Old car, new tech versus....

new car, of similar platform. Which I could be faster round a track?

I lay awake in bed last night pondering this question. For instance, is an old 911 with new tech parts thrown at it as competitive (or better!) than its modern day counterpart? 

New suspension and shock designs, better quality brake material, carbon fiber body labels. These are all these that can come on your new car, or be installed on the old one. But, I know chassis design is different. So maybe an old 911 chassis sucks compared to a stock new 911. 

Theres also weight to be argued. Old 911 surely weighs less than anything new. But a new one likely has a better designed chassis and suspension mounting points. 

Fyi- used the 911 as an example. We can compare anything. The 911 is just a car actively trying to Kill you in any corner. 

So, basically, would someone be better off buying a new 911 for track days (a run if the mill base model), or tuning an old 911 on newer tech? For the sake of arguement, let's forego the money differences. 

Oh yeah, comparisons need to be model specific. Like aw11 mr2 versus sw20. 

Are we talking about similar level of spend? So buy an older model of the same car for 20k and put 20k of modifications into it and compare against a bone stock new model for 40k?

In that case, my money is on a $5000 NB + $20k in mods being faster than a brand new bone stock ND. For a 911 I have no idea.

Trackmouse said:

The 911 is just a car actively trying to Kill you in any corner. 

Not anymore, at least not the GT2. From that point alone I'd say the answer is "no". Although given cubic dollars, could you take an old car and make it faster than it's modern version without spending the same cubic dollars on the new one also? That answer is probably "yes" for most cars. Spend that same money updating the new car also, and you'd likely not stand a chance.

It would be a neat project idea. Take a new "performance" model like Focus ST and see if you can get an old car in the same vein, in this case an escort or something, to turn similar or better lap times before you pass the price point of the new one.

Obviously there are some flaws with the idea, like you'd be hard pressed to find a decent starting point Challenger for the price of a new one anymore.

It would make for a cool youtube series I think.

Right. And again, just try to match the new car with the same style of new tech. Obviously, if I put coilovers and sway bars on my aw11, it'll lap any sw20 on stock parts. (Bad comparison anyway, since the sw20 would have 90's tech in it.) 

i think the new/old challenger/camaro comparison would be cool. Of course, I keep talking about lap times. Not drag times, or just general driving. 

Mr2 would be more aw11 versus whatever the designation for the Froggy ones were but even they're ten years old at this point.

AW11 vs MR-S would be interesting though. Old vs Newer would actually be just as cool as old vs new.

Do you get a cheap really old car and throw parts at it, or are you better served taking some of the parts money and buying a newer model?

You could do a shootout between all the different designations of miata to boot.

I would always choose the lightest option and get the stiffness from a proper roll cage. The newer the car the more waste in stuff you throw away and more trouble it is to gut it down to a reasonable weight, make the computers happy with missing bits, etc.

I would rather, within reason (must have workable suspension geometry and so on), choose the older model with modern power, dampers, brakes, ABS etc

We took money off the table but I do not think it would actually be cheaper to build the car you want vs buying the new model if you were not going to cut corners.

Interesting what it would take to bring an old car up like an E30 up to F30/32 performance. For the price difference you can throw a whole lot of resources at the old one.

Hondas from the mid 90s...  New tech stuff is not only just bigger, it no longer has double wishbones.  I'm betting its not difficult to build an old one that is not only significantly faster than new stuff, but even if you modify the new stuff in the same way, you'd have trouble outperforming it.

There's a good one, what would it cost to build an eg civic to out perform the new SI?

E: or whatever that new ugly turbo one with all the random bumps and E36 M3 on it is called.