Wheel-in-the-air GTAs

[Scott Fisher <sefisher@domain.elided>]

Over the weekend, I thought of something else that might contribute to
why the GTAs had a front wheel off the ground more often than "modern"
Alfas.  Now, I've never driven a GTA, but I did previously own one of
its contemporary competitors, also known for its wheel-in-the-air antics
- -- the Ford Cortina Modified By Lotus, to give it the name it was known
by in the Sixties.  Mine was a genuine, but very ratty, Mk 1 Series 2
car from 1967, which means it had given up the original, problematic
A-frame and coil spring rear end (a typical Chapman design: elegant,
light, and fragile) and instead used the leaf spring and trailing arm
setup from the Cortina GT.  Best memory of that car: driving it to the
1986 Monterey Historics and hearing the track announcers interview
Jackie Stewart, who said in that inimitable accent of his, "Weeeel,
John, the fairst time I ever came to Lagooooona Seeca, I was driving a
Lotus Carteeena..."

My particular "Dagenham dustbin" had previously been owned by an ardent
follower of the philosophy that "if a little is good and a lot is
better, then too much must be best."  While I didn't own it long enough
to measure the actual settings, it looked and drove as though the front
alignment used, oh, maybe 15 degrees negative camber and 3 or 4 inches
of toe-out.  The car was not merely knock-kneed, it was splay-footed.  

Cornering in that car was, ah, interesting.  I'd pick my braking point
and, as soon as I got any serious pressure on the brakes, the front
would start darting from side to side, hunting for which wheel had the
best grip since they were not pointed in the same direction.  As soon as
I turned the wheel, of course, the outside tire would grip as weight
transferred to it - but then things got interesting.

As long as I was on the brakes, both front tires sort of whined -- it
wasn't quite a squeal, but it was an audible complaint, which I presumed
was from the excessive toe-out.  However, once I'd get on the gas hard
just past the apex and start exiting the corner, the inside front wheel
would get silent.

It was while driving with a friend of mine over the Oakville Grade (a
GREAT road that connects the Napa and Sonoma valleys in California's
wine country) that I finally figured out what I think was going on.  I
made the mistake of telling him, while we were in the car, what that
was:

"When I enter the corner and the weight transfers forward," I said, "the
front tires are planted on the pavement, and the inside front squeaks
because of the excess toe-out.  Then, when I get on the gas hard, the
weight transfers rearward and the front tire lifts off the road, and of
course it can't make any noise if it's up in the air."

My friend didn't make any noise either, for several minutes.

In any case, my old Lo-Cort was a tired and pretty well shagged-out
example, and it was built after many of the (originally aluminum) body
panels had been replaced with steel (or more correctly, after they had
*not* been replaced with aluminum as on the Series 1 cars).  So I got to
wondering about how much more rearward weight transfer there might be in
something like a 1500-lb (or so) GTA, given the roughly 175 bhp they
were admitting to in the Sixties.  If *I* could lift the inside front
wheel on my car, as tired as it was, it's no surprise seeing two feet of
daylight under the front wheels of the works GTAs, especially when the
drivers were trying to beat Lotus Cortinas piloted by folks like John
Young Stewart and Jim Clark.

So for those of you whose GTs don't lift a front wheel, maybe you're
just not trying hard enough! :-)

- --Scott Fisher
  more recently lifter of *rear* wheels in corner entry, via FWD

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