Should all road cars be made to WRC spec?

[05XR8]

I watched highlights of the WRC today. A Fiesta has a broken wheel and drives down an embankment and into water. The drivers immediately exit the car. It layed submerged for 9hours and 3 hours after that, the car was made driveable to FiA specs and continued to participate.

Cost: How much is a human life worth?

Performance: WRC machines are so light, a 1.0L 3cylinder engine could be used as a base model all the way up to the 1.6T & 2.0T of a high performance variant. Rally cars can forge through water, cruise over ice and snow with the proper tyres, endure extreme heat and cold.

Insurance & Safety: There's not a single airbag in any race car. Roll cages, helmets, safety belts, fatalities depending on type of collision, fall from road surface or fire, would have to be considerably less than today's statistics.

Today's little crossovers are almost there. in terms of offering the performance of a hot hatch with suv capabilities in small packages. and economy car. MINI Clubman, CX-3, AS-X, XV, etc. Focus RS, Fiesta RS, Polo GTI, Golf GTI are fine cars as is. All they need are roll cages.
The question is not so much about car companies will never do this. The question is more about us as consumers demanding these types of cars built for everyday use.

Please share your thoughts.

 

[titleguy1]

One word: Costs.

That is all.

 

[Tornado]

How much is a human life worth?

Far less than the hundreds of thousands of dollars it takes to make a vaguely Ford Fiesta shaped vehicle with a vaguely Ford Fiesta-shaped drivetrain perform to FIA WRC safety specifications. It sounds nasty, but the automotive industry is not and never has been concerned with providing safety at all costs. No "regular" production car has the best possible braking system you could develop. No "regular" production car has the best possible tires you could equip. No "regular" production car has the most comprehensive airbag system possible installed.


You're also conflating the types and amount of accidents that occur in automobile racing with the types and amount of accidents that occur in automobile commuting; as well as the needs required for both. What WRC car has to deal with high speed impacts from other vehicles? What WRC car needs to be designed with the ability to store cargo or carry passengers (plural)? You want to save lives with full roll cages in regular production cars? You better also mandate helmet, HANS device and 6 point harness use, because otherwise people are going to smash their skulls on rollbars and die just as much.

 

[05XR8]

Florida don't require helmets for motor bikes. A normal pushbike only allows a full face helmet. Goodbye teeth if you fall. Trust, I and countless others know from experience.
WRC use faceless helmets anyway.

What's worse impact? A head on with a car or impact with a tree or telephone pole? Car loses if it's versus a truck.

It's often we read about drivers hitting 200km/h while street racing and freeway pulls. I bet a proper roll cage would improve the mortality rate than the airbag and 3point lap belt sans helmet.

 

[Northstar]

I watched highlights of the WRC today. A Fiesta has a broken wheel and drives down an embankment and into water. The drivers immediately exit the car. It layed submerged for 9hours and 3 hours after that, the car was made driveable to FiA specs and continued to participate.

I'm not sure what this has to do with safety. They design the cars to be simple so that if it does break the driver and co-driver can get it working again. It's not hard to believe that an entire crew can have it stripped and rebuilt in a matter of hours.

Performance: WRC machines are so light, a 1.0L 3cylinder engine could be used as a base model all the way up to the 1.6T & 2.0T of a high performance variant. Rally cars can forge through water, cruise over ice and snow with the proper tyres, endure extreme heat and cold.

I'm guessing most people wouldn't be able to handle a car with WRC levels of performance and would probably kill themselves no matter how safe the car is.

fatalities depending on type of collision, fall from road surface or fire, would have to be considerably less than today's statistics.

I'm not so sure on this considering the lack of sample sizes for rally cars compared to the millions of average drivers.

There is also the issue of rollcages being rather impractical if you need to have more than 1 passenger.

Really though, the current crop of cars are incredibly safe and I think the better investment would be in better driver training (I know it's needed here in the U.S.).

 

[05XR8]

No arguments cars are safe today. No arguments with mandating better driver training. The L-plate, red & green P-plate steps to full licences here in Australia are good. Restrictions on high performance turbo and V8 engined cars has been lifted in some states here.

People are given keys to high hp machines anyway. Plus amateur drivers, with enough money, can drive away in a 700hp Hellcat. So, a more controllable AWD WRC spec road car(with 100hp or 300hp), has more pluses than minuses vs. a rwd drag car for the streets, in all conditions.

Its not about high speeds and hp. Sitting at a set of lights and being hit from behind or t-boned is a common occurance.

Panel shops, depending on parts availability, can repair cars fairly quickly. That's without a 6man crew.

 

[McLaren]

How much is a human life worth? About 400,000GBP if you're comparing the protection of that life to a WRC Fiesta.

 

[C-ZETA]

It sounds nasty, but the automotive industry is not and never has been concerned with providing safety at all costs.

With the possible exception of Volvo.

 

[05XR8]

With the possible exception of Volvo.

Add Mercedes-Benz.

 

[Roo]

What's worse impact? A head on with a car or impact with a tree or telephone pole? Car loses if it's versus a truck.

As has already been mentioned, it doesn't matter what the car hits if the unprotected heads of the occupants hit the roll cage.

It's often we read about drivers hitting 200km/h while street racing and freeway pulls. I bet a proper roll cage would improve the mortality rate than the airbag and 3point lap belt sans helmet.

What would improve the mortality rate most of all is people not street racing in the first place, which comes back to education (as you've acknowledged).

Stret racing crashes are also, if looked at as a portion of all car crashes, very rare. Why make the lives of the majority harder to try to protect idiots from themselves?

If you surround people with a visible, solid safety structure, they feel more secure - so they take more risks, to the detriment of everyone.

AWD WRC spec road car(with 100hp or 300hp)

Only full WRC and WRC-2 cars have AWD. Every other WRC class is 2WD.

One of the reasons FWD exists is because all the mechanicals are up front. With no propshaft having to go to the rear of the car, there's no need for a tunnel through the interior, thus freeing up more space inside. At road-legal speeds AWD is no safer in modern cars than 2WD, except in exceedingly low grip conditions such as ice - and even then AWD only gets the car moving, it makes no difference to the stopping ability. For most people the daily inconvenience of less interior space would outweigh any potential safety gains. For everyone else, there's plenty of AWD family cars on the market.

Sitting at a set of lights and being hit from behind

A roll cage would have no benefit here - it would only add to the danger (again, head hitting metal).

or t-boned

A roll cage wouldn't necessarily help here either - Michael Park, Allan Simonsen, Mark Porter and Keith Odor are all drivers or co-drivers who have died as a result of side-impact injuries in a fully roll-caged race/rally car, the first 3 in the last 10 years. Even with a helmet and 6 point harness, a roll cage is no guarantee of survival.

-----------

In the real world, this is far too impractical:

If car manufacturers thought full roll cages would a) be a benefit to the occupants and b) help them sell more cars, they'd consider using them. That modern cars have gone down the route of crumple zones, electronic systems - ABS, traction control etc. - and so on suggests that the best brains in the motor industry have come to the conclusion that they aren't relevant in every day road cars.

 

[05XR8]

Roll cage improves the structure in a race car. More weight on a road car is due to maintaining that same kind of structural rigidity. Yes? Many of these aids are due to race cars. So why have race cars not adopted airbags throughtout? There's no need for them. Harnesses, helmets, seating that is more inboard and rearward. It may be impractical, doesn't mean it's not doable.

I'm not argueing about drivetrain or power. A Rolls Royce with a full roll cage may look out of place(definitely looks out of place). Watching my 75to car nut Mother(true story) exiting her Juke Nismo w/roll cage would also be interesting to see.

This hitting ones head on a roll cage. I have sat in various racing cars and I personally haven't raced them or crashed one. I've not heard of hitting your head on the cage. Most in-car crashes I see are the steering wheel being ripped out of the drivers hand and the harnesses and Hans device with the seat preventing the driver from moving too much. I'll be happy to watch a compilation of drivers hitting their heads on roll cages. Please enlighten me.

If Ferrari, even Mercedes, began selling their cars with roll cages, how long long would it be before it became mainstream? Many cars have lane departure warnings and adaptive cruise control. No one wants to be left out not offering what is gone mainstream.

 

[Northstar]

People are given keys to high hp machines anyway. Plus amateur drivers, with enough money, can drive away in a 700hp Hellcat. So, a more controllable AWD WRC spec road car(with 100hp or 300hp), has more pluses than minuses vs. a rwd drag car for the streets, in all conditions.

This has more to do with driver training, mainly teaching them to know their limits.

It may be impractical, doesn't mean it's not doable.

Nobody is saying it isn't, in fact I've seen quite a few street cars with full cages. Of those, I can't recall any having fully-functional rear seats which is kind of a must if you have more than one passenger.

This hitting ones head on a roll cage. I have sat in various racing cars and I personally haven't raced them or crashed one. I've not heard of hitting your head on the cage.

I would imagine it isn't a problem with full-fledged race cars because they are designed to keep the driver as still as possible in the event of a crash. Where you probably would see it is with street cars that have full cages and none of the other safety features that go along with it. That is probably the biggest flaw with this proposal, you can't just do one safety feature as they all compliment each other. In order for it to have any effect at all you would need the roll cage, seat, harness, neck brace (aka hans device), helmet and fire suit.

It just seems like it would be easier and cheaper to just teach people how to drive.

 

[05XR8]

It just seems like it would be easier and cheaper to just teach people how to drive.

People should do proper racing school/defensive driver courses at a race track. That's a whole other great topic.

 

[Beeblebrox237]

Is this a joke?

 

[Tornado]

What's worse impact? A head on with a car or impact with a tree or telephone pole? Car loses if it's versus a truck.

Probably about the same, depending on extenuating circumstances.

It's often we read about drivers hitting 200km/h while street racing and freeway pulls.

Complete morons do tend to do a good job of removing themselves from the gene pool, yes.

I bet a proper roll cage would improve the mortality rate than the airbag and 3point lap belt sans helmet.

This hitting ones head on a roll cage. I have sat in various racing cars and I personally haven't raced them or crashed one. I've not heard of hitting your head on the cage.

Next time you get in a car, measure the distance of your head to the A-Pillar., as well as the door frame. Activate the seatbelt tensioners somehow, then move your head as far as you can from the seatback with the belts locked. Does your head reach either the door frame or the A-Pillar? Might not come too close to the A-Pillar depending on the car, but I bet it comes damn close to the door frame. It might even touch it.



Now subtract four inches of space. 3 point belts, helmet or no helmet, are not enough to keep your head from hitting a roll cage.







Along those lines, there's a reason once three point belts became the standard there wasn't much development from them on a conceptual level, and why once airbags were made the law for secondary restraints the main innovation for them has been "more airbags":

Try to get someone under the age of 10 into one of those. Try to get someone who is overweight into one of those. Try to get someone wearing loose clothing into one of those. Try to get someone with a bad back out of one of those. Try to get someone elderly into one of those. Try to drive in one of those in a long trip.

If Ferrari, even Mercedes, began selling their cars with roll cages, how long long would it be before it became mainstream?

It never would, because the driving needs of a Ferrari are not the same as the driving needs of a family sedan so the impracticalities of including racing harnesses and roll cages are also not the same.

Many cars have lane departure warnings and adaptive cruise control.

Which are both accident avoidance systems that do nothing to decrease the functionality of an automobile.

With the possible exception of Volvo.

Volvo has not and never will be concerned with providing safety at all costs. No Volvo is as safe as it could be, because Volvos still need to be priced relative to its competition in spite of the brand's safety heritage.


What Volvo does do is develop new technologies and ideas and try to implement more cut down and affordable versions in their road cars eventually.

Add Mercedes-Benz.

Mercedes Benz has not and never will be concerned with providing safety at all costs. No Mercedes-Benz is as safe as it could be, nor is it anything except a large stretch on your part to compare a typical Mercedes Benz to a "regular" production car. And German/European market models, which are about as close as you can get to an entry level vehicle since they are offered in more basic form than export models, need to be priced relative to its competition in spite of the brand's safety heritage.


What Mercedes Benz (and, indeed, many premium brands) does do is develop new technologies and ideas and implement them in their grossly out of reach flagship models where they can afford the price hit of the technology.

 

[Danny]

Please share your thoughts.

Where is this money coming from?

Also don't forget to also include the money you'll need for introducing global forced sterilisation and relocation costs for disappearing overnight and starting a new life elsewhere, since it's now no longer practical to have children or family.

 

[Roo]

Harnesses, helmets, seating that is more inboard and rearward. It may be impractical, doesn't mean it's not doable.

This hitting ones head on a roll cage. I have sat in various racing cars and I personally haven't raced them or crashed one. I've not heard of hitting your head on the cage. Most in-car crashes I see are the steering wheel being ripped out of the drivers hand and the harnesses and Hans device with the seat preventing the driver from moving too much. I'll be happy to watch a compilation of drivers hitting their heads on roll cages. Please enlighten me.

Are you genuinely suggesting everyone who drives a car ought to be wearing a helmet, HANS device and a 6 point harness? That all cars should be restricted to 2 seats in order to make room for a full roll cage?

If you are, then troll confirmed.

 

[Slash]

Is this a joke?

When I read the title I thought the same thing.

 

[Legro]

Switch the places of road car and WRC in the question, and it'd be much more relevant.

 

[The Stig Farmer]

I was hoping for cool WRC renders.

 

[tankuroded]

Why we suddenly talking about car safety gear and stuff? This thread should be about ideas for road cars for WRC.

 

[Snorevette]

Why stop at WRC-spec? A Challenger 2 tank is even safer, but even that feels pretty reckless - building a concrete bunker deep underground and waiting for millenia until the tectonic plates have shifted in such a way that you're right outside the shops when you finally climb back out into the sunlight is safer still, AND green!

 

[05XR8]

If you have a 4yo like I do, that age are already wearing safety harnesses(Doesnt a McLaren F1 have a 5point harness and that's a central driving position) in the child seat. Besides, if you know anyone that has more than one child, no one else is fitting back there.
Has anyone ever seen people being taken on ride days? There are over weight people and elderly people going for blasts in all types of race cars on a track. One of my mates is 6'2" about 260lbs and went for a blast in a dragster at Eastern Creek. I'm sure he'd fit in a DD with a roll cage.

Race buckets can be made comfortable. Suspension systems can be made to handle all types of surfaces along with proper tyres.

Making a WRC car into a road car? Why not just mass produce the WRC car in the first place?
WRC car to road car: it already has
latest engine technology
headlights
btakelights
indicators
seats
safety harnesses
handbrake
wipers
flappy paddles/circular paddle
tinted windows
instrument panel
fire extinguisher
spare tyre and jack
radio/navigation
number plates
and most likely a safety rating of 5-Stars

It needs:
muffler/silencer(s)
sound proofing
Some welds to keep water out
stamped steel body panels

A Factory made road car to WRC specs, would have more room, amenities and made more comfortable for everyday driving.

 

[Northstar]

Why we suddenly talking about car safety gear and stuff? This thread should be about ideas for road cars for WRC.

This thread was never about that, if you want one discussing it there is nothing stopping you from making one.

If you have a 4yo like I do, that age are already wearing safety harnesses(Doesnt a McLaren F1 have a 5point harness and that's a central driving position) in the child seat. Besides, if you know anyone that has more than one child, no one else is fitting back there.

If you have a full cage nobody is getting back there, not even a single child. Of course even if you did manage to get a car seat in the back, it would be insanely difficult to actually get the child strapped in.

Has anyone ever seen people being taken on ride days? There are over weight people and elderly people going for blasts in all types of race cars on a track.

Never on a green race track though and usually at less than race speeds.

One of my mates is 6'2" about 260lbs and went for a blast in a dragster at Eastern Creek. I'm sure he'd fit in a DD with a roll cage.

Again, nobody is arguing that it's impossible, just that it's about as practical as using a garden hose to fill an Olympic size pool.

Race buckets can be made comfortable. Suspension systems can be made to handle all types of surfaces along with proper tyres.

Full race seats are actually rather comfortable as they are molded to the individual drivers. Of course the obvious problem is that it would mean only you can drive the car and the seat would cost more than most cars on the road right now.

latest engine technology

Yes and no. Yes, they do manage to get insane amounts of power out of engines, but that comes at the cost of reliability. I highly doubt any race engine could manage to reach 200,000 miles.

There is also the issue of cooling race engines, they are designed to run at high RPM's so they probably wouldn't last long in rush hour traffic.

and most likely a safety rating of 5-Stars

I'm not so sure about that as I would imagine they would be very vulnerable when it comes to the side-impact tests.

A Factory made road car to WRC specs, would have more room, amenities and made more comfortable for everyday driving.

The elephant in the room is still the roll-cage though, it's a big bulky thing that takes up most of the cabin and there really isn't much you can do without sacrificing structural rigidity. The rest can indeed be made possible, but it would probably double the cost of the car and limit it to 2 seats.

 

[05XR8]

Race engines are not an issue. I mentioned in the OP it could be a 3cylinder engine for a base model up to a 300hp 1.6L/2.0.
The roll cage is for the engineers to figure out. I'm an artist first. How the roll cage is engineered to specs can vary as much as the design of the car.

Changing the title to: Make road cars to WRC specs, is a proper philosophical topic. Putting "Should" in front, offers so solutions to that theory. I'll have a think.

 

[McLaren]

This hitting ones head on a roll cage. I have sat in various racing cars and I personally haven't raced them or crashed one. I've not heard of hitting your head on the cage. Most in-car crashes I see are the steering wheel being ripped out of the drivers hand and the harnesses and Hans device with the seat preventing the driver from moving too much. I'll be happy to watch a compilation of drivers hitting their heads on roll cages. Please enlighten me.

How many people do you see driving on the street wearing a Hans device in first place? None, because it's not practical.

If you have a 4yo like I do, that age are already wearing safety harnesses(Doesnt a McLaren F1 have a 5point harness and that's a central driving position) in the child seat. Besides, if you know anyone that has more than one child, no one else is fitting back there

It also costs over a million dollars....

Has anyone ever seen people being taken on ride days? There are over weight people and elderly people going for blasts in all types of race cars on a track. One of my mates is 6'2" about 260lbs and went for a blast in a dragster at Eastern Creek. I'm sure he'd fit in a DD with a roll cage.

Fitting isn't the issue. It's when you wreck & get tossed around.

Race buckets can be made comfortable. Suspension systems can be made to handle all types of surfaces along with proper tyres.

Making a WRC car into a road car? Why not just mass produce the WRC car in the first place?
WRC car to road car: it already has
latest engine technology
headlights
btakelights
indicators
seats
safety harnesses
handbrake
wipers
flappy paddles/circular paddle
tinted windows
instrument panel
fire extinguisher
spare tyre and jack
radio/navigation
number plates
and most likely a safety rating of 5-Stars

It needs:
muffler/silencer(s)
sound proofing
Some welds to keep water out
stamped steel body panels

A Factory made road car to WRC specs, would have more room, amenities and made more comfortable for everyday driving.

I don't quite understand the train of thought here. You're asking to make a WRC car to road car when a WRC car already starts as a road car. In the case of the Fiesta, M-Sport take a production Fiesta & strip it to the frame so they can make needed adjustments. Then, they basically install a whole new piece of car into the existing body. This is why it ends up running around 400,000 pounds.

The Fiesta R5 is the closest thing to meeting what you want since it retains many of the production parts whilst having similar figures to a fully spec'd out Fiesta WRC. It still costs 200,000 pounds. Cars would cost ridiculous amounts of money to make them as rigid as race cars whilst still trying to make them practical & safe for the occupants (which means finding a way to have a roll cage that won't injure anyone in an accident without a helmet/harness).

 

[05XR8]

I've already stated making it to specs from factory. Someone posted why not make the race car into road car. That's why I listed what's already in the race car and what was needed to make it "comfortably road worthy".

Mass producing cuts costs. I don't know how much one Fiesta costs to make and for Ford to make a profit. Making a WRC spec road car from the assembly line, even the Focus RS, I don't know how much that would cost Ford.

 

[Roo]

The roll cage is for the engineers to figure out. I'm an artist first.

And suddenly, it all becomes clear.

You can't just magic a roll cage in to a car and expect it to be as practical as cars are now. This is something I'm not sure designers of anything - cars, buildings, clothes - ever fully understand: it doesn't matter how pretty something looks, or in this case how safe it is, if it doesn't fulfil its primary function. If your aim is to make transport as safe as possible, ban cars altogether and make people walk everywhere.

 

[McLaren]

I've already stated making it to specs from factory. Someone posted why not make the race car into road car. That's why I listed what's already in the race car and what was needed to make it "comfortably road worthy".

M-Sport takes a production chassis, strips it down even more to make it lightweight, & then installs a road cage before going to paint. To achieve turning the race car into a road car, you'd basically have to revert the race car back to square one & go in a different route to a finished product from where M-Sport goes. Such as the interior: you'd start figuring out how to fit & wire the factory Fiesta dash in where as M-Sport places in a simple carbon fiber dash of the same factory mold.

Mass producing cuts costs. I don't know how much one Fiesta costs to make and for Ford to make a profit. Making a WRC spec road car from the assembly line, even the Focus RS, I don't know how much that would cost Ford.

The WRC car again, already starts from the same assembly line as a regular Fiesta.

How do you plan on mass producing a Fiesta to WRC-specs? M-Sport already produces a Fiesta to those same specs (Fiesta RS WRC) & it costs 400,000 pounds. Adding a quieter exhaust, some sound dampening, water-proof welds, steel body panels & mass producing it will still cost well above the average person's range for a car. The Fiesta R5 is a car that meets similar desires. It looks & performs like a WRC-spec model, but still retains OEM Ford parts underneath that are generally replaced; it costs 200,000 pounds.

 

[05XR8]

Edit: in response to @Roo.

As impractical as engineers think designs are, engineers still manages to push the boundaries beyond their belief. There are engineers that have made beautiful designs. Plus, there is no magic to it. It can work. How? Designing, materials, equations, planning, budget.

@McLaren From the assembly line, the WRC Fiesta would not need to be altered if it was designed and engineered and built on the assembly line. Correct? If it is built that way as a road car, there would be no taking apart, sourcing parts and putting together if it is already engineered that way.

If I were to take a 2015 Fiesta RS road car on a rally course, how soon would it fall apart? Once again, speed and power are not a factor. The road car can not do or be as safe as the WRC car. If the WRC is engineered to do road car duty from the jump, we may see a different car altogether. May not be as impractical as is.

I'd love to see a challenge of both on road and off road(dirt, gravel, tarmac, wet, snow, mud). Collision data as well.