The Vector W8

Pretty cool. Looks like it needed new wipers though. Maybe @TXRailRoads73 can help him out.

 

A lot of the video Doug is just clueless.

Dispel his inaccuracies:

1. The cars are still serviced by David Kostka and myself. So there is support if you purchase a car. Parts are pretty readily available through us. His retarded comment that the owner had a new set of wheels made by the VP of Engineering so he could run modern rubber and then to later say that getting support to repair the car would be impossible are a complete contradiction.
2. Yes there is an air bag in the steering wheel (the first Supercar to have one)
3. Doug is trying to do an acceleration run in top gear and thinks there is something wrong with the car. There is, its the driver. This would be the equivalent of holding your Tundra in 6th gear and not allowing it to use the first 5 gears to assist in the acceleration run. He needed to put the car in first gear to use the cars potential.
4. The seats started out as Recaro CLASSICS that we then highly modified. But Doug is unable to figure this out so the word CLASSIC seems to baffle him
5. The front trunk on car 003 (the car he is driving is missing the lateral support rod. Hence the reason its all funky when he opens it. It should go straight up and down.
6. During the drive Doug keeps referring to the sound of the blow off valve. There is no blow off valve on the engine. There are a pair of waste gates and if Doug had any technical prowess he would have looked at the engine and made that determination.
7. The engine on 003 is filthy (just an observation on my part)
8. Doug is surprised that everything in the car works. Im not sure why, everything works in my 27 year old W8 too. So do all the others.
9. His being completely mystified by the doors and door pins is amazing also. The door hinge is a double tapered roller bearing set up that you could hang a gorilla off of. The door will hit the pin hole every time. He seems perplexed by this.
10. My window mechanisms work like they did the day the car rolled off the factory floor. But I have properly lubricated them over the past 27 years and maintained them. Car 003 has sat in a museum with very little maintenance over the years. Her new owner is addressing things slowly.
11. The windshield wipers on 003 are not aligned. Not sure why. Someone did something to them to have them crossing each other and touching.
12. All of the switches and circuit breakers, Hours meter, compass are all Milspec parts from the same suppliers as Northrop, McDonnell Douglas, Boeing etc... Same Milspec numbers.
13. The eyeball vents are out of an airplane.
14. The Gas Cap is from a Huey Helicopter.
15. The window switches are from the same supplier as BMW. Not a GM part.
16. Holy cow the mirrors work. At least in this car...... They work in all of the cars.
17. The boost knob in the dash controls boost. But you must use higher octane fuel to use the boost. It's base setting is 8lbs of boost at which the engine produces 650hp and 649 lbft of torque on 91 octane fuel. Adjusting the boost knob up to its max will yield 14lbs of boost and 1200 hp using 110 octane race fuel. Do that on 91 or 93 octane and it will end up as a pile of parts under the car.
18. Doug should really know more about the subject he is reporting out on.

I'm sure I missed some things as its been a while since I watched the review.

Sorry if my review of Doug's review seems crass. He just has no clue as to what he is looking at.

 

Way too cool that you own one of these bad boys, and that you are still involved. Have you posted pictures and history of what your involvement with the W8 is/was.

 

Hi Danimal86.

I was one of the first 4 employees at Vector. There was Jerry Weigert, David Kostka, Bob Porter and Myself. Eventually we grew that to 75+ employees in a 3 building campus in Wilmington.

I was a jack of all trades person when I started there, what ever needed to be done. Assembly of the first car, Sweep floors, climb of the roof of 400 north marine and pull out asbestos from the cooling tower... Oh yes I have done it all. And may die early from that last item.

I was there up until the hostile take over and the closing of Vector Aeromotive as we knew it in 1993.


A few photos of the early years and the later years.





My Car at the Singapore Grand Prix Track Paddock




A shot of my car

 

A few more photos.

The back lot at 400 N. Marine. Me with 016


A shot of car 008 in the foreground and my car in the background at the factory.


A shot of the service area at the back of 400 N. Marine. car 016 and Car 005 / 14A



A shot of some of my cars. And those moments when you realize that the Cobras windshield towers over the top of the Vectors Roof Line.

 

I hate that guy, all of his "reviews" are stupid and clueless.

 

How many Vectors exist? Those are sweet looking cars.

 

Lighten up boys, Doug is just an average guy trying to bring cool cars to the forefront. You on the other hand, not only own the car and have 30 plus years of experience working on them, but hell you built the damn things. I've come across active dealership mechanics who have less of a clue on the actual cars they currently work on than Doug does. He obviously made several errors as pointed out, but to do a 38 minute video on a car that has such a small amount of available information. The guys deserves a bit of slack, just saying.
In any case Doug brought this gem of a vehicle back to the forefront for us to enjoy, and for our young kids to see that as a generation, we weren't so square after all. I truly believe that the positives shown on the review far outweigh the negatives and surely one or two new age billionaires have now seen the video and may be looking to purchase one for top dollar, which ain't bad.

 

Very cool car! I remember when they came out. Love all the pics, thanks for posting.

 

I just find all of his videos are irritating, every one of his videos that Ive seen has errors that I know, and I'm just a regular dude. He regularly takes old cars and knocks them for being slower and less refined than new ones. I find him a poor mans jay leno. Jay has made mistakes in his career and life, but regarding cars you can tell he loves them...the cars he showcases are often his own, and he knows more about the cars that arent his than the designers he's interviewing. Doug borrows peoples cars and then essentially makes fun of them by highlighting their "quirks" and then gives them a crappy "Doug Score". I want to punch him in the face most of the time.

 

That's absolutely awesome!
That picture showing the car with the panels off is amazing. Can't believe the engineering that went into that.

Having a boost control knob would be dangerous.....have you ever cranked it all the way up?

 

Very cool car and first I've heard of it. The design has has held up well over time, IMO.

 

I'm not a fan either.

 

There are 17 production cars that were sold to the public. There are two pre production cars that were also sold to the public later. So a total of 19 W8's produced. There is the original W2. Jerry still has it. And the 2 next generation prototypes AWX3 and AWX-3R. They were recently sold at auction.

 

Yes, I run 110 octane in the car most of the time. I have run her at full boost. Typically she is running 10 to 12lbs of boost which puts her around 950 hp. And a tad over 840 lbft of torque.

The chassis is a semi aluminum monocoque, using over 4000 cherrymax rivets with a 4130 chro-moly triangulated integral roll cage with an aluminum honeycomb floor pan.

 

This response is period correct

 

Whats crazy is that there arent many million dollar supercars today that can boast these numbers. Its pretty crazy! how does the variable boost work? I'm assuming its a blower...does it have variable speed pulley? Knowing more about super high performance engines than me, whats your take on the compressed air forced industion systems? I thought of that idea when I was a boy, and apparently it works! lol

EDIT, sorry I have been reading about the car this morning and now see that it was twin turbo. that begs the same question... how do you control boost with a knob? does it control wastegate dumping psi?

 

You can increase boost on a turbo car with a boost controller (manual or electric) by increasing or decreasing pressure on the waste gate actuator.

https://www.turbosmart.com/news/how-a-boost-controller-works/

 

Yes it utilizes a HKS EVC to control bleed off on the waste gates to control boost levels.

 

Jaguars supercar of the era, the XJ220 used a V6.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_XJ220

The v12’s in Jags of the time were more for smoothness, exclusivity, and of course engine fires. They had to make sure that they maintained exclusivity by imolating as soon as one of the proletariat got their hands on one.

 

He's not just some guy with a YouTube channel, he's a paid automotive journalist -- so it's his job to research and know his subject matter.

I agree that he does shine a spotlight on older, more obscure vehicles -- and that I do appreciate. He just seems to miss the mark with everything he says about these lesser known vehicles. His knowledge base seems to be on par with that of a salesman at a car dealership: he can point out features, but doesn't seem to have a grasp of how things work or have an historic appreciation for why things might have been done the way they were.
Also I find his smug, snarky manner and douchey delivery to be off-putting.

Aside from all that, he's fine.

 

If I’m not mistaken didn’t he work at a Porsche dealership in finance or something before quitting to become an “auto journalist” and not wear pants while working.

 

Oh I’m not sticking up for them at all. In board brakes, Lucas electronics, their octopus hoses, rubber fuel lines on top of the valley were all crimes against humanity.

 

No it is an aluminum Rodeck Y Block. 6 bolt splayed mains, resleevable up to 572 cuin. Dry sump only , no provision for an internal oil pump. The same block used to power many top fuel cars of the day. Capable of holding 8000+hp.

 

Again Doug's lack of knowledge....

 

Yeah you really have to consider the source. Especially when that source is talking out of their ass and a simple Wikipedia search could have given them correct information.

 

I have no idea.