Anybody seen this?

[conekiller13]

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/...t_drive_review









Iconic AC Roadster - First Drive Review
What doesn’t kill you could be awesome—that is, if it ever comes to life in the first place.

BY ANDY DIDOROSI
October 2010

This story is familiar in so many ways but unique in one: Claudio Ballard, founder of Iconic Motors, has actually built a car. He let us drive it, and not only did it not catch fire, lose a wheel, or otherwise attempt to self-destruct, it also drove pretty well.

Ballard’s ambitions are big. He says he wants to build “the world’s most refined sports car.” His first entry into the fierce arena of megabuck sports cars is the $425,000 Iconic AC Roadster, and he hopes to build 100 copies. Riding the coattails of the venerated AC name and Shelby Cobra styling, the roadster’s co-opted heritage and specifications—825 hp pushing around only 2400 pounds—suggest something other than refinement.

Powerful Friends, Powerful Motor

The roadster came about with help from some prestigious partners, namely, concept-vehicle development maven Bob Nowakowski of Technosports in Livonia, Michigan—a company whose portfolio includes work on such projects as the Shelby GR1 concept and the Ford GT—and Ernie Elliott, NASCAR engine builder extraordinaire. The car itself is more upper-crust hot rod than production car. Much of the roadster has been CNC milled from blocks of billet aluminum, ranging from chassis bits down to the monogrammed grillwork in the intake ducts. There are cool engineering tricks, too, like passages drilled in the upper control arms for brake fluid so no brake lines clutter the view of the suspension.

Key the NASCAR-inspired Ford V-8, and it snarls to life, a lumpy cam ensuring the fuel-injected mill sounds appropriately menacing. With a super-heavy clutch and 4000 rpm required to take off from a standstill, it’s easy to forget you’re in a “refined sports car,” and it’s even easier to believe you’re in a ride on the grid ready to fight for the checker at the 24 Hours of Daytona. The performance claims would be competitive on a racetrack—Iconic claims the car will reach 60 mph in three seconds and top out over 200.



With carbon-ceramic brakes, no ABS, and contact patches wide enough to make a Viper jealous, it’s all g-force and anxiety behind the wheel—thrilling, but thank goodness our drive was extremely brief. There’s no pretense of civility: Madness is what the Iconic AC Roadster is all about. In an age of ultra-high-performance but zero-work sports cars aided entirely by computers, it’s refreshing to have a car try to kill you every now and again. The brake pedal, although incredibly stiff, offers gobs of feedback. The manual steering rack is laser-precise, as is the six-speed Tremec gearbox.

RIP, OBD?

The AC Roadster isn’t all caveman grunts and wooden clubs, though. This car also serves as the demonstration piece for Iconic’s sister company, VEEDIMS Corporation, which takes its name from its Virtual Electrical Electronic Device Interface Management System. In an easier-to-digest nugget, VEEDIMS basically replaces the traditional CAN-bus system that various in-vehicle modules use to communicate, instead utilizing good new-fashioned ethernet. It is supposed to make maintenance and monitoring of the vehicle’s vital signs much easier, although we haven’t heard much complaining about the current onboard diagnostic system.



This is where the story turns familiar again. Although the car we drove didn’t break and didn’t try to kill us in any way that suggested it wasn’t well engineered, it was not without its glaring faults. This is a prototype, but some parts that were claimed to be production spec—such as some interior switchgear—were obviously cobbled together. (Notice that many of the images are renderings.) Then, of course, there’s the issue of the styling. To us, Iconic’s AC Roadster looks like a Chinese knockoff of the Cobra it emulates.

Although the car is competent, at its price, our attitude toward the Iconic AC Roadster changes completely. We’d take a couple of the world’s most refined sports cars from one of the world’s established sports-car builders—or, heck, an original Cobra—rather than some upstart’s science-fair copy of one of the most celebrated, brutal, and rewarding cars in history.

[HWY Nova]

Its been around a while.

www.iconicmotors.com


--Eric

[conekiller13]

What piqued My interest is the ethernet based wiring. As someone in the auto repair industry I've been wondering when this might make it's way to production cars in an effort to reduce weight and complexity of wiring harnesses. The issue of course is everything designed to make things easier usually makes them harder.

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by conekiller13

What piqued My interest is the ethernet based wiring. As someone in the auto repair industry I've been wondering when this might make it's way to production cars in an effort to reduce weight and complexity of wiring harnesses. The issue of course is everything designed to make things easier usually makes them harder.

Do I dare ask the pro's and con's of VEEDMIS vs. ISIS?

I'm committed to ISIS (Jay and team have been awesome) but inquiring minds would like to know.