On Tue, Jul 03, 2001 at 07:37:54AM -0700, Lawrie Alexander profoundly declared:
> I know there was a lot of discussion about this before the Le Mans race but
> I was on vacation and perhaps missed the answer to this question: other than
> painted logos on the bodywork, what made the "MG" that raced this year an
> MG? What I saw was a Lola sports racing car that bore no resemblance to
> anything available from even the reincarnated MG Car company.
It was a heavily modified Lola chassis running with a worked over version of the
MGF driveline.
>
> What am I missing? And why does this supposed re-emergence of the MG marque
> in long distance racing stir me a whole lot less than reading about when
> real MGs raced to advertise the capabilities of the cars available at the
> local MG dealer.
I think it is cool because I like racing, but I doubt anyone that owns and
AUDI thought they were buying one of the Prototype LeMans cars. Real MGs are
going to race. They have built a car for the World Rally Championship, this is
a modified version of one of the production cars they have right now. They also
have built cars that will run in the British touring car championship. These
are stripped down production sedans. The class is dominated by honda integras
and bmw 3series cars. So they will be touting what you can actually buy.
Hard to say why they started racing again in prototype classes, but I'm sure
they
have a reason. That effort cost 10s of millions of dollars, so I'm sure they
had some way to justify it. Maybe we will see in a few years.
>
> Shoot, even Bill Spohn's twinkie stories are more exciting than watching yet
> another swoopy, space-framed, plastic bodied advertising billboard compete
> with other "cars" that are completely unavailable for purchase, and totally
> impractical even if they were.
Inovation and development has to come from somewhere. Whether the consumer sees
any of it or not, the team is learning how to get more HP out of that engine.
That may do consumers some good. This is also a good way to get the sporting
public aware of them. Audi made a lot of headlines sweeping the LeMans and
with all of their other wins, and I think a lot of people took a look at them
again and thought "maybe there is something sporty there" perhaps MG is trying
to do the same. Only time will tell........
>
> Just my tuppence-worth..........
>
> Lawrie
>
--
James Nazarian Jr
71 MGB roadster
71 MGBGT-V8 in need of paint
01 Impreza 2.5RS
A complex system that does not work is invariably found to have
evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine.
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