• I didn't give a poo poo about the 944 so I was never worried about hurting it or having reliability issues (like that one harness in the engine bay that, despite being ziptied the gently caress up to its bracket, kept working loose and killing the motor). The Z06 was reliable like any modern car, so I also just got in and didn't worry about it
  
• the 944 had the perfect ergonomics for me. It was so natural to sit in there and do all the driving actions. The seat back had mild but useful wings.
  
• the Z06 had a pretty sensitive gas pedal, so you could very finely dole out bits of power. One thing I didn't like about the Viper was the slightly oversprung pedal. The throttle response was less linear, with this annoying dead zone in the first half inch. Coupled with a slightly touchy clutch, it was much easier to stall that the Z06, which I don't think I ever did. The Viper, I stalled twice in stop and go traffic.
  
• the 944 packed enough power to get out of its own way, but that was about it. It was pretty softly sprung, so it was a typical slow car driven fast. It was all about handling, which it delivered well with its manual steering and super skinny tires. Once when I was on winter tires, I floored it out of a green arrow and busted a really neutral 4-wheel drift across an empty lane
  
• actually, both the 944 and the Z06 were very neutral. You'd have to get pretty deep in the gas on the Z06 before it felt oversteery. Before then, it turned in when you wanted it to. Neutral is predictable and the most manageable
  
• the 944 was surprisingly bassy in its exhaust. I liked how guttural it sounded. Between that and the flat primer, it was such a rat rod
  

• reliability wise, it's still early days. I know I have huge maintenance costs ahead. I think that is somewhat liberating -- I need to get my money's worth out of this timing belt before it gets replaced.
  
• it is a very easy to drive car. There's a lot of oddities outside of driving, like where the belts are, trying to turn the AC off, etc. But once you're moving down the street, it's slightly stiff but nowhere near ridiculous, the steering is very informative with low kickback, and the clutch is one of the easiest to work that I've driven. Anyone who knows how to drive stick could be trusted to pop down to the store in this car. e: one amendment -- you'd have to tell the shopper about the dogleg pattern. Reverse lockout is really more reverse mild resistance.
  
• Driving at 7/10ths is not only a breeze, but it is a joy to have the car so in step with your inputs. In cars with a higher performance envelope, you'd have to have better roads with higher posted speeds to get to that 7/10ths.
  
• the motor does have a low end bass note to it. If you shift early into a gear, 2-3k will come out with a deep rumble. Only past 4k will the Ferrari shriek start to build. Going from 4k to 7k -- I laughed my head off twice in the car while revving it out.
  
• the shifter and the engine response via the pedals really set this car apart. Because the shifter is so long-throw, you have to work it fast for smooth shifting. The engine doesn't hang its revs, so you have to race it before you clutch out into a too-low rev situation. The same with the throttle. If you wanna heel-toe, fuckin mash that pedal to blip the engine up. If you don't, again the revs will be too low when you clutch out. In other cars I've driven, you complete the shift with your hand and then wait a bit to let out the clutch. You spend more time finessing the gas to rev match correctly. The harder you drive it, the better it works. I guess that aspect of the controls gives the car a certain racing-inspired character
  
• the steering wheel was not great out of the box. I'm so glad I put on that spacer. The ape-armed, short legged Italian driving posture is so weird, but I believe that it works for some stereotypical Italian body shape. The seats have decent side bolstering. They hug my love handles pretty well and remind me to lose some weight.
  
• this car is noticeably tail-heavy. With the rear wheels pushed out, it is stable but a bit understeery at medium throttle. But you can nudge into oversteer with less pedal than you would in the Z06. It has a wider band of oversteer range available to you. The throttle is nice and sensitive, and the rear tires are relatively skinny, so you can feel how much slip angle is working back there. When there's lots of texture on the road, the rear does feel pretty skittery. The Viper -- I never had enough seat time to feel out its dynamics. With another 140hp over the Z06 and an inch wider tires, I didn't have enough road around Boston to safely feel it out.
  

kimbo305 fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Nov 6, 2015