| As someone who has spent a lot of time building and racing cars… yeah the marketing is nuts. A few years ago Porsche came out with the Taycan. One of their big marketing pushes was that it was better on track than a Tesla model S, because on paper it was worse in many ways (more expensive, less range, less power, worse charging network, etc). The sad thing was all the magazines and journalists seemed to be happy to parrot this position. Porsche bragged about their ring time. Internet commentators agreed. The Taycan Turbo S was a track weapon! The reality? The car is heavy, it’ll eat tires. I’ve seen guys in cars like that (noobs mind you) cord a set of tires in 1 session. Tracks eat fuel like crazy, I normally brought 4-5 5gallon fuel cans, and a full tank. I could do half a tank in like 8 laps. Electric? What track has super chargers? And the ring time? $200k+ Taycan turbo s matched the $38k civic type R. But marketing. And the journalists who really do know better were happy to play the game. Every car seems to be marketed on track now. For most cars, even seemingly performance oriented cars, tracking the car voids the warranty. Really the brands know that they are selling a fantasy, and very few people will actually even try that stuff. They just want the aura of it. Especially Americans want to buy 120% of the car they need. Need to take a freeway on ramp? Good thing this car has a ring time of X! Should be no problem! Thinking about getting a boat? Better buy an F-250, just to be safe! |