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Originally Posted by malter2.0
whether they are horizontally or vertically positioned, they are still damn leaf springs. i refuse to acknowledge anything with leaf springs as competitive or remotely modern. it can track n-ring in 4 miliseconds for all i care.
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First of all some good discussion here. Great to see some of the very rational and balanced views comparing the two cars.
On leaf springs: Malter you are waaaay off base here.
There is nothing inherently bad about leaf springs. Sure there are many very low tech., crude and inexpensive implementations of leaf springs but that does not make them bad. As I like to say, a spring is a spring is a spring. The function of a spring is simple; to support the weight of the car, provide a restorative force given inputs that move the wheel and to interact with the shocks via their damping. There can be subtle differences in a spring curve but genrally they are quite linear (force = constant x displacement). Most non-linear effects come from the kinematics of the suspension arms. Not only is a spring a spring, but the Vettes use some really trick composite leaf springs. This system saves a lot of weight over a traditional coil spring and the success of the obsession in low weight design is clearly evident in the car.
Just as background I used to be a huge Corvette fan when very young in the 1970's. I mostly was just excited by the swoopy body styles, bright colors and hot rod image. Due to general quality issues and image issues I lost that love of Vettes. Today I greatly respect the amazing price to performance ratio and track worthiness of the cars. They have certainly drastically improved the car since the 80s. That being said I would not buy one for myself.
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