Excessive use 'oh gosh' gets you this

[Del Lardo]

Had a Ford Fusion booked as my hire car for Atlanta this week. After 5 minutes of excessive Britishness it had been upgraded to this for free :)


http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=244862&l=685ca&id=665555652




As sports cars go it woeful but it is keeping me a lot more amused than a Fusion which is so bad I am unable to describe it.

[leowyatt]

Git!!!

Not sure what we're getting this week, it's a compact I think so we're hoping for a Maza 3 again :)

[Matblack]

LOL, my MINI has the same bhp output as that with a 1.6 engine :D

MB

[FakeSnake]

LOL, my MINI has the same bhp output as that with a 1.6 engine :D

MB

in defense of that engine...
you wont get too much more out of your engine.. maybe 30-40hp? even then its gonna start costing bigger money to extract nominal HP gains

with the lazy tuning done in the states..... a decent amount of tuning can see over 500hp

plus the fact.. which engine do you thing will last the longest?
I know the engine in my (ex) cobra.. was built in 1974 and still pulls like a truck!

[Darrin]

Who was it on OCUK that had the 'stang? Not much in the way of mods on that thing and I do believe it stomped the crap out of a couple cars costing considerably more at that rolling road. It even required several people sitting in the trunk to hold the rear tyres down for enough traction.

I no longer get riled up when people say things like, "American cars get so little bhp". I just remind them of the pure unadulterated fact that my 1981 carb'd truck only develops 115bhp out of 5.0L's of engine. But when ANY car over there throws over 11,000 ft/lbs of torque to the ground AT THE WHEELS (stock, btw), please feel free to come talk to me. Especially when said car has 335,000 original miles on it and has spent most of its life carting around 4,000 pounds of firewood.....


EDIT - Actually I just redid the calculations and it works out (conservatively) at over 14,000 ft/lbs at the wheels that my tired old 27 year old (remember the 1981 model year actually came out in 1980) truck can and will do right now.

[Del Lardo]

Gibbo had a pretty heavily moddified Stang that was running at ~500bhp IIRC.

American engines are what they are, different market, different rules. I do find it odd that a 4.0 V6 only produced 210bhp but it probably in a pretty poor state of tune to allow for varying quality fuel and I think it may even be a pushrod engine so will probably never break.

[Will]

That was the same car that Paul (Burble) and I hired out in San Fran in Feb - a nice deep red convertible. Glorious sound, shame about the power. But it's about lazy drive and low emissions over there. Good fun though - awful interior, very plasticy, but looks like a brute outside.

Gibbo has a Saleen with over 500bhp and 500 lb/ft :cool:

[Mark]

I have a feeling he's sold it, not that I pay that much attention.

[FakeSnake]

I have a feeling he's sold it, not that I pay that much attention.

It has indeed been sold, he now has a BMW M3 CSL.

I really was tempted to buy it.. but was not going to pay his asking price!! Especially knowing what he paid for it and what it cost to upgrade...
I dont mind someone making a drink on a car... but 10k odd???
Naaah..not from my wallet

[mejinks]

It has indeed been sold, he now has a BMW M3 CSL.

I really was tempted to buy it.. but was not going to pay his asking price!! Especially knowing what he paid for it and what it cost to upgrade...
I dont mind someone making a drink on a car... but 10k odd???
Naaah..not from my wallet

He got shot of a Saleen for a BMW? Even I have to doubt his prowess inthe trouser department:) and taste in cars. If I had M3 CSL money, it wouldn't be a BMW as my first choice.









I might have fallen in love with a Mini Cooper S......

[Del Lardo]

Worth remembering that the CSL ain't no ordinary BMW. Harks back to when M3s were proper drivers cars back in the E30 days.

[Matblack]

He got shot of a Saleen for a BMW? Even I have to doubt his prowess inthe trouser department:) and taste in cars. If I had M3 CSL money, it wouldn't be a BMW as my first choice.









I might have fallen in love with a Mini Cooper S......

Just helping out as some people might have missed that.

MB

[mejinks]

Just helping out as some people might have missed that.

MB

;D

I still like BMWs. I just had a go in a Cooper S and had a whole lot of fun. Driving a BM is like piloting a rocket using your hands as rudders, you go around corners in a big arc. Driving a Mini is like pushing a Dinky toy around the sofa, it goes where you want it to go and when you want it to go there.:)

The big plus for me is the ability to get into it without having to rest my stomach on the steering wheel and having a ton of legroom.

[Darrin]

The big plus for me is the ability to get into it without having to rest my stomach on the steering wheel and having a ton of legroom.


Hence why I still drive a rusted out 1/4 century old pickup truck. I was condemned to drive Tina's Neon yesterday in the vain hope of saving a little petrol.

NEVER AGAIN!!

My knees were less than an inch from the dash, my head was less than an inch from the roof, and if it had been a stickshift instead of an automatic I would have been bumping into Tina every time I had to shift.

No thanks. I'll stick to having enough room for three adults to sit on the same bench seat (comfortably) and still be able to have my choice of 9 different seating positions behind the wheel.

People ask me why I still drive it due to fuel prices. There are certain sacrifices I am willing to make to not dread getting behind the wheel. All these "improvements" that have been made to cars in the last 30 years and they still can't reliably break the 30mpg barrier. There were TRUCKS in the early 70's with carbs and twice the sheet metal were getting 30mpg (Toyota Hilux anyone?). How in the **** can they honestly tell us that they are making improvements to our cars when they're STILL getting the same fuel mileage and not a whole lot more in the bhp department? If automotive technology has actually advanced as far as they try and tell us, we should be driving around in cars getting 100+mpg and 300+bhp!!

So I think I'll stick to driving my 335,000 mile old truck that still reliably fires up every morning, has plowed through a 6 foot snow drift, hauled 4,000 pounds of firewood, knocked over a tree or two, and if I could afford it I would happily drive it all day long on a cross country drive it's that comfortable.

I know my post is totally OT, but I feel the point had to be made.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXU3N9wT3u0

[Mark]

Automotive technology has advanced in Europe and Japan at least (though probably only by 50% in mpg terms unless you want a hybrid) but in the US until recently there was just no demand (with the possible exception of California) due to (a) cheap gas, and (b) the oil lobby. The oil lobby is as powerful as ever, especially given the background of your president, but the cheap gas era is gone, probably for good (though it's still cheap compared to here).

[Del Lardo]

Agreed that the US is probably way behind Europe in terms of technology because the demand just hasn't been there. Why spend money improving the technology when the customer doesn't want it and it drives up the final price. Take the car I'm renting, I'm pretty sure that it's using a pushrod engine which while very reliable is about as advanced as the ark.

To give a European example, the Landrover Defender diesel in the 70s would be lucky to crack 20mpg and ~70hp. The modern one can easily achieve nearly 30mpg and produce upto 120bhp. They are some pretty impressive &age increases.