MINI2 - MINI Forum - View Single Post - Has anyone swapped their gen 1 works for a gen 2 works?

wiggis · Apr 26th, 2008, 01:12 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Fin (original)

A track time is more relevant than the 0-60 mph time. Any fool can floor it from a standstill (albeit some better than others). But around a track a car's in-gear acceleration and handling will show its true colours. Case in point, the Corsa VXR vs the Clio 197; there is only 0.1 seconds between them in a sprint to 60 mph, but when tested by 5th Gear the Clio went around the track over a second quicker. Why? Because the chassis could deal with the power better than the Corsa's.

But perhaps more relevant to very nearly everyone who actually owns any one of these cars and who never goes near a track, is the time difference one of those cars would yield on a typical drive from your house to Tesco's, or from your office to your house ...... I can see it now "My R53 GP got me to the isle with Muller Light a full second quicker than Swiper", and "The R56 JCW got me to the Parent With Child parking space a full 1.5 seconds faster than the R53 JCW"

Basically, once a car can healthily keep up with traffic and safely overtake the red Rover 214i doing 40 mph on the A road between your office and your house (which all of the cars in this thread can do very easily), then frankly, the rest is about as relevant as comparing the size of your genitalia.

Apr 26th, 2008, 01:12 PM	#80
wiggis VW GT Sport 170 TDI My Classifieds Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Oxford Local Time: 12:22 PM Posts: 342 Offline	Quote: Originally Posted by Fin (original) A track time is more relevant than the 0-60 mph time. Any fool can floor it from a standstill (albeit some better than others). But around a track a car's in-gear acceleration and handling will show its true colours. Case in point, the Corsa VXR vs the Clio 197; there is only 0.1 seconds between them in a sprint to 60 mph, but when tested by 5th Gear the Clio went around the track over a second quicker. Why? Because the chassis could deal with the power better than the Corsa's. But perhaps more relevant to very nearly everyone who actually owns any one of these cars and who never goes near a track, is the time difference one of those cars would yield on a typical drive from your house to Tesco's, or from your office to your house ...... I can see it now "My R53 GP got me to the isle with Muller Light a full second quicker than Swiper", and "The R56 JCW got me to the Parent With Child parking space a full 1.5 seconds faster than the R53 JCW" Basically, once a car can healthily keep up with traffic and safely overtake the red Rover 214i doing 40 mph on the A road between your office and your house (which all of the cars in this thread can do very easily), then frankly, the rest is about as relevant as comparing the size of your genitalia.