I've always loved machines and engines.
I like a bit of nostalgia too.
Here's a 1962 Twin Tub in action - I spent many happy hours in the company of a machine just like this as a child!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvs1aJ7ES60
Have you got a favourite machine or engine?
My favourite engine is a Rover V8. I've had a few in various cars from an SD1 to a TVR and it's a joy to work on. Very logical, very simple, very small & light. Even the fuel injection was a doddle to work on. So many modifcations available to improve them. A perfect design.
The rover v8 was a much sought after engine back then,, as you say small in over all size, light and was used in just about anything and everything, I was lucky to own A p6 3500 automatic, wedge shaped, way ahead of its time, the whole dash reminded me of a space craft, so many dials and each lit up in green at night, very quick car, drank petrol, the reason I was lucky was that it was screeching and the owner was told it couldn’t be fixed,, was siezing up,
I guessed it wasn’t, took a chance, paid very little for it.
It was a blocked oil strainer, took Off the sump oh boy thick sludge,, cleaned it, changed the oil, turned it over, screech for a second then all nice and quite, it had fairly good oil pressure considering, they suffered with ever decreasing oil pressure anyway, I owned that when I only had a provisional license, my parents sat besides me or one of my mates with a full licence. Thank you for the memory mr plastic,
The rover v8 was a much sought after engine back then,, as you say small in over all size, light and was used in just about anything and everything, I was lucky to own A p6 3500 automatic, wedge shaped, way ahead of its time, the whole dash reminded me of a space craft, so many dials and each lit up in green at night, very quick car, drank petrol, the reason I was lucky was that it was screeching and the owner was told it couldn’t be fixed,, was siezing up,
I guessed it wasn’t, took a chance, paid very little for it.
It was a blocked oil strainer, took Off the sump oh boy thick sludge,, cleaned it, changed the oil, turned it over, screech for a second then all nice and quite, it had fairly good oil pressure considering, they suffered with ever decreasing oil pressure anyway, I owned that when I only had a provisional license, my parents sat besides me or one of my mates with a full licence. Thank you for the memory mr plastic,
Looking at the cars you've driven, I'm guessing you like something with a lot of back end, and RWD. Definitely a thrill seeker, but you have a great strategy for flipping a bad investment, so that levels it out a little!
I'm really not a fan of Zondas - it's just another Ferrari that crashed into a Wurlitzer jukebox and they didn't separate the wreckage.
Lololololol, this was probably the funniest think I've heard all week. Thanks! Lol, yeah, that does make sense, I won't be able to look at one now without thinking the flywheel is an old Motown 45 logded inside it!
Triumph Herald's are real nice looking. I liked a lot of Triumph's cars. My dad owned a Dolomite. The 2CV was a Bond car, when Bond was good, that's enough for me.
I ended up with a TVR because I fancied building a kit car. I looked at the market and deduced that the minimum price for anything was about 7k by the time paint, wheels, instruments etc. were added up.
That discounts building anything difficult to sell to recover the money if I hate the end product.
I started looking at the Cobra replicas - they are all basically Ford/Jag suspension with a V8 - the same as a TVR - and I can test-drive a TVR - and the hood works, it has a windscreen wiper that works, doors that open & close, electric windows etc. and someone has already debugged (mostly) the build.
Logical Asperger choice.
Mine had a straight-through exhaust - it was so loud that it made my ears ring. The clutch, gearchange & steering were so heavy that anything more than 10 miles was like being beaten up. Way too tiring to drive long distance. 10mpg sucks too.
I'm really not a fan of Zondas - it's just another Ferrari that crashed into a Wurlitzer jukebox and they didn't separate the wreckage.
Yes - I'm a thrill seeker. I'm so Aspie that I crave data input all then time. I'm a roller coaster fan, I've done aerobatic flying lessons, dived with sharks (no cage) - if it's a huge data-rush, then I'm in.
For a forever car, I'm thinking a Triumph Herald or 2CV - practical, simple and maintainable.
I'm not impressed by most supercars - they all follow a simple formula. The only one that ticks my box is the Koenigsegg. Ferraris & Lambos are just fragile footballer's cars now.
Lol, yeah, they are pretty much awful. As I said I do like the Zonda, it's got it's own thing. Koenigseggs are a unique brand too, Christian von Koenigsegg seems like a guy who is really hands on. He actually cares about his product, every nut and bolt. There's a documentary on Netflix called Apex. It pretty much sums up the Hypercar market. It's an amazing documentary. It's all about a competition where they had a gentleman's agreement for a few track records. Koenigsegg show everything they can, and invite the documentary makers in. Koenigsegg is open about everything, you can really see his passion. Porsche are pretty open too. McClaren are friendly-ish. Pagani too. Ferrari on the other hand.......well they dive to lows I didn't expect. I actually hold a bit of contempt towards Ferrari. Tossers to be honest. I do like the Ferrari FF, it's more of a Grand Tourer. Weird blend of supercar, hatchback and estate "thing"!
TVR & Lotus were just glorified kit cars. Shocking manufacturing design. Lots of washers to pack things out to get things straight. (I had a few).
I have the feeling you are quite the thrill seeker. You owned a TVR, which design faults or not, were real deathtraps in most cases (In a good way, lol), but a "drivers" car. Koenigseggs aren't the safest or easiest cars to drive!
I like the stripped-down simplicity of rally cars - nothing on them that absolutely doesn't have to be there.
Rally was the testing ground for so much stuff too. I also liked the aspect of some of the "everyman" cars of those days being turned into absolute monsters.
With all the up-coming hassle about emissions and hybrids/electrics, I'm looking at what classic I can use as a daily driver that is exempt from everything.
It's going to be a sad day. I'll miss seeing the odd classic on the road. It's wonderful to see one of those cars that made your jaw drop all those years ago, in perfect condition, and stiil being cared for lovingly. I'd imagine some hearts will be broken with all that.
I'm not impressed by most supercars - they all follow a simple formula. The only one that ticks my box is the Koenigsegg. Ferraris & Lambos are just fragile footballer's cars now.
TVR & Lotus were just glorified kit cars. Shocking manufacturing design. Lots of washers to pack things out to get things straight. (I had a few).
I like the stripped-down simplicity of rally cars - nothing on them that absolutely doesn't have to be there.
With all the up-coming hassle about emissions and hybrids/electrics, I'm looking at what classic I can use as a daily driver that is exempt from everything.
The manufacturers are trying to blame everyone and everything for their managerial incompetence but the public now see cars like a washing machine so it's getting more difficult to shift their overpriced products.
Living here I've seen pretty much abosolute stupidity concerning the manufacture, marketing, and design errors in cars. When my dad worked at Jaguar they sent something like 4000 cars to the US, this was in the late seventies. All XJ models. They all got sent back because they didn't fit the requirements for import. Jobs were lost. Dad swears it was all done for tax reasons, and as a ploy for lay offs. Car company *** ups are regular subjects of conversation here, well not that much nowadays, because they all self destructed. JLR will probably be gone too. They are all on a 3 day week already "until Chrismas". Looks pretty dooming.
Reading everything that's been said about cars here, I read the models people are mentioning (the older ones) and the comparison in design saddens me. Cars are so boring to look at now. I'm a big fan of old rally cars, Lancias, Audis, Volvos, Renault Alpines, Fords...well you get the idea. They didn't look too sleek, but the pure level of insanity that came with them was probably the most exctitng era in motorsport.
As for supercars, they are all as boring as hell now. The only one that has any allure is a Pagani Zonda, for me anyway. The supercars of the 60's, 70's, and 80's had a far more striking look. Look at the boring uniformal trash that Maserati sell now. The Gran Turismo in comparison to something like the Bora is pretty sad.
I do like what Singer are doing to the 911, it's really nice both on the engine front (air cooled, flat 6, 4.0L) conversion wise. They will only word with air cooled engines, and the interior is art. ECD are doing some interesting stuff with Series 3 Land Rovers, and Defenders. I love those cars. They will drop a massive Chevy Corvette engine into the Defender, and set it up right. There are some really good things going on in the restomod market.
The ironic thing is I will never be able to legally drive....lol. I can however still admire craftsmanship, and engineering.
another great one was the bloke manning the reception while OH took his motorcycle theory test. He starts making conversation with me (I was waiting for hubby to come out) and after a while asks whether, if he passes and gets a bike license, I will be following in his footsteps. That's a very sexist comment, I teased, prompting a look of alarm at the realisation that he has slipped up. His face when I said "not exactly, I've had a full bike license for 30 years) was a picture
I have a few great ones - being a female biker makes it even more common. one of the best was when my then boyfriend and I stopped at a bike shop, where he wanted to discuss trading in his bike against a new one. The salesman wanted to take a look at it, so came outside. A look of confusion as he took in the single seat on BF's bike .... then he looks at me and asks "but where do you sit?". I'm not going to lie, I really enjoyed pointing to the (considerably bigger) bike parked next to it, and replying "on that. why do you ask?" :-D
Yeah - I had the 1.3 GXL with all the 6-dial instruments. It had rust everywhere - the front wings each had about 3" of metal holding them on, the cills needed to be replaced, the rear arches needed 6" nails to bridge the gap to support the mesh to bodge them up, the lower rear quarters had disolved so the fuel tank flapped in the wind - a real rust bucket.
ha ha the escort would probably be worth a mint these days - if it hadn't dissolved of course!
hubby spends many a happy hour dealing with "light on dash", which seems to be the common malaise of anything modern. Our old beasts don't suffer to the same extent due to the lack of ECUs and other electronics to go wrong :-)
If you consider that most cars get zero maintenance and that most failures are minor electrical niggles that don't really matter, the fact that cars just start & work every day when left out in all weathers is just amazing. I drive a 16-year old car - passed its mot with no problems just last week. It is spotless and everything works.
My first car was a 10-year old Mk1 Escort - it was knackered! Rust everywhere!
My better half is a mechanic and would probably disagree about cars being too reliable these days. In his view, most are now built down to a price, and that usually means making sure it holds together until the 3 year warranty is up. He has seen 3 year old cars with bits hanging off them because they were so badly made, and that's not necessarily "cheap" ones either.
This is why I refuse to part with my 18 year old car. It was built properly (maybe that's the kind of vintage you meant when you referred to like new 15 year old cars) and is not overburdened with computers and ECUs to go wrong. If she ever gives up on me, I would buy something older rather than newer!
Yeah - Even the Fiat 500 is really a Ford Ka underneath. But the punters have no clue. Like an Aston Martin being a re-badged XJS from the 70s. There's a good website that lists the cheaper Jag parts so the Aston owners don't get gouged too badly by the garage.
There's a good chance the cheapo radio in your Skoda was made next to the Blaupunkt-badged one.
There's a saying that we live in the most technologically dependent times with the least number of people having any clue about the technology they use every day.
Like years ago, a Jaguar, mondeo base wasn’t it?
so many are mass produced and badged differently.
As a small company pick up truck, we had Skoda Felicia based ones, so basically a Felicia estate with open back,
I turned up at a job where there was a Volkswagen caddy, the guy said “ oh you have one of those cheap copies of a Volkswagen one”, no I said they are based in a Felicia estate, if they were Volkswagen then what model of Volkswagen were they based in?
No reply as he realised I was correct, the Felicia estate exited before the pickup. The main difference between each pick up was the radio, a blaupunkt in the vow and basic thing in the Skoda.
Certain big vans, Renault, Peugeot, are interchangeable in most ways, some Renault vans if you take a piece of trim off you will see Peugeot stamped inside.
Mass produced rubbish.
Mercedes lost their way trying to cover every market, they just stick badges in low end models to save making quality cars themselves.
