socketz67

If any of you have a chance, you want to see the new Gran Turismo movie. I had to talk my 13 year old into seeing it with me yesterday, and secretly thought that only an Nissan R3x nerd like me would enjoy the movie, but the promise of a diabetic inducing 64oz soda with a jumbo bag of peanut M&Ms was too enticing for him.

Needless to say, we both left the movie thinking it was on of the best we have seen in a long time. I had no idea that this guy Jann Mardenborough (Gamer turned racer) even existed; Incredible underdog story!

This is exactly the type of marketing Nissan/Infiniti needs as nobody leaving this movie will be shopping for a Tesla.

4DRZ

iTrader: (7)

That's good to hear. I will have to check that movie out. I learned about the GT academy after a FedEx driver from CA won the first series and there were only like 25,000 contestants. He actually ended up racing for Nissan for a while and may still. I entered the GT academy competition the 2nd or 3rd time they did it- 2013 maybe(?) when there were millions of competitors globally. I did really well and got in the top part of the top 1% of contestants, but that still meant there were hundreds of people ahead of me. I ran that track countless times until the timer ran out in the Nissan Z and thought I had multiple perfect laps. So my race line must have been just slightly off or maybe the steering wheel I was using was just a fraction of a second slower to react than what the top runners were using. To this day I have no idea but the difference between my time and the winners was literally down to fractions of a second.

The fact that the game was so accurate that it could actually generate fast race drivers is impressive. I remember Sony saying that many race teams actually used the Gran Turismo game to practice unfamiliar tracks or bring new drivers up to speed because the game was just that realistic. Amazing!

socketz67

This must have been Jann as he was an Outlier at the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jann_Mardenborough - the movie shows him working in retail, but it was "based on" a true story so that gives the writers liberty to change a few things.

I want to share some specific scenes, but also don't want to spoil it for anyone. I will never look at GT Racing or the 24 Hours of Le Mans the same way after that movie. That type of racing is alot more intense than many assume.

Insane that you almost qualified back in 2013! I think it started a few years prior.

4DRZ

iTrader: (7)

I think they had one in 2008 and 2011, but I could be wrong. Yeah, I put everything I had into qualifying and I had a little over 10 years worth of track experience at the time, but it just wasn't enough. I have been fortunate enough to drive a wide variety of very fast cars and on a lot of different tracks, but nothing compares to the Nurburgring.

In 2019 my wife got me a dream "car guy" vacation for my 40th b-day to do everything car related in Germany and Italy. It was an amazing vacation and I hired a race driver to take me on a hot lap of the Ring in his brand new Porsche 911 GT3 RS. He had done roughly 20,000 laps of the Ring at that point (in many different cars). I never get motion sick, but the car was generating such a surreal amount of g-force in the corners that about half way through I almost thought I was going to hurl. The driver was passing everyone on one of the busiest days of the year with more cars than I have ever seen on the Ring and made it look effortless. He literally could have been holding a cup of coffee while doing it. I think even in all of that crazy traffic he still posted a time in the low 7:00 range. Just incredible!

Rochester

iTrader: (9)

Apparently Infiniti just isn't in Ireland. And now that I've been here a while, through a handful of cities (Dublin, Waterford and Cork), I'm pretty unimpressed with all these tiny cars. Also, premium gas is $1.85 per liter, which is $7.56 a gallon after conversion from Euros. Ouch.

I'm thinking cars just aren't a hobby here the way they are in the US.

rotarymike

iTrader: (4)

Counterpoint: all the modded high-end Porsches in Germany.

In the UK? Maybe stuff like old Minis.

Last time I was in Europe gas worked out to 9.50 per gallon of diesel, but our turbo diesel BMW got the equivalent of 45-50mpg.

socketz67

My last employer was a large multinational company headquartered out of Germany. When the Germans from corp would visit and travel with us here in the states, one of the discussion topics always ended up being cars and many of them owned high performance cars (Italian and German), and laughed at our complaints about the high "petro" costs. These guys were degreed and part of an upper income demographic now, but it sounded as though they had always decided to make the disposable income tradeoff in order to pursue their interest in cars. Miss those guys. Most these days want to discuss why a Model 3 is hands down the only car that makes sense for a new purchase. Feels like a kitchen appliance discussion.

rotarymike

iTrader: (4)

Hope all you SE USA peeps stay safe and on high ground.

Rochester

iTrader: (9)

Sitting outside a Cafe in downtown Dublin, and I heard a familiar V8 rumble on the street. It was a green Mustang Bullitt.



The only Mustang I've seen on the island in the last 10 days. Pretty cool sight. Very, very out of place.

socketz67

Was it another 1968 replica, or one of the newer OEM models like this one: https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/f...-second-drive/

I read that the original 68 went for something nuts like $3.4M.

Iconic movie.

Rochester

iTrader: (9)

New model. Very minimalist, very nice.

Back north America again today. Almost home.

rotarymike

iTrader: (4)

https://www.z1motorsports.com/superc...06a73add507708

October, supposedly

mummy2

Can the auto transmissions even handle that much power?

rotarymike

iTrader: (4)

Doubtful?

Hell, I'm not sure the 6MTs can handle that. Although it would be a 'gentler' boost that a pure turbo.

Edit: Plenty of folks are close to 400FWHP NA with the Z1 kit or equivalent. So I think another 100HP should be doable as long as the torque peak isn't a huge spike.

For example, my car dyno'd at 314 max. From a 15% drivetrain loss (found on here somewhere, can't recall) that's ~370 FWHP which is just intake, exhaust, and tune. So... the lower two 93 octane levels are believable if not perhaps totally accurate.

SupraOfDoom

The best thing about owning a G or Z is Z1 IMO. I know not everyone is a fan, and they have some occasional some what shady practices like leaving information out intentionally, but over all they are a win. I think if I left this car community for another, I would miss their parts catalog, content, and engineered parts the most.