boing Boing
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Remember, brakes don’t make you go faster!
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“(I)t’d have been a sweet production car”
Not really. You needed to start it like other F1 engines. With a whole team of engineers.
eta:
The Renault 5 Turbo was a production car, tho. Clearly not as extreme, but basically a different car with the same name and shape as a boring, practical one, too.
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It does remind me of nascar–specialized racing cars covered with fibreglass bodies that are sort of similar to those of commercially available road cars.
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yeah… but with a '90s Renault V10 under the “hood”.
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sure they do
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An F1 racer in Sports Prototype (i.e., sports car racing) clothing. No surprise as to its success. Enzo Ferrari was a sneaky bastard:
The Ferrari 312 P of 1971 through 1973, later known as the 312PB, was powered by the Forghieri [F1] engine which rested in an aluminum semi-monocoque, similar to the F1 car. In other words, it was basically a full body Formula One car.
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Ford got there first with the Supervan.
The first one was based on a GT40 chassis:
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There was also the completely unrelated XJ220 Transit:
(It was a development mule for the Jaguar XJ220 supercar. While Ford bought Jaguar partway through the development of the XJ220, I think this had already been built before the sale went through, and the XJ220 doesn’t have any Ford parts.)
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Mercedes do a frankly terrifying minivan with an AMG tuned V8 in it. It’s not F1 grade, but it’s faster than anything like that ought to be.
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What is that guy’s accent? “Damon Hill’s rice car”?
The 90’s was also the era when Volvo were doing silly things with an estate car in the British Touring Car Championship.
And there were some pink bits in the Renault video that looked a bit rude…
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Hehe, I know you’re joking, but for anyone who might be curious, improving the brakes is actually one of the best ways to improve lap times and placement in race cars. Most passing is done in braking zones- whoever can afford to brake later is going to win the position, basically. Especially when cars are well matched, as in spec races. Making an off-line pass on momentum is exceptionally difficult, but out-braking someone is pretty easy.
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And
It’s nice to see it was a complete race vehicle that can take curves and wasn’t merely a straight line demonstrator.
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