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The route home. Venice to Bristol 1200 miles, 1 speeding ticket (€90.00) in France all in 1 day.
Mr J Clarkson wrote: This week, however, I found a woman coming up the A44 at 30 and I went beyond incandescence into a semi-catatonic state of pure rage. My blood turned to acid and fizzed. My heart was filled with hate. I very nearly followed her home, just so that I could burn it down. But there wasn’t time. And to make matters worse, the Pretty Titty didn’t quite have the oomph to get past. Oh, it had the right gear in a jiffy, but the 3.2 wasn’t enough of a heavyweight to exploit the gaps. God, I wanted my Mercedes. Or better still the new Noble M12 GTO-3R. This doesn’t accelerate when you press the pedal. It explodes. In the time it takes an Audi to select a gear, or the SL to gird its considerable loins, the lightweight Noble has added 10mph to its speed, your eyeballs are fastened to the back of your skull and your left kidney has come off. It may only have a 3 litre Mondeo engine but the addition of two turbochargers mean it will accelerate from 0 to 60 in, oh, I don’t know, four seconds. Maybe a bit less. And you’ll reach the end of the road way before it reaches its top speed of 170mph. Speed, however, is only part of the fruit cocktail. The best thing about the old car, with the old 2.5 litre V6, was its handling. It simply didn’t understand the concept of understeer, gripping like an American in hurricane Isabel and then oh so gently allowing the rear to slide in a glorious bout of power oversteer. The new one is ever so slightly less good. Because there’s so much more grunt from the extra half a litre it’s hard to get the throttle position just right. And it only takes your big toenail to grow a little and oomph, the rear wheels light up and you wind up going backwards in what feels like the smoking room at Detroit airport. There’s another problem, too. The new engine, and the addition of a six-speed gearbox, has pushed the price to more than £50,000 and it’s hard to justify that. Yes, it does appear to be well made and you do get leather trim, but there are no luxuries at all, apart from air-conditioning. You even have to wind your own windows down. Sure, it’s faster than a Carrera 2, and more fun as well, but it’s not a Porsche and you can never quite get it out of your head that it was built from plastic in South Africa and assembled on an industrial estate in Leicestershire. I sort of don’t mind, though, because it is just so very, very fast. And very, very pretty. And who cares if it doesn’t handle quite as well as the old car. Coming second to that would be like coming second to Tom Jones in a singing competition. The boss of TVR has referred to the Noble as “the South African three-wheeler” ever since its suspension broke in a recent Autocar test. But that shows he’s worried about it. And rightly so. TVR has been doing its thing for 10 years and nobody has thought to help themselves to a slice of the cake. Now Noble has come along and taken the icing and the cherry, leaving only the sponge. In a world obsessed with image, you can’t beat a Porsche. But in a world obsessed with time, a Porsche is a library. A TVR is the internet. And the Noble is broadband. VITAL STATISTICS (standard Car) Model: Noble M12 GTO-3R Engine type: V6, 2968cc twin turbo Power: 352bhp @ 6200rpm Torque: 350 lb ft @ 5000rpm Transmission: Six-speed manual Suspension: (front and rear) Double unequal-length wishbones, alloy uprights, Bilstein dampers Tyres: (front) 225/40 ZR18, (rear) 265/35 ZR18 Top speed: 170mph Acceleration: 0 to 60mph: 3.8sec Price: £51,500 Verdict: The fastest, most beautiful thing to come out of an industrial estate in Leicestershire Based on T25 turbos 352bhp, rears tyres 275/35 ZR18 Toyo R888 my T28 turbo's give 450BHP. He is so right........... Actually it was modified by http://www.noblemotorsport.co.uk/ to give 455BHP@7200rpm, 30BHP more than the M400. One of the director of Noble Motorsport owned the car hence why it has so many extra's and upgrades. You can still see it on thier website. Phase 2. E mail from Noble Motorsport -----Original Message----- From: NobleMotorsport@aol.com [mailto:NobleMotorsport@aol.com] Sent: 13 August 2010 17:03 To: mike@solenoid-valves.com Subject: Ref Noble Hi Mike Thanks for the reply and for the order. The tyres we have costed you on are as follows Falken 235 / 40 18 Y front Falken 265 / 35 18 Y rear We use these tyres on a lot of our high speed cars here and a lot of Nobles. They are a realy well performing tyre at a reasonable price . Our ex upgrade details are as follows. The exhaust is a full stainless cat back system We supply the system with 100 cell full flow sports cats. We designed and tested the exhaust to complement and be the next logical step from our stage 4 upgrade. At the moment you are basicaly running our stage 4 upgrade but with a hybrid turbo that we had done for the car when peter owned it . We do the exhaust as a full package deal that is the exhaust, sports cats. gaskets and clamps. The cost includes fitment and mapping to suit . We would expect this with the turbos you are running on yours to take you to around 500 bhp or just over If you require any more information dont hesitate in contacting us. We will press on with your car and i will keep you posted on progress. Regards Mike  Lets quantify this: - Full twin stainless steel sports system with high flow 100 cats (just road legal) developed by Noble Motorsports.. Has taken it from 440BHP to 493BHP - That's 456.5 BHP/ Ton!! Can't stop grinning, think I am suffering from Grinachyness - (pain in face muscles caused by over grinning.) The Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4 is a mid-engined grand touring car. ... Volkswagen Group's 1001 brake horsepower (746 kW; 1015 PS) figures, of 446.3 bhp per ton. Upgrading the tyres and brakes to suit The turbo actuators are being changed as the torque is well down. If you don't believe the story then click on this PDF link 
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