Diablo in Dublin.

Goldberg

Anyone seen that orange lamborghini diablo cruising around dublin?

Sweet, sweet car, my favourite.

Guy who drives it looks like a daddy's boy but who cares, its the only supercar I've seen around.

ToxicPaddy

Yeah ive seen it once or twice, think its an english or northern irish reg car..

There are a 2 ferrari's, a porsche 911 turbo and an Aston Martin DB7 driving around, could class those as supercars too..

gs39t

Seen it in Stephens Green a few weeks back.

Ugly, tasteless cars.

Looks like they were designed by someone with only a ruler and a pencil :rolleyes:

Chimaera

Ah come on now, they're not that bad....

In any case, they've got a hell of a lot of road presence

Goldberg

Still the definitive supercar.

My all time favourite, a class act of a machine if you ask me.

batman_oh

by far the best car ive ever seen in this country, what else could pull off bright orange! and the road presence(and pullin power) is ridiculous, not to mention 200mph!
i saw it last week on the keys and all the cars behind and around it started beepin at it!

Gerry

It is not the definitive supercar (IMHO). Obviously you don't know your arse from your elbow. Compared to most other supercars, the diablo can't go round corners for ****. Maybe if you had seen an F40 that would be worth talking about.

I'm in San Francisco for the summer, still haven't seen an F40 which is disappointing, but I see about 10 911's a day, 1 or 2 ferraris, a load of corvettes, and loads of classic american muscle cars like Dodge Chargers.
Theres even a Ferrari and Lamborghini showrom, it had 550 Maranello's, 360's, 355 GTS, a countach ( way better looking car than the Diablo IMHO ). I've also seen a few Lamborghini Miuras, which again is much nicer than the Diablo.

Stephen

Anyone seen the D-reg Ferrari 360 spider around? Saw him blowing through Carlow heading towards Dublin a few weeks ago

chernobyl

Seen an English 360 Spider in Dublin around easter...not the best looking Ferrari but yet i had to stand still and look.

Id love to see a 575M but thats just too rich for our island


Guess i will have to do one for the team and bring one in myself...right





My god is that a special car!

Seen a SL55 AMG in Tallaght yesterday, also a very cool car which can actually do over 200mph if you "fix" the chip.

ToxicPaddy

Chernobyl, there's a 550 Maranello driving around alright..

will that do for the meantime?

Chimaera

a very cool car which can actually do over 200mph if you "fix" the chip

Not quite - there are no tyres available for the SL that are rated for 200mph, so it's limited to 186mph iirc even with the limiter 'removed'.

nanook

just to add, there are two austin martins floating around the town, also spotted a TVR, my god that engine has some grunt

Goldberg

The diablo could hang with any supercar on the planet, and the four wheel drive means cornering is spot on, so I think I do know my arse from my elbow sunshine.

BrianD3

The diablo could hang with any supercar on the planet, and the four wheel drive means cornering is spot on, so I think I do know my arse from my elbow sunshine

You said the Diablo was the "definitive supercar". It is not. The Lamborghini Miura, Countach, Ferrari Daytona and Ford GT40 all came out 20+ years before the Diablo and all can lay claim to being the first, original, definitive supercar.

Nor can the Diablo "hang with any supercar on the planet". Even when the Diablo was new, the Ferrari 355 was a more nimble, cheaper, better handling machine which accelerated just as quickly and came close to the Diablo's flat out top speed. Then there were more expensive cars such as the XJ220, Bugatti and McLaren all of which were significantly faster and better in every way than the Diablo.

As for current Ferraris, 911 Turbos etc. - compared to them the Diablo is a joke. Totally outclassed in every way. Nowadays its even embarrassed by things like Imprezas and Evos.

I don't deny that the Diablo is a fantastic car especially in terms of looks and sound. But to call it the definitive or best supercar is just plain wrong so it would appear that you don't know your arse from your elbow

BrianD3

Makaveli

Yeah I've seen that Diablo a couple of times.
A couple of Ferraris too, but not recently.
Saw a Db7 in Blackrock a couple of months ago (it might have been Dun Laoghaire actually).
I've seen loads of 911's around the place.
Still hoping to see an SL55 Amg. I've seen a CL 55 AMG though. I think that's what it was anyway.

RicardoSmith

I've seen lots of 911's a couple of turbos, lots of Boxsters, a couple of TVR's a few Ferrari's the 360 spider and a few 550's and 360's. I've seen one dark grey Aston too. Thats all around Dublin and all either 02 or 03. So theres quite a bit of nice machinery around.

Gerry

The Diablo got 4 wheel drive in an effort to tame its terrible, extremely tail happy handling.
Its still far worse than practically any other supercar you can think of. You haven't a notion. Have you ever read anything which was in any way technical about a diablo, or seen anyone attempting to hammer it around a track? DIdn't think so.

ColinM

Goldberg, Gerry and BrianD3, why don't you have a go at some of the other questions on this test - you've all made a good stab at Section B, question 4 already!

chernobyl

Originally posted by BrianD3
You said the Diablo was the "definitive supercar". It is not. The Lamborghini Miura, Countach, Ferrari Daytona and Ford GT40 all came out 20+ years before the Diablo and all can lay claim to being the first, original, definitive supercar.

Personally i would never put any Lambo down as the "definitive" super car, but cars like the F40 and G40 and even the 355 were definitive supercars of their time and now i would think the Zonda is that car...but maybe Porche's new baby will change that?

I mean..just look....

here




just sex it is.

RicardoSmith

Is there is such as thing as the "first, original, definitive supercar"? Would have to be something back in the 20's no?

The Diablo is a classic but flawed in many ways. Actually sat in one once. Mental car. I prefer the new Lambos myself. But for me the McLaren F1 is still the daddy.

Silvera

I'm sure there were some "supercars" back in the 1920's/30's/40's etc, but one car that comes to mind is the Lamborghini Miura.

It always gets a serious thumbs up from commentators,motoring journalists etc.



Silvera.

Kali

seen a Dino 246 GT parked on Merrion Square about a month ago.. most beautiful car I've ever ever seen on the road. Have seen that Diablo a fair few times around lower baggot st as well.

Silvera

Yeah, the Dino 246 is a real beauty.

I know of at least one registered in the country.
It even has "246" in it's reg number !

Silvera.

Chimaera

Is there is such as thing as the "first, original, definitive supercar"?

It's a good question, and I think the answer has to be no.

The nearest you'll get to a 'definitive' supercar is one that people remember as being remarkable for it's time, or one that led to a major shift in thinking on how such a car should be designed.

Like Silvera said, the definitive supercar of the modern era would have to be the Lamborghini Miura in my opinion. It was the first supercar to eschew the mid-engine rear-drive layout that has become de rigeur for supercars since then.

That said, there is a new breed of supercar on the road now, going back to a front-engine rear-drive layout. These cars tend to be GT's that happen to be very fast and very competent handlers too. A prime example is the Mercedes McLaren SLR. The Aston Martin Vanquish also goes in here, as does the Ferrari Maranello (550 or 575).

If one was to broaden the definition slightly, then I reckon the V12 versions of the current Mercedes S-Class could be considered supercars - they'd certainly keep up with some older cars that would have been considered supercars, Miura included. The new Rolls-Royce Phantom is also a supercar in my opinion, like the Bugatti Royale in the 1920s

gs39t

That said, there is a new breed of supercar on the road now, going back to a front-engine rear-drive layout. These cars tend to be GT's that happen to be very fast and very competent handlers too

IMO the "GT" thing has come to mean nothing. Its so overused its not funny. There are four door family saloon "GTs" out there now....

[/rant]

chernobyl

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
But for me the McLaren F1 is still the daddy.

Always thought of it as a pussies supercar but i did see one in the UK and was impressed...something slightly off about it though.

aidan_dunne

I think it's widely agreed that the Lamborghini Miura was the first car in the world to be called a "supercar." Since then, the term "supercar" has become an almost generic term for any fast/sporty/technologically advanced car. Therefore, it can't be said that the Diablo is "the definitive supercar." It's just one in a huge line of cars that have had this term stuck on them.

Yes, the Diablo is an amazing machine (especially the sheer torque and thunderous roar from that V12) but it is very much a flawed "supercar", as others have said. In a straight line, yes, it's bloody fast, but when it comes to cornering and handling anyone who's driven one tends to agree with the same things: the handling's pretty damn bad (even the addition of the four-wheel drive system only helped slightly), the car's too heavy, weight distribution is bad, clutch is heavy, steering is heavy, gear change isn't smooth enough. When it comes to the twisty stuff, a Diablo will be beaten by the likes of Ferrari F40's, F355's, F360's, Porsche 911's, etc. anyday.

A supercar? Yes? A flawed supercar? Most definitely yes! The "definitive supercar"? Sadly, no.

As for myself, my own all-time favourite supercar is the Ferrari F-40. Yes, it was beaten a long time ago in the top speed/acceleration/handling/looks stakes, but I think it's fair to say that it set the standard that all supercars since have followed.

And as for chernobyl's comments on the McLaren F1, I think he's right in some ways about it being a "pussy's" supercar. Or, to be exact, perhaps not that it's so much a "pussy's" supercar but that it has no heart, no soul. It's very hard to get as passionate about it as you would a Ferrari or Lamborghini or Maserati. The reason for that being is that it was designed more as a marketing gimic by McLaren and BMW rather than a car that would stir you, rise your passions, make you fall in love with it. It was designed, pure and simple, to incorporate as many technologies as possible which McLaren discovered and utilised in Formula 1 and try to give the road-going driver the nearest experience to driving an Formula 1 car as possible. That and to become the world's fastest supercar. It was never designed to be sexy, it was designed, like the Porsche 959 in the 1980's, to be as technologically advanced and as fast as possible. It didn't matter what it looked like (I read an interview with Gordan Murray, who designed the McLaren F1, a few years ago where he said, "it could have looked like a breeze block for all we cared. Our brief was to make it fast and pack it with as much F1-style technology as possible. Everything else was secondary to that - the look, what people thought of it, everything.") or what feelings it envoked in people. That was irrelevant. The technical and speed side of it, and the publicity aspect of being able to say "The McLaren F1 - the world's fastest and most technologically advanced supercar. Designed by McLaren. Powered by BMW", was all that mattered. Therefore, you can see why few people get worked up over it. At least Ferrari's, Lamborghini's, even Porsche's to a certain extent, are built with a passion, are built to envoke passionate feelings in people, are built to look, sound, feel a certain way that will stir up those kinds of feelings in people. The McLaren was built to be a technical tour-de-force and a marketing tool, nothing more. That's why it will never, no matter how fast it goes, no matter how much technology it possesses, be thought of as passionately or as lovingly as a Ferrari or Lamborghini.

Technology and speed alone didn't work for the Porsche 959. It didn't work for the McLaren F1. It takes more than these two things alone to make people "love" a car. And, I think, it takes more than that (that invisible, indescribable "X-Factor") to make a car a "supercar."

ando

Originally posted by aidan_dunne
As for myself, my own all-time favourite supercar is the Ferrari F-40.

agreed

Chimaera

I think the worst that can be said of the McLaren is that the name has a lack of pedigree when it comes to road cars. Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, etc have all been building cars for a long time, and have built up a reputation and a rapport with the buying public that the McLaren simply hasn't had the time to do. And remember, there would have been a time when all the above manufacturers would have been in the same boat.

It's a great car in my opinion, possibly the greatest supercar built. It was designed to be faster and better handling than any supercar built to that point, something which it achieved in spades. It is telling that in the 10 years since, no-one has built a car capable of beating it in a straight fight for speed (though the Bugatti Veyron probably will later this year). And it didn't rely purely on power to do this either - weight was kept as low as possible, and great attention was paid to the aerodynamics (Gordon Murray was the designer after all).

The Ferrari Enzo was conceived as a car to beat the F1, and it didn't. The Bugatti Veyron is going to be faster, but that wouldn't be hard for a car with 987bhp (compared to the 650bhp boasted by the F1). That said, the Bugatti is set to weigh 1600kg, while the F1 was only 1000kg.

I don't think the F1 lacks soul, more that the McLaren badge currently lacks the allure of the more established players.

Goldberg

The f355 was a full second slower to 60 and nowhere near the full whack the diablo could pull.
It topped off at 202 whereas the f355 stopped at 176.

BrianD3

The f355 was a full second slower to 60 and nowhere near the full whack the diablo could pull.

This is getting tiresome. After all the posts in this thread you're still going on about the Diablo.

The Diablo VT which is the 4wd version you were referring to is*slower* to 60 than the F355. It's top speed is around 200 mph without a rear spoiler. The addition of a spoiler drops the top speed below 200 mph. The Diablo SE30 special edition which is 2wd tops out at around 205 mph and is a second quicker to 60 than the VT due to less weight and more power. The Diablo SV accelerates as quickly as the SE30 but has a top speed under 200 mph due to shorter gearing/less power. The top speed of the F355 is around 180 mph and by all accounts it's a far better handling machine than any Diablo. The Diablo is just too wide and too heavy etc.. Jeremy Clarkson has called the Diablo an "expensive truck" compared to the 355 although he did love the Diablo he recognised it's flaws which you seem incapable of doing.

BrianD3

BrianD3