The Most Interesting Development in the Motor Vehicle Industry - Essay Example

Sport Cars Development Technology has advanced over the time to lead to the most innovative ideas in the motor vehicle industries.With technological development, designers in this industry are coming up with new ideas each day that add more value and performance to the new breeds of cars in the market. This has been largely driven by the need for performance, elegance, stiff competition in the motor industry, advancement in car systems, and perfection in designs that result into marvelous engineering in motor industry today. Since the development of the first vehicle, the need for speed and performance has been improving each day, and the current breed of vehicles can attain extreme speed limits that would look like a dream in the previous past. Examples of this are the awesome sport cars. The sport car is a marvel of engineering both in speeds and performance. These have been the driving force behind ingenuity and heavy investments in research and design in trying to match speed performance and safety of these vehicles. In the development of the racing cars, each period witnessed stiff completion in innovation and engineering designs that has led to sophisticated racing cars today. The old sport cars The old sports cars had some remarkable performance in the 1960s. This is the period that performance was the main issue worth research, and many companies embarked on the need for performance in race cars. Cheetham (9) explains that the question of performance in sport cars has it meaning during this period. Due to the growing in automotive industry, research deviated from production of the sport cars to enhancing the performance of the car. In the US, this was the golden era of the muscle car and the various old sports cars such as the V8, and Ford Mustang had a remarkable era at this period. Fuel was relatively cheap and in abundance and these sport cars were designed to consume to their fill as they roared in offering the best performance they could (Cheetham, 9). This made these cars to be perceived to perform at relatively higher speeds than previous brands of vehicles. The consumption rate in these vehicles was too much such that the fuel tanks were significantly oversized and the fuel could just make a few kilometers before refilling. The Mercedes-Benz 300Sl was the most remarkable track bred car that made a ground breaking entry from the circuit to the streets (Cheetham, 8). The sleek design with ‘gull wing’ doors that opened upwards was just an irresistible offer to sport lovers, and these features made this car to stand out from the crowd as well as winning a place in the heated competition aimed at ensuring performance of sport vehicles. The 300sL could manage about 165 mph, though 130 mph to 150mh were more realistic figures based on the performance for this old sport car. At this age, this performance was one of its kind and a blistering innovation. This level of innovation looked like dream in 1950s. This car was duped the first super car ever designed and a motoring legend and was the template on which the preceding sport cars were based on largely until today. New sport cars and performance. The idea of new sports cars and their performance may be considered to be relative, since the advancement of the sport cars has been intensifying each day. In this argument, new sport cars will be considered as the cars that followed the development of the old sport cars. The battle for speeds was ignited with the European companies offering stiff competition to the US models. From four cylinders that marked the engine in US based cars, Europe decided to design on a design of more than four cylinders with Britain settling on 6 cylinders. The Jaguar’s legendary XK six engine made its debut in this. The jaguar was however outlived by the development of the new and more advanced Aston Martin sports cars. These cars captured the attention of the whole world and sports lovers especially models DB4, 5 and 6. The James Bond cars as they were later referred to were charismatic on their own with high performance in speeds and elegance that was one of a kind in this age (Cheetham, 9). The Italians were later to break the ground with their marvelous innovation of the V12 Ferrari, with a historical 12 cylinder sophistication on the racing tracks. The invention was more surprising and received with an awesome appreciation. However, the Mercedes Benz 300 SL continued to dominate until mid 60s when another legendry in sports cars was introduced; the Lamborghinis Miura. This was a marvelous race car that intended to teach Ferrari a thing or two on how beauty and elegance can be combined on ten tracks. The V12 was strategically placed behind the seats instead of at the rear or at the front. This vehicle could perform at marvelous 180 mph and lift from 0 to 60mph in just 5.5 seconds. The Nissan 370Z. The Nissan 370z was designed into two brands; that is the manual and the automatic gear box car. The manual car did not perform as per the expectations, but was seen as a little improvement over the previous Nissan 350. The automatic one is however more impressive compared with the manual one. The Nissan comes with engineered 7-gears, with absolute efficiency between the gear box and the car that clearly portrays a design that was meant to fit to one another (Top Gear, 2009). Though it has a soft feeling, the Nissan 370Z is not one to be ignored when it comes to performance and a brawler altitude that feels in built compared the 350 model. The vehicle is fashionable in that it s designed to be adjusted as per the driver’s needs. There is a sport button to offer the modes of auto or paddles, with the later gently fixed behind the steering wheels (Top Gear, 2009). A good press on this will make a transition from peddle to auto. The advantage with this model is the rate of consumption considering the speed and performance that it gives. A 3.7 liter V6 goes ballistic without any feeling of being strained. The exteremely high torque of about 270 lb ft makes the drive at high speeds more elegant and smooth in that , one never feels the gearbox changing gears, but the high torque does this perfectly thereby giving one of the smoothest drives on the track. The 370z manual synchronization with the SynchroRev is the best that makes the car a magnificent race car. Upgraded race cars Upgraded race cars are the ones in which modifications have to be done to improve on performance on fuel consumption and other features that make the car to perform much better compared to its original state. The Grand Turismo provides a good example of car upgrades. The upgrades may involve changing of the body to make it much lighter, more aerodynamic in features, changing the rims to make them much lighter, improving on the aesthetic value by adding the racing decals. The GT5 requires stripping out the interior of the car to add a roll cage, a lighter dashboard, racing seats as well as new race steering wheel. The upgrading above is meant to improve on the handling of the individual vehicle as well as improving on the horse power of the race car. Racing modifications may also include full Custom Transmission and Full Custom suspension upgrades, in addition to making the car much lighter. The much required modifications is the ability to adjust the front and the rear of the vehicle to aerodynamics, to ensure that the vehicle has a higher horse power. These race cars offer improved performance and sometimes are more preferred than new race cars by many sport lovers. This is because the car can be modified to suit once needs. Special cars Today’s technology has led to the design of the most sophisticated and advanced race cars possible. The Acura Advanced Sports car concept is one of the technologies that clearly define what a special racing car is. A powerful front mounted v-10 engine, assisted by a high performance rear drive that is a version of the Acura’s exclusive Super handling all- Wheel Drive (SH-AWD) is an example of the integration of systems in a super race car that make the car more efficient in performance and speed (Super Cars, 2011). From the exterior, these cars demonstrate both advanced technology and emotion due to the elegance of the design. A long hood hides embossed air vents that hint at the power engine beneath. The exterior lines that run across the cars create an emotion of both power and performance. With a 108.8 wheel base and 19 inch vs. 20 inch in front and rear tires respectively, the tires have a wide area of grip and close proximity to the ground to ensure stability. There are eight piston calipers and carbon ceramic brakes that ensure maximum safety in case of a braking emergency. The exceptionally high performance engine design features that are incorporated to portray power and relatively lower consumption in fuel are the main features that mark a special racing car. The development of the racing cars has been the most interesting development in the motor vehicle industry. From the guzzlers of the early 60s to the Acura technology in design of racing cars, efficiency, power, performance, speeds and aesthetic are the major ingredients that have seen the old race car developing rapidly to a marvel of engineering with the above features as is with the current race cars. This rapid development in sports car has therefore resulted from stiff competition by companies fighting to have an edge in the market today. The innovations are responsible for the current special racing cars. Work cited Cheetham, Craig. Ultimate performance Cars. London: MotorBooks International, 2005. Supercars. 2007 Aura Advanced Sports Car Concept. Supercars.net. 2011. http://www.supercars.net/cars/3706.html Top Gear. Nissan 370Z. Top Gear BBC. November, 2009. http://www.topgear.com/uk/nissan/370z/road-test/auto Read More