I mean the Tesla Model S P90D was scary in the sense it made me feel sick during acceleration.
I mean the Tesla Model S P90D was scary in the sense it made me feel sick during acceleration.
I've never been scared by power, just by (a lack of) brakes or a chassis that doesn't feel like it'll hold together or stay upright.
A 85 CR500...I was heavy onto mx and had a thing for Hondas. I figured if a CR250 was good a CR500 was better.
Oh it was insanity, if you could get it to crank without breaking your leg you could find out how fast you wanted to go, just shift it into the next gear.
God likes fools and I was one of them.
I haven't experienced a car where the speed or acceleration were scary on their own, but have dealt with several which could reach top speeds that way exceeded the car's level of sketchiness. One of the cars I learned to drive on, a 1981 Datsun 210 that had been in several crashes, managed to qualify with only 50 hp.
Motorcycles, on the other hand - I've had those scare me without the motorcycle itself being sketchy. (Just the rider.) I recall test riding a Buell Ulysses where it seemed only the first quarter of the throttle was usable in first gear.
z31maniac said:chaparral said:Car, not really.
Bike? Yes, a 2006 Honda CBR1000RR with no traction control and no ABS was ferociously scary on a cold wet day at Grattan with riders crashing and dropping antifreeze all over the place. It's the only time I've had one wheel locked and one wheel spinning simultaneously.
Same here. Car? No. '06 R1 that I pegged on the rev limiter in 6th gear.
A friends 03-04 Aprilia Mille.........didn't have the top end of the R1, but the midrange made it feel like it was about to throw you off of it.
I remember the first time I rode a GSXR-1000. I was doing like 65, eased on the throttle in 2nd and was staring at the sky in a split second. Definitely a code brown moment.
Oh, bikes. Late 90's CR500, shaved head, bored past the decompression ports, pipe, next step was to run it on alky. One tooth bigger front sprocket to help tame the power. This was a dune bike, that doubled as a trail bike. Not my bike. I once stalled it on top of a dune. I was having trouble kicking it over when some fella asked if I needed help. I declined, telling him " if I'm not man enough to start it I shouldn't be riding it". It was fun to pretend to top end race the fast bikes, then just as they thought they had you, stand it up and pull away on one wheel.
It was hard to launch on wetish sand but once rolling it would just reel them in. At the end of the drag strip I chopped the throttle after embarrassing the competition, this caused extreme tank slapping. First thought was "how do I hit the ground softly" then remembering what bike I was on, cracked the throttle to stand it up and set it back down gently.
ProDarwin said:z31maniac said:chaparral said:Car, not really.
Bike? Yes, a 2006 Honda CBR1000RR with no traction control and no ABS was ferociously scary on a cold wet day at Grattan with riders crashing and dropping antifreeze all over the place. It's the only time I've had one wheel locked and one wheel spinning simultaneously.
Same here. Car? No. '06 R1 that I pegged on the rev limiter in 6th gear.
A friends 03-04 Aprilia Mille.........didn't have the top end of the R1, but the midrange made it feel like it was about to throw you off of it.
I remember the first time I rode a GSXR-1000. I was doing like 65, eased on the throttle in 2nd and was staring at the sky in a split second. Definitely a code brown moment.
That's why I preferred my R6. The literbikes are just too much.
Perhaps if we had access to 1100hp Porsche Can-Am cars we motorcycle racers could frighten ourselves properly.
Oddly enough, it was not a monster, but one car that made me nervous to drive was my friend's breathed-on first generation Mazdaspeed 3.
Boost was laggy but came on hard, and you never knew which direction the bushings were going to compress. Any time you got on it, the first couple seconds were filled with white-knuckle excitement as you waited for the jump scare you knew was coming, and then quickly tried to hang onto the steering wheel while figuring out which way to steer to stay in your lane.
Our 90's Buick LeSabre Lemons car was terrifying at track speeds, but it wasn't really because it was fast.
I've not driven on a track in anger, so I've rarely had the opportunity to really push a car to the point where it scares me. I have unwisely done so on the street when I shouldn't have, but not in many years. These days I rarely push it on the street to the point where I'm mildly uncomfortable, much less scared. The joys of aging, I suppose...
The main "I don't have enough talent to operate this" vehicle was my 2016 Intense M16C downhill racing bicycle. That bike needed to go a certain speed in order to work and I simply didn't have the raw skills required to let it go that fast.
Of cars I've driven, probably my ex's '97 M3. Partly due to my lack of experience driving a RWD car with any amount of power and mostly due to the fact that if anything happened while I was driving it she would have murdered me.
What scares me most about fast, powerful cars are the other people driving them.
Not yet, still looking.
The 400 hp MGB on 195 section tires is probably the one that wants me the most dead, though. And I will admit that slotting 5th on the V8 Targa Miata on a twisty road in the fog did make me take a deep breath. Just follow the centerline and trust the notes...
Keith Tanner said:Not yet, still looking.
The 400 hp MGB on 195 section tires is probably the one that wants me the most dead, though. And I will admit that slotting 5th on the V8 Targa Miata on a twisty road in the fog did make me take a deep breath. Just follow the centerline and trust the notes...
What about that LSA exocet?
In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :
Was thinking the same thing.
Running out of 4th gear in a Miata on a foggy country road would have had me noped out a gear or so back...
Not a car. I've been surprised, but not scared. I've never been in anything really fast though, not by today's standards.
Ive been on bikes that were intimidating, but once I had a couple minutes on them I was comfortable. And a couple that should have scared me. Momma always said, "No brain, no fear." I had one experience where I rode in anger (literally, I needed to blow off some steam) and shortly afterwards realized that the bike was for sale or I was gonna kill myself on it. I've stuck with small displacement stuff since then. And Lima powered mustangs.
I've never been scared by the speed of a car per se'. I've been scared numbers of times by cars whose power was disproportionate to its stability, brakes and handling. A classic example was my cousins 1970ish Malibu SS. It would scream in a straight line, but all the while it would be gently swaying, and it didn't slow down well either. My 1964 Ranchero was a little slower by virtue of not being able to get traction to the ground, which in retrospect was probably a feature, not a bug.
In reply to barefootskater (Shaun) :
The race track cured me of riding a street bike like I had a death wish. Pretty much the same for cars.
I had one of those garbage Sunbirds with the 2.0L turbo.
It would head for the ditch every time the boost came on.
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:Keith Tanner said:Not yet, still looking.
The 400 hp MGB on 195 section tires is probably the one that wants me the most dead, though. And I will admit that slotting 5th on the V8 Targa Miata on a twisty road in the fog did make me take a deep breath. Just follow the centerline and trust the notes...
What about that LSA exocet?
Wasn't really scary. It did what it was told. Might have been exciting over turn 1 in Laguna Seca, though. Never got a chance to drive it there. But there's a difference between fast and scary.
alfadriver said:Indigo. Only 400hp, but no roll over protection at all. And it was really light, too (CF Chassis by Reynard).
So Jealous!
I had Indigo and GT90 folders in highschool.
Our Model 3 Performance is as quick to 60 as our 160+ HP bikes, 2.9-3.0s
I can't imagine what the Model S Plaid feels like.
m4ff3w said:I can't imagine what the Model S Plaid feels like.
There's a youtube video where it spanks a Hayabusa and a ZX-14R in several drag races.
Hmm, not yet. Though my Focus RS is certainly faster on the track than I am as a driver right now. Getting old and being away from high performance driving does that to you though.
I do have the story of a car that I drove daily that was basically undrivable by everyone else.
Everyone knows that Turbo-Dodge cars from the 80's were torque steer monsters. Just a fact of life and regular drivers learned muscle memory to automatically tighten their left bicep to counteract the torque steer while they shifted with their right. God help you if you hit a wet manhole cover as you accelerated through an intersection, ZING!
Anyway, my older brother had an 86 GLH-S and helped me acquire an 87 CSX for my first real car. So fast forward several years and I needed to work on the CSX at his place because the steering rack bolts worked loose and wallowed out the holes in the K-member. I had been driving this thing for a decent amount of time (with the MP computer because I'm also a stupid young man) with at least 1/4-1/2 turn of slop in the steering. So when the boost came on, you'd have to catch the slop as it moved from one side of the hole to other.
So anyway, I acquired a newer K-member with the better geometry and wanted to swap it at his place, since he had a garage and having help would be handy, plus I could borrow his GLH-S for a couple days so I could get to/from work. After I left, he decides to take my car down the street to get something from the grocery store. He made it to the end of his block before he turned around and parked it. He said it was completely undrivable (which it was for those not experienced in the ways of crapitude). Hard to believe I drove it daily for several weeks like that.
m4ff3w said:alfadriver said:Indigo. Only 400hp, but no roll over protection at all. And it was really light, too (CF Chassis by Reynard).
So Jealous!
I had Indigo and GT90 folders in highschool.
I don't think the scary part was the handling, though 
The Hummer From Hell could accelerate faster than it could brake, but it was never really "scary". Accelerating that fast was still only fairly moderate, because it was 8-9000lb of truck...
You'll need to log in to post.
