Fpvaustralian V8sfast Carscar Reviews new Cars Hot Carsperformance Cars
In case you haven't heard, FPV's having a little trouble with the turbocharged six cylinder Typhoon. But there have been alterations to the rest of the range so we flew to Australia to check them out
It's a case of gentle evolution for the second generation of FPV vehicles, with the engines continuing unchanged. The gearboxes are new though, and both V8 and turbocharged models get a Tremec T56 six speed gearbox. It's essentially the same box as you will find in HSV product, but FPV has gone to town on the engineering details. All forward gears have double synchro, while reverse has a single synchro. Linear bearings in the shift rail have been added for a better and more direct feel - and it works. The cars we drove that had a few more miles on them had gearboxes that were far more user friendly than anything from HSV. HSV may have vastly improved the feel of its own version of the T56, but FPV has gone one better.
The suspension design continues over in the series II FPVs, but the spring rates on the V8 sedans have been beefed up, with 14 percent more spring rate at the front and 10 more at the rear. John Bowe, who is FPV's development driver says that the stiffening of the suspension was intended to reduce diagonal weight transfer in corners. The front springs have a greater increase in stiffness to reduce the tendency doe the car to lean on the outside front wheel. Suspension on the F6 Typhoon has been beefed up at the rear, with the same 10 percent increase but the front springs retain the same rates as the first generation GTs as the lighter weight of the six cylinder turbo means it doesn't require the extra stiffness.
Inside there are a few changes to seat fabrics and designs but the most obvious addition are the two extra gauges mounted on the dashboard. Feedback from owners said they felt the need for extra info on what the engine is doing and so in the V8 models the dials register oil temp and pressure, while the Typhoon presents turbo boost levels and oil temperature. The interior command centre has been upgraded in all the vehicles, and the sedans now have the large TFT colour screen and six speaker Premium sound system.
On the outside there are more colour options for the side stripes, which now consist of a thicker lower stripe and a higher thiner stripe. You also get decals on the sides of the bonnet bulge, just to emphasize the shape of the bonnet. The stripes are also available on the Pursuit ute for the first time, alleviating the need for buyers to add their own. The uptake on the official stripes was running at around 50 percent on the old FPV vehicles, which makes it a fairly important part of the marketing effort.
There was a problem on the morning of the FPV launch. It was raining. When it finished raining it rained even harder, and then just for fun it rained even more. That's not a good look when you are driving 290kW rear wheel drive, and it's worse when you want clean cars for a photoshoot. The sky did clear later in the day allowing a brief period of full-throttle full-strength fun. The engines may have been carried over but the V8 seems to have a much smoother torque curve, with less of a sudden leap in acceleration at 5000rpm. The more linear feel makes it easier to drive the car but it also takes some of the sheer drama out of the act.
The suspension changes have been well worth while and there's plenty of extra stability in corners. The nose tracks a cleaner line and the car feels much more stable than before. It's hard to make such a large car feel small, but FPV has managed it. The gearbox feel differed from car to car depending on how many kilometers each one had travelled, but the ones with the most kays proved that the gearbox is a very sweet shifting thing. The double synchro on all gears means there's no problem in smoothly feeding in new ratios, and there was a notable absence of driveline shunt in the cars we drove. The Pursuit ute is still the oversteer hero though, and it's a very simple task to get the tail swinging wide with a boot on the throttle. It's nice and stable though, the comparatively long wheelbase meaning you can execute ling lazy slides.
So apart from the new six speed manual gearbox and slight suspension alterations it's very much more of the same from FPV - the cars are fast, stable, and go better than your average HSV.
