RideTech 33 Ford VS Lamborghini Gallardo

[bret]

The ridetech 33 Ford was very graciously invited to a track test with the Factory Five guys and Hotrod Magazine a few weeks ago in California at Las vegas Motor Speedway. They ran our car, a Factory Five Cobra, a Factory Five Daytona Coupe, and another Cobra replica built for Summit Racing. All these cars ran against a Lamborghini Gallardo on the road course.

Here is the video from Hotrod Unlimited



On the dragstrip...

The ridetech 33 ran a 11.54@ 123mph. My car had the worst 60 ft time and the best mph...by a lot! It was also the heaviest of the bunch at 2595 lbs.
The Daytona Coupe ran a 11.87@ 117 mph
The red Cobra replica ran a 11.74@ 118mph
The Summit Cobra replica ran a 11.50@ 115mph

They didn't run the Lamborghini on the dragstrip

On the road course...

The Daytona Coupe ran a 55.60 lap
The Lamborghini Gallardo LMP550 ran a 54.53 lap
The red Cobra replica ran a 55.26 lap
The RideTech 33 ran a 53.89...beat the Lambo by .6 seconds!

They didn't run the Summit Cobra on the road course.

I was not able to be there myself because I was attending a funeral that day in Indy. I think I might have been able to tune our car up even a little more I'm sure Micheal was wallowing around my my "EL Grande" sized seat in the 33...that never helps confidence or lap times. Also...the guy driving the Lambo was a driving instructor at the Exotic school there...lots of seat ime in that car and on that track. Michael, [Hotrod's test driver] had NO previous seat time in any of these cars and did an amazing job!



Very cool test! Many thanks to Dave Smith, president of Factory Five, for his monumental efforts in coordinating all this. He picked up my car right after the Del Mar Goodguys show on Thanksgiving and has been putting all this together since then. I've not seen my car since November!

Thanks as well to the people at Summit and Hotrod Magazine...VERY proud to be included. I am hearing that there will be more on all of this on the Hotrod website and in the print magazine coming up shortly.

[srh3trinity]

I would be impressed if you were competitive, but beating the lambo's time is something. Especially with the driver having plenty of previous seat time at a familiar track.

[diesel25lrs]

Great job Brett! All that hard work & ingenuity is paying dividends!

[Todd in Vancouver]

That was a really cool video and that '33 kicked butt,way to go!

[dunnjun]

Darn Bret! I knew the '33 was fast, but d**n, that's unbelievable! Great video! The car is far from a kit car now!

[Rod]

Lamborghini Smamborghini.....

[MattG]

Hey Bret, just curious...why the tire change?

Was it to keep commonality with the other Factory5 cars?

Love your car and hope to build one myself someday.

Matt

[bret]

yeah...they installed Toyos for all the cars to eliminate the tire variable. Factory Five is hooked up with Toyo, so that is what we ran to keep everything "apples to apples". Good tire, but not what we've tuned to on our particular car.

[bret]

The "oem" Factory Five 33 Ford is a damn capable car as delivered from Factoey Five. What we did was nothing different than what all of us are doing to "as delivered" 69 camaros from GM. It's all about optimizing the car for the intended purpose. Nothing more or less. In reality, my Factory Five 33 is probably closer to an "oem" car than most Camaros here. Light, cheap, adaptable...hard to beat that!

[65-fastback]

Nice promo!

They also picked the best tires imho!

Did you like em @ the track?

[shortrack]

Lamborghini Smamborghini.....

X2


I was at Mosport Park around 1980 for an IMSA race and Danny Ongias in the Interscope Racing Porsche 935 turbo was the star of the show. There was a guy in a Camaro very similar to the one in the pic except it was all red and it had a tunnel ram, dual 4bbls and chrome velocity stacks just sticking right up out of the hood like a drag car. People were laughing at it on the warm up lap, it looked really out of place in the midst of all the swoopy European exotica. Ongias started on pole the Camaro about 6th. Within one lap the Camaro had disposed of all the cars in front and was glued to Ongias's bumper. They traded the lead for the whole race and were 15 sec ahead of third. Then on the second last lap the Camaro's engine came around off song and he DNFed. But the message was sent loud and clear to me. That European stuff is not all that and never was.

[KnightMare]

The 33 ford was the meanest vehicle out there. It's an awesome looking and performing machine

[tommycomfort]

Awesome as always!

[rustomatic]

I watched the video and found it very cool--one day, my wife would love for me to build her a pink (not!) Cobra replica. I am more partial to the '33 coupe now--I think you're doing an awesome job of making the '33 considerably more attractive to an ever-increasing audience.

Here's my really, really stupid question: Would the '33 Coupe have been faster on the road course with about 100 less horsepower?

[bret]

I watched the video and found it very cool--one day, my wife would love for me to build her a pink (not!) Cobra replica. I am more partial to the '33 coupe now--I think you're doing an awesome job of making the '33 considerably more attractive to an ever-increasing audience.

Here's my really, really stupid question: Would the '33 Coupe have been faster on the road course with about 100 less horsepower?

hehe...interesting concept...and one that is not too far off. The car certainly got faster when I went from an 13lb carbon clutch to a 46 lb DYAD clutch. There is a LOT ot be said for smooth. controllable power...even at the expense of total horsepower.

I have learned to modulate the power effectively [mostly] Had their driver been able to spend some more time in the car I'm sure he would have gotten to that point as well. It took me 3 months.

Nice promo!

They also picked the best tires imho!

Did you like em @ the track?

I have not driven on the Toyos myself so it's hard to offer a relevant opinion. I like the Falken 615k's a LOT. That is what will be back on the car this week for the second Hotrod test and for RTTC.

[newmexicosaint]

I would be impressed if you were competitive, but beating the lambo's time is something. Especially with the driver having plenty of previous seat time at a familiar track.

I second THAT!! I absolutely loved it!!