THE FASTEST CAR OF THE 1990S NEVER PROVED THAT IT COULD REACH 242 MPH

We all love an entrepreneur with lofty ideas of supercars and dreams of exotic performance figures. If the first design sketches of a flat, wedge-shaped sports car come along, we're well and truly hooked. But, there's a chasm between dreams and reality. Especially when it comes to big engines, intricate inner workings, heat management under high performance, and getting all these things right when it is tested by someone objective.

Ask Gerald Wiegert, owner of Vector, who wanted to make a super car in the 1980s that could rival the best the big European brands could offer. In the end, Wiegert succeeded. Sort of. He claimed his Vector W8 could run flat out at 242 mph - the fastest of any production car at the time. And still ridiculously fast today. But on closer scrutiny, did the W8 really achieve those lofty numbers in real testing? It seems Wiegert's, and some others with bigger names as well, claims were a tad optimistic.

What Puts The Super In Supercars?

Calling a production vehicle a supercar is somewhat of a marketing exercise, one feels. With no objective parameters available, it's anyone's guess as to what is a supercar and what's just a sports car with nifty performance figures. And then there are those pesky numbers on their own accord: Are they from the manufacturer themselves, or from some external and objective institution, like a motoring publication?

The whole debacle has become even more muddied with the advent of hypercars - sleek, low-slung two-seaters that would not look out of place on the 24 Hours of Le Mans grid.

It is believed that the term supercar was first used for the Lamborghini Miura in 1966 when it debuted at the Geneva Auto Show. With its transversely mounted V12 behind the cockpit, the Miura was revolutionary in its technical design. And fast. It was a bit of a unicorn, but today, with our understanding of turbo-technology, it is not strange for a passenger car like a BMW M5 to produce supercar-like performance.

The W8 - It Could've Been The Supercar For The Ages

Maybe we should evaluate every car in its era. The Miura against its peers, and the Bugatti Veyron against what was available at the advent of the 21st century. That is why the Vector W8, obscure as it is today as it was in 1979 when the project started, is still such an interesting phenomenon. Because owner Gerald Wiegert made some outrageous performance claims that were astounding for the early 1980s, and still even are today. The W8, if it was delivered on Wiegert's claims, would be the super car to end all supercars. In the 1980s, and for years to come.

The Vector W8 - Big Claims, But Buyers Beware

Quick facts about the W8

• Project started in 1979
• Production started in 1989
• Only 17 units were built
• Price at launch - $420,000

It all started in 1979 when Wiegert contacted Larry Griffin, then associate editor of Car and Driver, to come and check out his new project. Wiegert, an engineer, was working on a new supercar that would put the best the big European names could produce to shame. Better acceleration, better top speed. Everything.

His design was near perfect. It had a dramatic wedge shape, with the flat nose and windscreen virtually merging into one another, much like the Lotus Esprit of the time. Behind the cockpit there were three louvers to obscure the driver's rearview even more, but look cool at the same time, framed at the back by a somewhat longish, flat tail end with a little double-stacked wing at the edge. It looked like a proper super car.

A Big V8 From The General

Under the rear hood, in front of the rear axle, Wiegert dropped a big 6.0-liter-V8 from General Motors into the engine bay. Aided by two turbos, it was claimed that the W8 produced a hefty 625 ponies that all went to the rear wheels via a three-speed automatic gearbox.

But that wasn't all. Wiegert combined some nifty aerospace-engineering tricks to make the W8 even more special. Like the aluminum body, which was riveted with aeronautic quality studs to carbon fiber and Kevlar panels to give the body extra strength without compromising its weight. It didn't stop there. For the engine, his engineers used aluminum cylinder heads, forged pistons and stainless steel valves. Boost was set to eight psi as standard, but could apparently be toggled up to its threshold of 14, to put out almost double the power.

Everything was set for greatness. Except that the project couldn't get off the ground. Indeed, it took Wiegert a decade to start production only in 1989. In the end, only 17 models were built. Just as Volkswagen found out later with the Bugatti Veyron, heat management becomes a great - and costly - issue. The W8's price started at a promised $225,000 claim, but when it went on sale, it was an absurdly high $420,000. That's a million dollars in today's money. For a supercar from a company no-one has even heard of, or who has built any sort of track record.

So, Who Can We Rely On Then?

Could the Vector W8 then actually reach 242 mph, as the company claimed? It's unsure. Vector claimed that in its tests, it reached 242 mph on the salt flats. Wiegert gave Car and Driver two sample models in 1991 to test in California. The first one's gearbox seized up - it wouldn't send power to the rear axle. When the journalists tried the second model, the engine overheated during acceleration runs. After the company's engineers worked overnight on it, the car overheated again the next evening in cool weather, just by driving to the actual testing area.

The Test Cars That Just Didn't Want To Be Tested

It became an embarrassing nightmare for Wiegert. After another night of tinkering with the remaining W8, the car was put through its paces in a series of acceleration runs. The first two benchmarks - 60 mph and the quarter-mile - were completed, but then the gearbox's third gear acted up. And the reverse gear disappeared as well. That was the end of the W8's test. So far, only a top speed of 218 mph has been independently recorded.

Building a car is hard, and big promises make the nearly impossible even harder - Car and Driver

The Vector W8 isn't the only culprit though, claiming lofty performance figures, and not really achieving them with independent testing. Jaguar's XJ220 got its name from Jaguar's claim that it could hit 220 mph in 1989 - at a time when both Porsche (959) and Ferrari (F40) claimed 197 mph for their new super cars. But it was only when the XJ's catalytic converters were removed, and the rev limiter bumped up, that 217 mph was reached. Same for the McLaren F1. Its top speed of 240 mph was achieved by a prototype on the Nardo test track facility by raising the rev limiter from the standard 7,500 rpm to 8,300 rpm - an option not available to customers.

Conclusion

It's a shame the Vector W8 was conceived in the late 1970s and engineered in the 1980s. What would've been possible if the W8 had a modern six- or eight-speed box? Or better cooling facilities, an issue even the Bugatti Veyron with its four turbos struggled with decades later. Maybe then that big 6.0-litler-V8 would be able to produce a blistering 240 mph top speed. But as it stands, that title went to McLaren F1 in 1993, leaving us to ponder what could've been for America's true Euro-fighter of the 1980s.

While McLaren held the record for many years, the top speed was never available to customers. You could do 212 mph in the Bugatti EB110 GT, and 220.6 mph in the EB110 SS, which were results that could be replicated by owners. We guess that makes the world's first hypercar the real holder of the title at that time.

Sources:Wikipedia, Car & Driver, Bugatti

2025-02-05T08:39:04Z