Cars!

I was just referring to engine sounds...

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This is the same as the first car I ever owned.  A Pontiac Parisian 1974.  It had a powerful V8 engine and worked like a dream.  I bought it for $400,  it was real expensive on gas though.

The other thing I do remember about it was that it had a 8 track music system and that I taught myself to drive in it.  It's a long story,  but basically  no one was willing to teach me to drive and I couldn't afford the lessons, so I would take it by myself around town.  Eventually I put in for my driving test and passed first time too!  Maybe I should have been a driving instructor?   

The Transition is the brainchild of a group of engineers led by Carl Dietrich. Dietrich, his wife, Anna Mracek Dietrich, and the other engineers formed Terrafugia to develop a light sport aircraft that solves four of the shortcomings of other light airplanes. Carl Dietrich, a low-time VFR pilot, quickly learned that travel by light airplane has many obstacles to overcome, including weather sensitivity; ground transportation challenges upon landing; long door-to-door travel times including shifting between vehicles and moving bags and gear from car to airplane and back to car again; and high cost. The Transition, he says, addresses all four of those obstacles.

As an aircraft in the light sport category, Transition cannot fly in instrument weather conditions, so the pilot solves the weather-sensitivity issue by landing ahead of the weather and then driving beyond it. Ground transportation issues are solved because once you land, you can fold the wings and drive to your ultimate destination; door-to-door time is reduced because bags are handled only once and transition from car to airplane or back takes only 30 seconds; high cost is addressed because Transition gets 27 mpg in the air and 30 mpg on the ground and the owner can keep the vehicle at home in a single-car garage rather than an expensive hangar. Dietrich noted that there is a six-year waiting list for hangars at his airport, Hanscom Field in Bedford, Massachusetts. When you can get a hangar, they rent for $1,200 a month.

Of course, all of this comes at a projected price of $194,000 for a Transition when they are scheduled to start deliveries in 2011. That price point certainly puts it at or near the top of the list of light sport aircraft already in the field, but it certainly offers a level of flexibility not afforded a traditional airplane.

The Transition is a two-place aircraft made of mostly carbon fiber. A 100-horsepower Rotax 912S engine sits “under the hood” just ahead of the cockpit. A long carbon-fiber drive shaft transits the area between the two cockpit seats to a fixed-pitch composite pusher propeller in the back. The engine can burn either auto gas or avgas, although it prefers auto gas. A pair of rudders and vertical fins protect the propeller on the ground. However, the propeller is stopped when in ground mode. Then the Rotax powers the vehicle’s front-wheel drive system. Just aft of the vertical fins is an elevator. Out front, a canard also acts as a car bumper. The canard does not move, but it carries an electrically actuated elevator trim tab on the aft chord. The 27.5-foot wings house conventional ailerons; there are no flaps.

In the road mode, the vehicle from the front looks a bit like a Volkswagen Beetle with some additional appendages. Rather than enclosed in conventional fenders, the two front wheels are outboard of the engine compartment in fairings festooned with automotive-style struts, somewhat like the Plymouth/Chrysler Prowler. To switch from airplane to road mode, the vehicle must be stopped. The pilot throws a couple of switches and the wings fold up from the middle and at the root, collapsing next to the aft cockpit to a width of six feet, eight inches. To switch back to airplane mode, the vehicle must be stopped and the pilot must enter a personal identification number on a keypad next to his left knee and then swiftly move a lever on the center console to actuate electrical/mechanical interlocks to deploy the wings. In less than 30 seconds, the wings unfold. The PIN requirement is a security step to help prevent nonpilots from stealing the vehicle and attempting to fly it. Visible wing-root attach points and a bow-tie-shaped wing center joint latch as well as a shake of the ailerons show that the wing is fully deployed and latched for flight.

Inside, the pilot has a conventional steering wheel along with brake and accelerator pedals for ground mode. For airplane mode, he pulls up on a control stick collapsed between his knees and moves his feet outboard to two conventional rudder pedals. Aircraft power is managed with a center-mounted throttle control. In the current proof-of-concept vehicle, the center stack houses a multifunction display, a Garmin SL30 VHF nav/com, and a Garmin transponder. A Garmin 496 GPS sits on the glareshield/dash—handy for ground and air navigation.

A whole-airplane ballistic recovery system parachute will be an option on the Transition.

Design

Compact and powerful: The appearance of the Audi quattro concept makes no secret of its potential. Although the genes of the elegant Audi A5 and RS 5 Coupés are impossible to overlook, the appearance of the show car is far more aggressive and extroverted. Even the obvious differences between the base model and the evolution are more dramatic than between the Ur-quattro and the Sport quattro in 1984.

The concept car’s wheelbase is 150 millimeters (5.91 in) shorter than that of the RS 5. The primary reason for this, of course, was to enhance agility and reduce weight – form follows function.

In contrast to Sport quattro, the Audi designers also shortened the rear overhang by a total of 200 millimeters (7.87 in) to maintain the harmony of the basic proportions. Roof height was reduced by 40 millimeters (1.57 in) for this same reason.

With its exterior dimensions (length x width x height) of 4.28 m (14.04 ft) x 1.86 m (6.10 ft) x 1.33 m (4.36 ft) and wheelbase of 2.60 m (8.53 ft), the Audi quattro concept fits neatly into the sports car segment.

The low roof also reduces the height of the greenhouse and thus lowers the vehicle’s visual center of gravity. The muscular C-pillar is clearly an homage to the design of the Ur-quattro. As with that model, the trademark four rings can be found at the transition to the side of the vehicle, but in this case they are stamped into the sheet metal. Together with the large center-locking, 20-inch wheels in a 7-twin-spoke design, the lines make for extremely dynamic and powerful proportions when viewed from the side.

The wheel wells in the arched fenders are prominently flared – another quote from the design language of the Sport quattro. The same applies to the distinctive air outlet on the right side of the hood, which allows the five-cylinder engine to breathe more freely.

A significant feature of the front end is the stark single-frame grille. The elimination of the chrome frame lends it a functional and technical character. Large, upright air intakes at the corners of the bumper underscore the performance of the power plant.

The top of the grille merges into the flat strips of the headlight modules with their clear glass covers. All light units use ultra-efficient LED technology. The LED elements change their appearance between a horizontal and a vertical arrangement and thus change the character of the front end of the vehicle depending on the lighting function activated.

The strongly molded front skirt includes integrated carbon elements. This lightweight, yet extremely strong material is also used for the rear hatch and the hood, which are unpainted on the inside in order to use the visual quality of the material as a design element. The large spoiler integrated into the rear hatch is also made of carbon and extends automatically as needed and can be adjusted for maximum downforce.

Engines and transmissions

The allure of the five-cylinder engine

High-performance five-cylinder gasoline engines enjoy a long tradition at Audi, powering cars like the Ur-quattro to the head of the pack. Audi resurrected this line back to life in 2009 with the 340 hp, turbocharged FSI engine in the TT RS. The further developed engine in the Audi quattro concept extracts even more potential from this new, state-of-the-art five-cylinder foundation.

Numerous tweaks resulted in a substantial power increase to 408 hp, and its 480 Newton meters (354.03 lb-ft) of torque also leave the base version far behind.

Its basic concept makes an Audi five-cylinder an unusual engine. It has a firing interval of 144 degrees and a firing order of 1-2-4-5-3, alternately between directly adjacent cylinders and cylinders that are far apart.

This produces the distinctive rhythm and musical sound, which are also the result of the intake and exhaust geometry. A specially designed torsional vibration damper at the front end of the crankshaft compensates for the free moments of the engine.

Turbocharged gasoline engines are a traditional Audi domain, and the five-cylinder turbo in the Audi quattro concept is also a high-performance engine. Displacing 2,480 cubic centimeters, it produces 300 kW (408 hp) between 5,400 and 6,500 rpm. Peak torque of 480 Nm (354.03 lb ft) is already available at 1,600 and remains constant through 5,300 rpm. The powerful unit accelerates the Audi quattro concept from 0 to 100 km/h (62.14 mph) in just 3.9 seconds.

The 2.5 liter TFSI is extremely compact. Its cylinder spacing measures 88 millimeters (3.46 in); the external main bearings were moved inside. Only
494 millimeters (19.45 in) long, the long-stroke engine (bore x stroke 82.5 x 92.8 millimeters [3.25 x 3.65 in]) is suitable not only for transverse installation in the
TT RS, but also for longitudinal installation in the emphatically short front end of the Audi quattro concept.

Its low weight of only 183 kilograms (403.45 lb) is also a record. It helps keep the total weight of the show car low and also offers significant advantages for the distribution of axle loads and thus for the car’s handling.

The 408-hp five-cylinder engine is surprisingly frugal, requiring an average of just 8.5 liters/100 km (27.67 US mpg). Its high efficiency can be attributed to the combination of FSI direct fuel injection and turbocharging, two Audi core technologies. This TFSI pairing harmonizes perfectly in motorsports, the world’s most demanding test lab: It has powered the R8 race car to five victories in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and 63 victories in 80 other races.

The successful quattro principle

In the Audi quattro concept, Audi uses the latest evolutionary stage of its permanent all-wheel drive system for longitudinal engines – the quattro drive with self-locking crown-gear center differential and torque vectoring. 30 years after the debut of the first quattro at the Geneva Motor Show in 1980, Audi has once again expanded its lead over the competition.

Inside the new center differential are two rotating crown gears that owe their name to the crown-like design of their teeth. The front crown gear drives the output shaft to the front differential, the rear crown gear the propshaft to the rear axle. The connection here is provided by an ambitious construction. The new drivetrain design is roughly 3 kilograms (6.61 lb) lighter than the previous one.

The crown gears mesh with four rotatable pinion gears. They are arranged at right angles to each other and are driven by the differential’s housing, i.e. by the transmission output shaft.

Under normal driving conditions, the two crown gears rotate at the same speed as the housing. Because of their special geometry, they have specifically unequal lever effects. Normally 60 percent of the engine torque goes to the rear differential and 40 percent to the front differential.

If the torques change because one axle loses grip, different speeds and axial forces occur inside the differential and the integrated plate packages are pressed together. The resulting self-locking effect now diverts the majority of the torque to the axle with the better traction; up to 85 percent can flow to the back. In the opposite scenario – if the rear axle has less traction – the same happens in reverse; now up to 70 percent of the torque is diverted to the front axle.

With this extremely broad torque distribution range, the crown-gear center differential surpasses its predecessors – grip becomes even better. Forces are redistributed without any time lag and absolutely consistently. The mechanical operating principle guarantees maximum efficiency and immediate response. Other strong points of the crown-gear differential are its compactness and low weight – at 4.8 kilograms (10.58 lb) it is roughly two kilograms (4.41 lb) lighter than the previous unit.


Like on rails: quattro with sport differential

As a complement to the new quattro drivetrain, the Audi quattro concept also features the sport differential, which actively distributes torque between the rear wheels. When turning into or accelerating in a curve, the majority of the torque flows to the outside wheel and pushes the vehicle into the curve, nipping the tendency to oversteer or understeer in the bud.

The sport differential is a state-of-the-art rear differential. A superposition gear comprising two sun gears and an internal gear was mounted on the left and the right of a conventional rear differential. It turns 10 percent faster than the drive shaft.

A multi-plate clutch in an oil bath and operated by an electrohydraulic actuator provides the power connection between the shaft and the superposition gear. When the clutch closes, it steplessly imposes the higher speed of the superposition stage on the outside wheel. The additional torque required in order to rotate faster is drawn away from the inside wheel via the differential. In this way nearly all of the torque can be directed to one wheel. The maximum difference between the wheels is 1,800 Nm (1,327.61 lb-ft).