It’s less about the horses and more about not nuking your oil pressure. I’ve driven this car with and without the balance shafts and you really only notice any vibration in the shift lever. It doesn’t make noise, you can’t feel it in the seat. But to each his own.

Horsepower? Only four.

The 2013 comment is strong with this one.

when i talk to russian guys they think i’m crazy for how much i love it, but a 4wd van that you can fix with a hammer? thats heaven to me.

nice! I’m a permafrost researcher, so a lot of my colleauges do work in siberia. mostly yakutia, cherskiy, places in the northeast. I hope to get to go one day, and maybe i can get to drive one of these bad boys.

I’ve driven those before - they have exactly as good of driving dynamics as their nickname would imply. Treads certainly improve the situation.

i love the loaf

Oooh, I forgot about sprint cars... +1.

“It’s got the best turbo, bro!”

V4

Thanks for sharing your knowledge on this subject. I really enjoy your writing. I hope you contribute more around here... maybe even your own front-page post!

Hey Rock, I notice a supplier right off I75 in Troy with a big sign in its window, apparently advertising its wind tunnel. Do you ever use a supplier’s wind tunnel in addition to what you have?

Chrysler Airflow was one of the first outcomes of wind tunnel auto testing:

Thanks for the story.

Here’s the Supersonic wind tunnel bldg. It works by pressurizing those 2 big cylinders with air and then letting it out like a balloon for 2-4 seconds of supersonic air flow. Also, they’re full of beer cans from the 1950's (reduces the area need to pressurize, blah blah blah). Tours are really fun.

Do they ever use mirror models to replicate road proximity effects? I’ve seen it used on locomotive testing.

Ha, I haven’t personally been to any of those tunnels, but I have been to Boeing’s large transonic wind tunnel (BTWT) and 4'x4' supersonic (since upgraded to trans- and super-sonic) wind tunnel (BSWT) in Seattle. The BTWT is a very large recirculating tunnel (which takes a crazy amount of power and cooling) and the…

The article says "Ever since Colin Chapman came up with the idea of selling a race car chassis as advertising space in 1968..."

Really, Colin Chapman came up with the cars paint scheme being dictated by the primary sponsor, really!?