Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Aero 8, 2012< Plus 8, SuperSports, Coupe & Aeromax It leaks like a sieve!

Local dealer, has the local dealer actually lived with a smart for almost 15 years, rather than applying the so called fixes they come up with that didn't work and indeed in most cases made the problem worse.

If its an official smart/Mercedes place then they are only allowed to follow procedures outlined in the WIS.

Mine lives outside in all weather's, on the whole it is water tight, if I allow the seals to get contaminated with dirt or get tired and still it will leak, but I fettle it on a regular basis much like you have to with a Morgan.

If you remember when they were first made smart made them under eco principles, initially using water based sealants, the downside was that they also used water based paints, the shell when painted in a lot of cases washed out the sealant in the bulkheads, this was addressed if you kicked up enough fuss they had each car for over two weeks and had to strip them down and reseal the ingress points.

But this is nowt to do with this forum and a bit of a drift.

If I could look over your wife's car I could assess what issues are causing problems, if you are in my area with the smart let me know I'll be more than happy to have a look at it.

With respect Howard you are comparing apples and oranges. The 570S is a current McLaren model and very competent, but it was never meant to compete with a 458 or a 488 come to that.

Mclaren have three levels of car - the Sports Series - aimed at Porsche Turbos and the ilk and it is regarded as a usable daily driver. The Super Series - currently the 720S (but in the past the 650S and before that the MP4/12) and the Ultimate Series - the P1 and now the Senna with other cars in the pipeline.

A relevant comparison with the 458 would be a 650S and in my biased opinion there is no comparison and I have owned the latter and driven the former. Currently the 720S is generally regarded by most motoring rotters to have moved the supercar game on radically and Ferrari have had to respond with the Pista to try and close the technology gap.

It is not just the chassis which is ahead - the 720S has a completely new chassis which extends into the roof, but the active suspension and the active aerodynamics are also ahead of the competition too.

Ferrari may currently have the edge on everyone in F1, but their road cars do not completely reflect the technology and they are relying on the power of the brand to maintain their position with their largest selling road car.

It is, perhaps, worth note that McLaren F1 cars are not doing very well at all, yet their road cars are both in demand and leading the technical race.

Ferrari are the reverse...for now.

Exam Question 1.
In the context of the "super car" market discuss the importance of the F1 racing connection to both brands sales and market evolution now and 5 years into the future.

20%., minimum 500 words.

To my mind, this simply demonstrates something which should be screamingly obvious to everyone - the characteristics which make a good race car simply don't apply to those which make a good road car and vice-versa.

Race cars go in circles around smooth well-surfaced tracks which are able to be practiced repeatedly and with entirely predictable traffic conditions. The engines are designed to be driven at or near maximum power output nearly every second they are being used, and the brakes, when used, are being nailed on absolutely at the limit. The physical forces on a race car lie right at the limit of what a very physically fit person can withstand. They are designed to be extensively rebuilt after extraordinarily short mileages. Who in their right mind would ever want a car that was set up to do that?

The fact that McLaren isn't doing very well in F1 simply indicates to me that they are focusing more importance onto the development of their road cars, and jolly good luck to them.

There is no way on this earth I will ever be in a position to contemplate the purchase of a 'supercar', but if it did ever happen, it's a McLaren that I'd be buying.

yeah, focus... you have to wonder if the root of Mclaren's challenges lie in the number of other things they're doing alongside F1 - from restructuring the business to road cars to indy racing to making road cars into racers.

It's a big organisation, and as it matures, just maybe it's core purpose to win in F1 has not been its core focus. In a sport where fractions of a % are the difference between winning & not, those distractions might be the difference

Will

The composite materials side of McLaren has done work outside Formula 1 for many years. Bikes, prosthetic limbs, medical equipment have all benefited from the autoclaves that the F1 teams use as well.

I think (from poor memory) that the engine ECU monitors for all the F1 teams came from McLaren at one point. These were to ensure no over-revs or other things were done. Or was it Williams, such a poor memory.

I was a bit dubious of the road cars at first but they have really done well. When we did our tour in the Coupe in 2017 we fell in with a 720S down near Nice/Monaco and it looked stunning. I was not overly in love with some of their shapes but that was lovely from all angles. For me it needs to be fast and loud but also pretty to look at. Some of the Lambo's are starting to look like a kids toy with all the lines and angles etc. Fine for a playboy but a bit OTT for me. I guess that's why I love the Morgan shape and the AeroMax especially.

Interestingly enough Tim, quite a bit of the technology on the Super Car series (and above!) is from McLarens F1 racing technology. For example the suspension on the 720S is basically an updated version of ‘active suspension’ that was banned in F1. Similarly it has active aerodynamics, it’s interesting watching the rear wing move as an element of this when you drive down a twisty and undulating road, as the wing adjusts the overall downforce.

There are many other parts of the car which reflect McLarens race expertise, it has no limited slip differential for example relying on electronics to control the grip, but even the handling of the car is adjusted by the electronics e.g. by braking the passenger side rear brake on turn-in to reduce, if not eliminate understeer. It is part of what differentiates the cars from the competition, in that McLaren use F1 technology and expertise to create the most advanced sports cars in the world.

I recently drove a friend’s Lamborghini Performante and he drove my 720S, and we both agreed that the McLaren was on a different level. He’s just considering strategies as to how he can sell a change to a 720S to his better half!

Point taken, but is the technology used to make them drive like road cars, or like race cars?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of technology developed for racing to be used to improve road cars, but I get the impression that McLaren don't see F1 success as being the be-all and end-all of their existence and ability to build road cars - witness the fact that this year their F1 budget at EUR250m is a bit more than half of that of Mercedes or Ferrari.

I've never had the privilege of driving or even riding in a McLaren, but from what I have read they seem to have managed the trick of building supercars/hyper cars which have stunning performance but which are also a realistic proposition as everyday drivers. I think that's pretty remarkable and to be applauded.

Although McLaren have excelled at composite technology and were the first to introduce it to F1, the tub on the current road car is produced by Mubea Carbo Tech (MCT) in Austria, using a patented system to produce a McLaren designed hollow structure in a resin transfer process with a 4-hour moulding process. However McLaren have their first factory outside the Woking Mothership and pre-production of the tubs will switch to it by 2019 latest.

The 720S is a big jump in both quality and technology over the MP4/12-650S and the design is very much form follows function (just like my Plus 8’s and other Trad Morgan’s), in that the shape is dictated by the aerodynamics hence double skinned doors and quite a distinctively shaped car.

Incidentally, I forgot to mention to Tim that the McLaren/Ricardo designed and developed engine, built by Ricardo in Shoreham, was inspired by a TWR-developed engine (based on the Nissan VRH engine) which was developed for the IRL Indycar Championship, but was never raced. Virtually nothing remains of this original engine apart from the 93 mm bore in the 650S version of the engine...

Whilst I love the Morgan, I also love the opposite end of the scale which is the McLaren and one of the things that delights me is that both are British!

Just wish we had a red wine produced here that was as good as the two M's....!!