The Lotus Esprit has a Turbo V8
...and the bugatti EB110 had a pretty cool quad turbo V12 60v engine...
And don't forget F1 cars were at thier most powerfull when they had turbocharged engines.
Turbo’s are more popular in regular cars then you might think, manufactures are realising with some engineering work turbochargers are a good way of increasing HP and saving gas. You can use a smaller engine to gain more HP therefore increasing MPG. Turbo’s are very popular here in Europe right now on diesel powered cars.
No CURRENT supercar has a turbocharger in its engine bay with the exception of the Veyeron (needing to hit 400km/h and a couple of limited production cars).
N/A cars are more fun to drive, have better throttle response and power delivery.
A supercar is not about saving gas.
I am not against turbos at all. They have a purpuse. A dramatic increase in power with a moderate increase in costs.
Let's take a 911 engine. With $45k you can build a 993 TT engine to 6-700HP quite reliably.
The same 445k put into a n/a motor will probably yield 370-390hp.
Now take a 2,200lbs wide body tub. With the 1st motor the car will be a point and shoot car. Remember the 935s? Winners in their class, devastatingly quick, but there is not much in terms of fun to have with those.
Now the same 911 tub with the 375hp will be a pleasure to drive.
So turbos are a wonderful thing. Look at the Hennessy TT GT... 200mph in 17 seconds... forget that in a n/a car.
At the end of the day my 3 year old daughter (if she were a little bit taller) could sit in the cockpit of the gT and wring it out to 211mph.... But would she care about how much the steering wheel squirmed in her palms as she braked for an off camber left hander, would she know the satisfaction of squeezing a cheeky extra shift into a short straight, indeed would she appreciate the sheer thrill of holding a car on the edge, on a line of total commitment (check out Senna thru' 130R at Suzuka) in her forced induction car....
Well proabably yes. But I'd never know because my wife would have killed me! However my point is that only with a naturally aspirated engine can you truly enjoy the belief and phyisical sensation of the throttle being hard wired into your brain and only without forced induction do you totoally enjoy the sensation that you are wielding a razor sharp scalpel with millimetric precision.
I'll summarise my case with an analogy. When you get it on with the missus you take out what you put in, less a tiny little bit. With an NA car you take out of the experience everything that you put in, and get a little bit more besides!
On that bombshell I shall leave you all to spend the remainder of the evening bidding for old Peugeot 205 Gti 1.6s on eBay and allow you to continue the converstaion once you are converts to 'the way'. Oops, but you guys never got to taste the delights of our european hot hatches so maybe I'm just talking to myself here...
Cocktails are calling - :cheers all in good fun!
