aw hell yeah vic, where do I get me some of that ejection seat action wooo!
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Alright guys, I've got a doozy for you, so here we go!
Remember Mushu? You mightn't. But it was one of the quirkier entries of titleguy1's "
Economy Racers" cup. Because of some vagaries in the adjudication of the competition, we never really got an official release of the track times (and also, Mushu performed poorly because, well, I kind of followed the letter of the law, but very much not the spirit...) but still, an FF nostalgia bubble car that gets 40MPG and can match an MP4-12C around the Top Gear Test Track? That's Gryphon Gear for you!
Officially (or rather, unofficially but the story is the worst kept secret so everybody might as well know), Mushu was the car built by Gryphon Gear to replace Peapod, Strop's Honda Civic Vti-S MY13 that was pimped out into a full blown racer with more kilowatts than kilograms (which also made it virtually undriveable on the road), and subsequently wrecked in the mostly-illegal Barely Street Legal League. Kind of as an apology present since the crew kind of 'borrowed' the Civic without the owner's permission. The other half of the truth is, Strop designed Mushu as an apology present for his girlfriend, E, who was not only quite fond of Peapod, but had not
quite been informed as to the exact nature of the activities Strop et al. were undertaking on their trip. More on this later, when I finally get around to telling the final parts of the BSLL. Suffice to say, this is why the car was designed the way it was, and suffice to say, it was a hit, because E relented and decided not to stay on in Switzerland on an indefinite research sabbatical
Alright, well, IMO, Mushu, while not a car I'd brag about like I brag about the OVER 9000HP cars I tend to build, was a pretty fun car with ridiculous handling and blistering supercar performance. But then, what Strop realised was that despite everything, Mushu was still pretty heavy at 584kg. That's way too much. We wanted something lighter. Smaller. Like, Peel P50 small.
Unfortunately, Automation bodies don't get any smaller than the bubble car sedan from the 50s. So the crew labored and cut and sawwed and machined with their characteristic precision (a.k.a so much 15+ quality slider) to build a proof of concept. They used the lightest materials, the lightest suspension, the lightest engine (a 393cc OHC EFI 8v inline 4 with a performance reminiscient of the 2CV engines), the smallest gearbox, the thinnest wheels, the tiniest brakes, and the minimum in trim. And then tried to make it as fast as it could go.
The end result was... well, we now know the lightest possible car built using Automation (for the year 2015) would weigh approximately 304kg (if I went back to the year 1990, when CF panels first came out, then it'd go down to a lean 290kg!). The Mushu Ultralite, however, weighs 309, because we wanted to use wheels that would actually let the car turn on the road, and we couldn't bear to build an engine that had less power than it had potential for (even on leanest mix). To be honest, the fuel economy could have been significantly better if we had used DOHC, direct injection, but those parts were... heavier.
- MushuUltralite.png (938.43 KiB) Viewed 3498 times
Given the insane amounts of quality that went into it, you could say that this is the world's most expensive kit car. It also has kit-car like performance, with a 0-100 time of 11.2 seconds, quarter mile of 18 seconds, on to a stately top speed of 134km/h. Because I ran the ultra quality race semi-slicks typical of GG cars on it, somehow, it manages, despite an anaemic power:weight ratio of 96hp/metric ton, to nearly hold its own against a Caterham 160 on the Top Gear Test Track, mainly due to its insane cornering thanks to the tyre material and just how light it is. On tracks requiring a bit of grunt, well, seeing as it has about as much go as an asthmatic Daschund, don't expect much. On a more technical track like Nordschleife, it excels in the corners, but you might as well pull over to the right on the straight (still, only in theory about 10 seconds slower in total than a stock Honda Civic). Where it really comes into its own, however, is the downhill touge, where power is secondary to control, and on a track like the Haruna Downhill, the Mushu Ultralite excels, making the run in just 5:19, barely touching the brakes at that.
- MushuUltraliteGH.png (904.9 KiB) Viewed 3498 times
Upon reviewing the fruits of their labours, the GG team promptly dumped Strop headfirst into a barrel filled with ice, no less than he deserved for thoroughly wasting everybody's time with such an un-GG like car.
Sun Jan 18, 2015 11:33 am 
83 Kiriminas - Rev0.lua
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" -- Everyone on Automation right about now.