John Carmack owns an F50

http://slashdot.org/interviews/99/10/15/1012230.shtml

9. mpav asks:
This is a break from the usual questions from this group, but I thought it would be interesting to know.. You have a couple of exotic sports cars, one being a 1000 horsepower/750 ft-lbs of torque (insane!) ferrari, and I was wondering which one you generally drive to work?

John Carmack Answers:
I drive my twin-turbo F50 almost all of the time. It took a while to get all the bugs sorted out, but it is almost a perfect combination right now. It is light, nimble, and responsive, and 600 hp at the rear wheels is just about perfect for a street car of that configuration.

I only drive my testarossa now when I am low on gas in the F50 or if I need to drive someplace where I think the extra inch or two of ground clearance is important. It is heavy and ponderous, but every time I do drive it, I am impressed again with the power. 1000 hp at the rear wheels is excessive. It takes a while to spin the turbos up to the full 24 psi of boost, but when it has a full head of steam going, it moves like nothing else on the road. It runs away from superbikes on the highway. However, when exercising it, you have a very clear sense that you are taking your life into your hands.

I will probably be getting rid of my TR when my next project car is completed. It is a custom carbon fiber bodied ferrari GTO with a one-of-a-kind billet aluminum twin turbo V12. It is going to make a bit more power than the TR, but only weigh about 2400 lbs. I have a suspicion that we will wind up detuning the engine, because 1 hp / 2 lbs is probably quite a bit past excessive and into the just-plain-stupid realm.

It was supposed to be done two years ago -- mechanics are worse than programmers.

I also have a little MGB that I am theoretically working on myself, but I haven't had time to touch it in six months?

http://www.gamespot.com/features/btg-daikatana/p3_02.html

For John Carmack, the idea of fancy offices is counterintuitive. "Most people would consider my twin turbo [Ferrari] F50 a fair amount of celebration," he says in response to Romero's comments. "I just never saw the point [of expensive offices]," Carmack says. "I spend all my time facing a monitor, so it really doesn't matter what the walls behind me look like. I have never cared about making a big impression with people, so an office is just a place to hold our stuff."

I know there are some pics on the net of his Ferraris, but I can not find any at the moment.

http://www.ad-astra.net/cgi-bin/BBS/SpacePolicy/read/26793

I have had three cars capable of going 300 kph (and I have driven them all at that speed). Combined, I spent around a million dollars on them (Ferrari F40, F50, and testarossa, all turbocharged).

http://he1t.net/photos/qcon01/day1/pages/DSCF0048.htm :

http://he1t.net/photos/qcon01/day1/images/DSCF0048.jpg

Thats sweet, I can't believe he drives it everyday. I know he's a game designer/programmer, but what games/software has he been credited with designing? Man I feel like such a dork not knowing these questions, try and keep the ragging to a minimum.:D

Short answer:

Doom & Quake.


Long answer:

More than you would think:
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/by_genre/developerId,682/

Walks away from super-bikes? Can we say INSANE?!

Another pic:

http://www.gamedev.net/community/memorial/seumas/SeumasCarmack02.jpg
Carmack (left) with Seumas McNally, next to Carmack's famous Ferrari

Seumas McNally died from cancer, unfortunately:
http://www.gamedev.net/community/memorial/seumas/

Wow! Nice. Never knew he drives a Ferrari but I not surprised given the fact that he's the man behind ID software. Beautiful beautiful car BTW!

It took a while to get all the bugs sorted out, but it is almost a perfect combination right now. It is light, nimble, and responsive, and 600 hp at the rear wheels is just about perfect for a street car of that configuration.

Bugs?! What does he mean by "It took a while to get all the bugs sorted out"?! (Sounds like he's debugging software!). Anybody knows what he means by that?

he probably had to learn how to drive it!

no offense to anyone but you cant just buy a ferrari F50 and get on the road and drive it like a camry...

and when ur staring @ a moniter all the time...ya neeever know

Originally posted by Cabbie
Bugs?! What does he mean by "It took a while to get all the bugs sorted out"?! (Sounds like he's debugging software!). Anybody knows what he means by that?
Things hardly ever go perfectly. I'm sure he had some problems fitting piping for the turbos and such and then getting it all in perfect working order.

if it has twin turbos, shouldnt it be making a bit more than 600hp? thats only an 87hp flywheel improvement. even if its 600hp at the wheels, you'd think it would be making 800+hp.

never really thought about that but yeah, those are some weak turbo's if it puts out 600 hp.

lol, you could probably put a k&n filter on it and remove the cats and it would already be making 600hp :p

The Koenig F50 twin-turbo ran 850hp, but it was due for an engine rebuild. I wonder who built his, to get such low hp's? :confused:

And the comment about his 3 turbo-ed Ferraris, the F40 is a turbo as stock, the TR is a Koenig, so I wonder if his F50 is the one-off Koenig too?

I would venture to say that's 600 working horse power, as he says "at the rear wheels"... meaning the car's more at like 850 or something...

600rwhp would mean like 690 flywheel horsepower tho

Originally posted by G-ealousy
I would venture to say that's 600 working horse power, as he says "at the rear wheels"... meaning the car's more at like 850 or something...

I'm pretty sure that the power is ogign to be roughly around the same as the Koenig F50, it's adjustable from 600-800. That's just a guess though.

the guy who built it is named Norwood. the reason its only making 600rwhp is because they wanted to keep things as stock as possible, so they hardly changed anything in the engine. they even kept the same compression ratio. thus, the turbos make a maximum of only 6psi.

and yes, there were lots of problems with the car. read about it here.

http://www.bobnorwood.com/Norwood%20Magazine%20Article%20Archives/CD-1.htm

http://www.bobnorwood.com/Norwood%20Magazine%20Article%20Archives/CD-2.htm

http://www.bobnorwood.com/Norwood%20Magazine%20Article%20Archives/CD-3.htm

http://www.bobnorwood.com/Norwood%20Magazine%20Article%20Archives/CD-4.htm