(Forgive the double-post, but time has passed)
Well, with free-time still at a premium, instead of building & breaking-in the cars, I simply just 'borrowed' the Lambo-Mercy & Golf from @
Leonidae@MFT's GT5-profile earlier this week (Mon-night I think), and conducted tests for both over the same conditions.
- 5 laps at Monza
- 5 laps at GVS
- 2 laps at Nürburgring Nordschleife
First up,
Giallo Toro.
-This one was a surprise, but not in the best-sense of the word. Over the years of me testing MFT creations, private or otherwise, each individual car had a feeling of being
more than just "a car" - they were
unique, they were creations of metals, materials, fluids, and virtual blood & tears. Whether it was Grim R34per teasing me with 'the light' before the tunnel, or a modest, but
pure GT-R32 introducing me to GT5, each car was special in it's own right and earned it's spot in the MFT stable.
-But the Giallo Toro ?,
honestly, didn't deliver that familiar MFT feel
. On the straights, even with all it's power, it felt slow - it'd even 'bog' after reaching the rev-limiter in a few gears at times, it always felt more like low-500's rather than the 650+ it had. I constantly found myself asking "why isn't this thing snapping my neck ?", and no, I didn't just come out of a X2011 or F2007 or anything, rather the opposite, a 500HP Ruf CTR2, quick yes - but a 650HP Lamborghini should have made it feel slow, but I never got that 'feeling', maybe the gears were off - I didn't look at the setup, I was tempted to throw the stock-trans back in, but time was running low and I still wanted to get to the golf.
-In the corners, things weren't much better. It felt like the front and rear of the vehicle were constantly working against one another and rarely working together, and even when they did - it was brief. It'd lose front grip with the slightest change in steering-angle, but the rear wouldn't rotate to help you out, no matter how much momentum you had it carrying. Even going for the E-brake did nothing, as all that did was lock
all the tires up, making things only worse as it still wouldn't rotate, but rather just slide off track in a straight line, literally fighting any sideways motion.
-Then later the rear would 'spook' under hard braking and become unstable, and want to swap places with the front, which still wouldn't give the grip needed to reign-in the rear, it was a struggle to find consistent grip when needed, this problem was more apparent at GVS, but at Nürburgring, I found that limiting yourself to a small -
tight amount of steering angle (with a wheel) through sweepers, actually yelded very good grip, a 'sweet-spot' if you will, that allowed some of MFT's presence to come-through, but it would quickly disappear again at the next up/down shift as the power & gearing woes came back into play.
-Overall, it felt like a car that didn't know just
quite what it wanted to be, track-monster on sport tires ?, racecar without racecar-downforce ?, too much weight or too little grip ?, I never felt it had a definitive purpose in the MFT stable, but more of an honorary spot-light as GT5 came towards it's quiet end. I wonder if changes in the trans&diffs would make noticeable improvements in drivability ?, but as it wasn't
my car, and I still believe in the 'old ways' of being a gentleman, I left it as-is and reviewed it for how I experienced it, rather than force my ideals upon it. 👍
The 400HP Golf was a similar tale, although a little more enjoyable due to a much shorter wheelbase (giving way to easier sideways-shenanigans) and actually going
along with E-brake tug's rather than fighting them tooth-n-nail. For 400HP, it moved well-enough, but for all its bragging, I expected a lil' more 'explosion' for propulsion. An LS6 at 400-ish feels more lively in a heavier car than the 400 in this Golf, maybe it's just me, but it didn't 'wow' me, even for a Golf.
But do not fret, these 2 didn't suddenly make me turn-away from MFT, maybe there was a screw-up during the 'borrow' process, or the cars weren't set-up properly when I got to them, who knows ?. Or maybe my expectations are just rather quite high after my pleasure of meeting the MFT Ferrari 430 Scuderia Competizione, either way I do still plan on giving @
Greycap's Nissan R390/720GT creation a worthy test-effort this weekend, as well as whatever comes to fruition in GT6 from you guys. 👍