Why The Most Dangerous Car Ever Made... Was Killed

in the words of Jeremy Clarkson it's a Supercar unplugged it's one of the most Exquisite shocking and diabolical cars to ever leave a factory what started Life as a secret underground project aimed squarely at taking on the unforgivable and brutal 24 Hours of Le Mans would ultimately be left abandoned by its maker that is of course until the mad minute Porsche stripped it down for parts repurpose the technology and gave the world the absolute Pinnacle of analog supercars this is the automotive Legend with a heart stolen straight from a Formula One racer A Car synonymous with pure excitement and untameable personnel so much personality in fact that Jay Leno the stick and even racing Legend Walter roll couldn't keep it from biting him on track it has a clutch light enough to stall almost constantly without proper experience an engine imported directly from the automotive gods and a seemingly illegal lack of electronic assists it's brutal and pure its Beauty and the Beast it's the Porsche Carrera GT let's take a trip back to 2004. it was Porsche's entrance into the flagship Supercar segment of the 2000s weighing in at just 3 100 pounds you get a full carbon fiber body structure push rod suspension setup radical design and a six-speed manual transmission connected to the pounding F1 inspired heart a 5.7 liter V10 engine that sounds sweeter than just about anything you'll ever see on the road close your eyes crank the volume and just listen to this Masterpiece of Porsche engineering just under 1300 examples ever left the production line at a base price of nearly 450 Grand steep I know but for that wad of cash you were stepping into a machine set up for some of the most incredible performance fees of its generation back at its debut in 2003 at the Geneva motor show it was easy to write it off as little more than an attention grabber for Porsche's more lucrative Cayenne project which was displayed the same year but the Carrera GT Endeavor was the culmination of over a decade of racing success failures and back and forth between the dedicated engineers and demanding corporate HQ turn the clock back a bit further in the late 80s Porsha was supplying engines for Formula One and by the 1990s they'd established themselves as the undeniable King Of Motor Racing chalking up 16 overall Le Mans wins by that point they were Untouchable trouble was road racing wasn't getting nearly the attention formula one was wanting to make a name for themselves in the open wheeled Arena they tossed their engineering hat into the ring and developed an engine to Dethrone them all and this very project began what would eventually become the soul of the Savage Carrera GT famed engineer Hans Metzger who did the engines for some of the best Porsche GT cards of all time was tasked with creating the winning formula pun intended he started with an insane twin turbo V6 capable of around a thousand horsepower but when restrictions came to F1 and did away with turbochargers Engineers offered up a new 680 horsepower V12 based on that Metzger 6. essentially two of them grafted together but poor performance and durability quickly disqualified the new 12-cylinder as their ticket to Victory Engineers refined the V12 even further and once again the big V12 was rejected by the even bigger bosses saying it was still too large too heavy for Formula One again it was back to the drawing board and draw they did Porsche's new attempt at an F1 engine was now a V10 it was three and a half liters produced a competitive 760 horsepower and had an ear-shattering 14 800 RPM Redline but still it wasn't enough for the higher-ups to give the go-ahead for Formula One But as depressing as it was that we never got to hear that V10 run lapse at Monaco it wasn't the end for that engine you just had to wait its turn Porsche stuck it on a shelf and went back to more conventional racing competing for the next few years in the GT1 series with what they knew best flat sixes however the boys in schnukart couldn't seem to keep their grubby little fingers off the bid for another Le Mans win in the year 2000 but all of Porsche's money had been spent on the whole new water cooled 911 the Boxster and a complete retooling of the factory to adopt the Toyota production system so what did they do well they peeled the plastic off the now old V10 F1 engine upped its displacement made it Le Mans legal and built a crazy prototype chassis to go along with it this prototype would have likely finished Podium at the big race in 2000 seeing as it set a lap record at Porsche's vysoc facility during testing that is if it had ever gotten to the Le Mans green flag in the first place I can't believe I'm saying this but Porsche's bosses once again nixed the idea and in favor of what you ask some rebadged Touareg SUV called the Cayenne and the enthusiasts were pissed but as you know that decision is what kept Porsche from falling off the face of the Earth their financial commitment to the cayenne and affordable yet wonderful Boxster ended up literally saving the company but back to the GT Porsche knew that the next few years would be packed with Supercar competition so they hastily yet artfully designed a mid-engine Le Mans inspired prototype and plunked in that old F1 V10 to draw a crowd at Geneva see rumor had it that Ferrari was building something called the Enzo Bugatti was eyeing a comeback with big Power in the Veyron and McLaren coming off their incredible run with the world beating F1 was teaming up with Mercedes to do the SLR not to mention Audi was sneaking around with plans for the R8 too and while Porsche's own 911 Turbo and GTRs cars could hold their own on track they couldn't quite drum up excitement like a proper exotic the pressure was on and Porsha had to prove that their near bankruptcy wasn't for nothing their next big debut had to be something groundbreaking and the now bigger 5.7 liter 603 horsepower V10 laid at the center of their comeback they went against the grain of what most other Supercar makers were doing at the time by mating it to a six-speed manual something we appreciate more and more as the years take by to get the weight as low in the car as possible they omitted the flywheel allowing him to place the top of the engine about right in line with the top of the rear tires the monocoque holding everything together was made completely of carbon fiber and weighed just 220 pounds by itself something only seen previously in the McLaren F1 and all that coupled with the stiff push rod suspension setup made for an insane amount of capability out on track its production-ready exterior was actually designed in the US of all places in sunny California but that didn't matter yes it's flashy and low and wide but the way the front and rear mirror each other and curve around the sides of the car were done so well that enthusiasts were convinced it was something quintessentially proportioned that remains True to this day it had Center lock color-coded wheel Fasteners big flowing intakes and a giant double bubble engine cover that lets you know there's something special hiding underneath inside a very simple interior with a few big gauges leather bucket seats that use a velcro pad for adjustable lumbar a keyed ignition on the left because Porsche and a Beechwood shift knob that's mounted super high on the center console and serves as a tribute to the dominant Porsche 917 race car look even deeper into the Carrera GT's insides and you'll find it's infamously difficult clutch not only are the pressure plates small and intricate but the car has no flywheel at all meaning your insurance company and wallet will thank you for practicing rev matching on something cheaper before hopping behind the wheel of a cgt that being said like the brakes it's made of carbon fiber and silicon carbide and Porsche tested it to 16 000 race starts so it's a bit tricky but not delicate and while the early press cards were reportedly insanely stable on track it seemed like for one reason or another the customer cars had handling characteristics more like the original Widowmaker all of its quirks taken together made this car a handful and a near liability to drive on the street considering it gets to 60 miles an hour in just three and a half seconds runs a quarter mile in 11.2 and tops out at around 208 miles an hour I'd like to see anyone drive one without a pucker or two it is truly one of the last analog supercars to ever touch the streets unfortunately also the centerpiece of several crashes that forever branded the cgt as downright dangerous a journalist wrecked one at the Press launch rumor has it that the legend that is Walter roll had a lot of trouble controlling it during a Nurburgring testing session Jay Leno spun a cgt into the infield at Talladega Top Gear's Stig couldn't get his to stick to the track Supercar collector Ben Chen destroyed one on a city street and most notably and tragically the Beloved Paul Walker of the fast franchise was killed while in the passenger seat of a red Carrera GT during a spirited drive on a Californian public road all of these accidents had different levels of driver faults and at least two of them point to potential maintenance neglect remember to check your tires folks it's still debated today as to whether the Carrera GT itself had a bad temper or if its drivers pushed the car past its limits in fact just after spinning the cgt The Stig set the fastest Top Gear lap ever in the same car so who knows this car indirectly marked a pivotal time in the course of sports car development and it's almost hard to believe a 600 plus horsepower manual transmission carbon fiber bodied car legally made it to the streets with no electronic assists whatsoever it didn't even have airbags it was Porsche's second attempt at a moonshot halo car and a night and day shift from the tech forward 959 that came just a decade before it no car of this magnitude will ever be built without strict safety nets in place ever again the Carrera GT was unmistakably a product of its time and its combination of Unchained power Timeless design and Driver involvement make it go down in history as one of the all-time greats and all that makes it perhaps the most ideal car thank you all for watching if you enjoyed this video please give it a like and consider subscribing to Ideal for more stories like this coming along every single week go check out a few others like it right over on the side there my name's Trav and I'll see you all very soon foreign [Music]

Channel: Ideal Media

Views: 139,376

Keywords: dangerous cars, porsche carrera gt sound, porsche carrera gt exhaust, porsche carrera gt straight pipe, porsche carrera gt crash, porsche carrera gt pov, porsche carrera gt top speed, porsche carrera gt top gear, porsche carrera gt vs 918 spyder, porsche carrera gt nurburgring, porsche carrera gt review, cgt, carrera gt, paul walker, the most dangerous car in the world, ideal media, dangerous car in the world, most dangerous cars in america, most dangerous cars in the us

Id: F__HvEL4ui0

Length: 10min 30sec (630 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023