Lotus Evora and McLaren MP4-12C

So In the Forza 4 driving simulator I opted to buy the McLaren MP4-12C

I have to say Clarkson has it all wrong. This car is MAD. It tries to kill you on every corner... if you turn off the traction control. It is one of those cars where it has way too much power and not nearly enough tires to keep it on the road. Ever apex is an opportunity to die. Every single one. Even slow corners try to kill you in this car. And straightaways aren't much fun either since the tires are still skip-hopping over the pavement because they can't accelerate fast enough so are breaking loose. And being a rear wheel drive car, when it goes wrong, you have seconds to realize you are going to die and can't do a thing about it. The way to fix this is put much wider tires on it, like you see on a Porsche 911 Turbo and a Corvette. You have to. Otherwise this silly car will kill you. I can't say that's a good use of $220K. It is also, oddly enough, heavy. Or drives like it anyway. I've seen the videos of this thing being built. It should not drive like its heavy. It should not slip madly from too much power. Yet it does. This car is not that good. I'm sorry. If the simulator spec is right, it's no better than a Lamborghini.

Compare this to the Lotus Evora. This is a hotter engine update to the Exige, which is a hotter update of the Elise, which is no longer sold in the USA because the Elise doesn't have an airbag on the steering wheel. I really don't see why they didn't fix that. The Elise is a really good car. Best I've driven, as-is, in the game. With slightly stickier tires and a better air filter, and a better intercooler to help with temperature stabilization for the Turbo (I drove the Opel Speedster Turbo), it's perfect. Unfortunately, the Evora is more like the McLaren than it is the Elise. A little too much power, and the rear tires need to be wider. Once modified, this fixes it. At least you would think so. But NO, its crap. Really crap. I even tried changing front to rear tire pressures, which helps a little, but not enough. The Evora has too much power for its weight, and its balance is scarcely better than a Porsche Turbo, and why pay twice as much if you just wanted one of those?

You would think, assuming the spec in the game matches reality, that the car engineers would have corrected these problems BEFORE selling the car. But they haven't. Its crap. And it would kill you. Killing customers is rarely a good marketing gimmick, and far too many supercars will do that if you give them a chance. That said, I'm a bit more sympathetic towards idiot basketball stars who buy and wreck a supercar. Too much power, not enough tires, terrible brakes. Keeps happening to me in the game. Some cars less than others. I'm still a fan of the Fiesta, thanks very much. I am just now a bigger fan of the Elise.