RE: Porsche spin-out (with Alfa content)

[Tessie McMillan <tessmc@domain.elided>]

On Mon, 18 Mar 2002, Brian Shorey wrote:

> Nothing except for the fact that all the weight is in the rear.
> 
> To the best of my knowledge, Porsche spent many years working to overcome
> some of the basic 'flaws' inherent in this design, from adding weight to the
> front of the vehicle to other means.
> 
> bs

Brian, that may be so (it is news to me), but do you think those 
flaws the engineers believed to contribute to racing performance at high 
speed at LeMans can be felt by street-drivers doing 40 in a straight 
line? 

I'm not that great of a driver -- any one of the NWARC guys will gladly 
point out how Tino Perrina can run up my Audi's tailpipe in his 
4-cylinder Alfetta and then leave me standing wondering what happened. 
But I feel totally, undeniably safe in a rear-engine Porsche. It is 
not a car I look at and say "that is going to get me into trouble". I've 
driven lots of bad 911s. Also before I started restoring my own '72 911, 
it was so shot it felt like a train de-railing. But I've always had to 
get up to some kind of speed (like 70 mph) before they get squirrely in a 
straight line.

I just think it is unfair to say it is the car, given the relatively tame 
circumstances. If Porsches were unsafe, wouldn't the Germans have banned 
them long ago?

Tess

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