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Old 18th March 2009, 07:35   #1
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Vector W8 Twin Turbo



This is an older video I took... but really is fun to watch



Took this video the other day. Audio is a bit rough... I'm an old lover of the W8 Twin Turbo

Click Here for a hi-res gallery


Finally, this is a modified Vector W8 (Not my thing...and not as fast as the stock Vector I took video/ photos of by my reckoning.)

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Old 19th March 2009, 00:54   #2
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Wow, i never thought we'd have a member who has taken a ride in a Vector W8 !!

That thing is one crazy looking spaceship. When in white it looks like the storm-trooper-mobile.

The nose goes pretty much straight into the windshield without any change in angle. Any idea what the CoD is ?

That guy was going pretty fast in the residential area - lucky there were no neighbors around to give him dirty looks!

What kind of information does the "digital" screen display?

cya
R
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Old 19th March 2009, 03:20   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rehaan View Post
Wow, i never thought we'd have a member who has taken a ride in a Vector W8 !!

That thing is one crazy looking spaceship. When in white it looks like the storm-trooper-mobile.

The nose goes pretty much straight into the windshield without any change in angle. Any idea what the CoD is ?

That guy was going pretty fast in the residential area - lucky there were no neighbors around to give him dirty looks!

What kind of information does the "digital" screen display?

cya
R
Cd. is approx .32 with pretty low overall frontal area, and a very tight leading edge. Total height of the car from ground to the top is 42.5", which make a McLaren F1 look tall when parked next to it.

It was a bit of a controversay when the Vector was first released with promoted claims of the car hitting 242 mph (as tested at the Bonneville Salt Flats by the owner of this car). The fist few owners of the early W8's couldn't find an insurance company to cover the car as it was far and above the top speeds of the other supercars before it (IE, 288 GTO, 959, F40, Countache). To abaid the situation, Vector claimed the top speed was "200+ mph"

The Automotive magazines saw this as evidence that Vector's claims were just that. There is always a back story; the same goes today.

The windshield is the largest single piece of automotive glass that was ever made in production... and would cost about $7-10,000 to replace with a production run of 10.

Each display option is clearly visible here...

http://nthimage.com/Detroit/photosho...r_W8_int_1.jpg
http://nthimage.com/Detroit/photosho...r_W8_int_2.jpg
http://nthimage.com/Detroit/photosho...r_W8_int_3.jpg
http://nthimage.com/Detroit/photosho...r_W8_int_4.jpg

As to the neighborhood "Tom Foolery" ... sight distance is quite high, and chance of something unexpected is very low. Ultimately, he didn't go WOT whatsoever until on the two lane road... but he definitely did load the engine.

The white car is one of the few later cars with a dual-plane rear wing; most of them are a single plane to reduce the cost of producing the hand moulded carbon kevlar aero-surfacing. It also was made after all the other aero adjustments were made compared to the early cars. At high speed, the early cars experienced front end lift from 180-190 mph before settling back down. Additionally, the sun-roof was removable on the early cars, until high speed testing showed the low pressure nearly lifting the glass right off the car.

The early cars are discernable easily because the strakes and vents on the car look more like gills.

And, I'm happy to oblige
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Old 20th March 2009, 11:48   #4
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Thanks for the detailed reply nthimage.

I know little about Vector besides the brief reading i did after seeing your post, but ofcourse i have been familiar with them thanks to this image that i have had on my computer for the last 10+ years :

WX-3 i believe
Vector W8 Twin Turbo-vectrw3x.jpg

Quote:
Originally Posted by nthimage View Post
....claims of the car hitting 242 mph.....couldn't find an insurance company to cover the car....
Fairly optimistic i guess.
Not the top speed, but trying to insure a car incase it crashes at 200mph+ ...given that you will probably be in it!

Quote:
Originally Posted by nthimage View Post
...The windshield is the largest single piece of automotive glass that was ever made in production... and would cost about $7-10,000 to replace with a production run of 10.
Interesting!
Do you mean 10 extra windshields were produced (in addition to the production run of 17-19 vectors W8s?). Thats a fairly high number. I guess they didnt want to take any risks given that it was the largest peice of automotive glass! (Does that record still stand today though?)


Awesome. I love the look of that - the display brightness and boost controls, and ofcourse the fuse panel.

Thanks,
R

Last edited by Rehaan : 20th March 2009 at 12:03.
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Old 20th March 2009, 20:40   #5
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Good stuff. Lucky you!
How many Vectors were actually made?
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Old 21st March 2009, 05:56   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rehaan View Post
Thanks for the detailed reply nthimage.


Fairly optimistic i guess.
Not the top speed, but trying to insure a car incase it crashes at 200mph+ ...given that you will probably be in it!
Given the time when it happened; the raw speed seemed ridiculous to the auto- journalists of the time too!

Quote:
Interesting!
Do you mean 10 extra windshields were produced (in addition to the production run of 17-19 vectors W8s?). Thats a fairly high number. I guess they didnt want to take any risks given that it was the largest peice of automotive glass! (Does that record still stand today though?)
When the Indonesian thugs took over Vector in 1993/4 (Tommi Suharto, and his gang); they destroyed many of the rolling chassis, as well as extra parts in que for cars not quite completed.

That is another story in and of itself. There are currently no spares. The tooling still exists. To build them, an order of $50-70,000 would be necessary. That basically means that a group of Vector W8 owners would have to do a group-buy.

Quote:
Awesome. I love the look of that - the display brightness and boost controls, and ofcourse the fuse panel.

Thanks,
R
you're quite welcome!



Quote:
Originally Posted by Nitin View Post
Good stuff. Lucky you!
How many Vectors were actually made?
17 production cars, 2 pre-production cars, one W-2 prototype, and two W8 based WX-3 prototypes (one coupe, one roadster)

The Vector M12 isn't a Vector to many purists. Basically, Suharto had extra Diablo chassis, and wanted to sell them as "new." In order to do this, they took the basic look of the AWX-3 Coupe, and streateched, and shrank the design to fit the wheelbase, and chassis of a Diablo. They than used a chopper-gun Fiberglass body; rather than the Carbon Kevlar body on the W8's. The engine is flipped 180 degrees, and attached to a Getrag 5 speed instead of the diablo's native unit. It's put together like a kit car.

There are about 20 M12's out there... +-
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Old 21st March 2009, 23:33   #7
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that is a rare beauty.damn!!lucky you.
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