Mondial - "one of ten slowest sports cars of all time"

These guys have clearly never driven a TR2 or X1/9

 

Probably never tried a T, nonetheless he did say its a cool car. We have to all agree there.


Lino

 

+1

I get 0-60 in 6.3-6.4 all the time!

 

It's not how fast you go, it's how you go fast!

I had a LOT of fun in my old X 1/9

 

I was thinking the same thing I had a lot of fun in my old mg midget.
I think an interesting question would be how many of us current Mondial owners have owned cars on that list?

 

Or a Fiat 850 Spider - now THAT was slow.

 

So what, they are right. It was not the quickest car 0 to 60. And it was not built to be a drag racer and win quarter mile sprints. But take it out on a track like Lime Rock or on the Dragon's Tail or any other great winding road, and the Mondi will hold its own. My old '84 Mondial QV had no problems keeping up with most of the modern cars at Lime Rock everywhere except on the front straight.

Like my old Jaguar XKE, the Mondi (in fact all the 3x8 cars) were not built for 0 to 60 speed. They were road race cars designed for European road races like the Mille Miglia. Different tools for different purposes. They are comparing apples and bowling balls.

 

I can't stand Jalopnik.

For an auto blog, they sure do ***** and moan about exotic cars.

And when one wrecks, they jump to conclusions and smear the driver / owner even before the full story emerges.

I'm not reading that blog anymore. Eff those nincompoops.

 

It is not about 0-62mph times is it? It is about atimulating the senses, and that is what every Ferrari is good at.

 

At least the Mondial is still 1000 time cooler than the chintzy 360 Modena With that comment and the panache comment, I'd own one.

 

I don't know where they got their facts from but in thinking about it my 3.2 was faster than a lot of sports cars from the same era
nissan 300 0-60 7.3
toyota mr2 0-60 8.3
porsche 924S 0-60 7.8
porsche 944 0-60 8.8
honda crx 0-60 8.6
ferrari mondial 3.2 7.1

All the above cars listed are 1986 models these are just a few I picked off the top of my head and I got the figures off a 0-60 website I'm sure there are more examples of sports cars that are slower than the Mondial.
Whatchya got for us now Jaloponik?!

 

You know, it does not matter what the figures say, the point that the article did agree with is that the Mondial looks cool when going 5 mph or 100mph, everything else is irrelevant !
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"What they may lack in speed they make up in style"-Joe Zaff

And by the way, I think my Mondial looks really fast here. I love this pic.
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That is a Great Shot Jay ! If you don't have this hanging in your office/man cave, you should !

 

Remember this one?
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Hey if they are going to post articles they need to get their facts straight 0-60 is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the performance of our Mondials lets compare our cars to others on a roadcourse I bet our cars could outperform many other sportscars.

 

We have been having a spirited discussion on this in another forum. And was suggested this is a better place. I recently bought a 1986 3.2 QV. I plan to actually get numbers from the Atlanta 1/4 strip, but have had decades of drag racing and road racing instruction and experience. And lets use a contemporary 1984 Z-28 HO 5 spd I drag raced the hell out of. We figured no more then 200hp and maybe as little as 190.

The Mondial is a couple of hundred pounds heavier, so some adjusting will be required. The Z-28 would turn 15.1 times all day long. We would shirt-sleeve 100lbs was worth one tenth. So give the mondial 15.3 if it had 200 hp. But it doesn't. It has at least 270. Our other shirtsleve calculation was that 10-15 hp was worth a tenth. That gives the Mondial at the very least 4.6 tenths, and perhaps as much as 7 tenths. I vote for seven.

I spent an entire decade driving a Lincoln Mark VII with 8psi boost for at least 300 hp. [It was advertised stock as 225hp, which no one believed. But if so 1/2 atmosphere would have given it 337hp] Whatever. It ran 14.4 times and weighed a tad over 4000lb. I have been driving the hell out of the Mondial now at least 2,000 miles. And maybe, just maybe it is a tad slower then the Mark VII.

The track times will tell whether it is just a Ferrari Illusion, or if it really IS a 14 second car.

 

I parked the Z-28 next to a 308 in the gated garage. It was a dog. My wimpy Z-28 was its match in just about every way. Three liter Porche 944's were just lunch at Summit point. So how the four valve 3.2 with 270 hp gets classed in as a slow car? Beats me. Even the contemporary 3.5L BMW csi I test drove was two classes down from the Z-28, but looked damned good.

I still have a hard time believing the BMW 3.5 of that era is slower then my 2007 Malibu Maxx 3.5 vvt. But my 1986 Ferrari 3.2 QV Mondial is not. I can tell you that unequivocally.

 

I add the VW Karman Ghia and Lotus Europa S1/S2.

 

I just want to go on record as saying, even though MY Esprit S4 is faster than a Mondial (and the 3X8s), I would still like a Mondial. I mean, c'mon; it's a Ferrari! My plan is actually to sell the Esprit and try to find a nice, later model Mondial t. I like the Mondial better than the 308. Something you don't hear too often.

 

FWIW just about every single 4 banger roadster/sports car built by the British and Italians during the 60's thru 80s were slower than the Mondial.

Granted, the mondial 8 was slow for a V8 powered Ferrari...costing a relative arm and leg in its day...but there are a ton of fantastic sports cars out there that aren't going to win any 0-60 contests...it doesn't make them any less sublime. If this was an honest contest of the slowest sports cars, a car with a 9 second 0-60 wouldn't make the cut, not by a long shot.


Personally, I'd rather drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow... Which is probably why I hated my Porsche Boxster S, but loved the Miata!

 

Let's not forget that the Mondial in question here as amongst the slowest sports cars of all time is the Mondial 8. After that came the 3.0q.v. and then the 3.2 and then 3.4t. Both the 3.2 and 3.4 are very different to the first 2 models. In fact the 3.4t is quite a different animal indeed.

Unfortunately the Mondial 8 had such bad press at the time that it remained as a stigma which unfortunately has left it behind a bit in the desirability stakes when in fact the later models are amazing!

It's a bit like the 348 when the president of Ferrari branded it as the worst car Ferrari ever made when he was beaten at the lights by a Honda nsx and was embarrassed. The stigma has stayed with the 348 to those that know the story but I love them and hope lo upgrade to one in the future.

 

While I am not certain the Karman Ghia is an actual sports car, the same could be said for my 1969 Fiat 850 Spyder. Pretty little car. One horse power per cubic inch was very Italian, but there were only 50 of them. Had the hearbeat of a hummingbird and half the longevity. I think 0 - 60 was about 16 seconds. My buddy hot rodded his Ghia and it would do 0 - 60 in about ten seconds. I had a TR3 and have know idea. Same with the MG TF. I the TF's favor though, was that it had a Volvo B-18 1800 cc engine(?).

I liked the Triumph Spitfire I borrowed in college, but doubt it could outrun an 1956 Plymouth Flat Head Six. By way of ancient comparisons, I was at Hershey, or perhaps Carlisle, and ran across an old road test comparing the 1953 Fort Flat Head V-8. The Chevy Overhead Valve Six, and the Plymouth Flat Head Six. They all did 0-60 in about 19 seconds.

I am still perplexed.

 

I can recommend the 3.2QV Mondial as by far the best sports car I have ever driven. There is NOTHING about it I would like to improve upon. That is the only time and the only car I can say that about. And now I offer this Herresy. This car has much more in common with my 1984 Z-28 HO then any other car I have driven. Except the Mondial has a good engine. And I have driven just about every sports car, sport sedan ever built. I have a particular disregard for BMW's. But that is another discussion. The Porches of the era should have been every last one of them recalled and fitted with a Corvair rear suspension.

I kid you not. In at least one of the 911 production years they installed 100lb of lead in the Front Bumper. I guess they were killing off their customers with that cheap track suspension in the back. I believe something like half the 911 Turbos of the era were wrecked when the drivers lifted the throttle at the Interstate on ramp. The Mondial absolustely, possitively, will not bite you. And if you push through the initial understeer it will go neutral. In otherwords. "This is your last warnig....."

Just Magnificent.