I often take the vintage Fezza for a run though "The Royal" (national park). I've discovered the corner speed advisory signs can be ignored by a factor of 3.
e.g. if the advisory is 15km an hour, you can safely negotiate the corner at 45km an hour....have fun and and still avoid a speeding ticket.
This becomes hilarious when a P-Plater (usually in something Japanese with "fully sick" body kit) sees something mid-engined and low ahead, who then proceeds to rapidly catch up and expect some sort of race or to tailgate or both.
I'm usually 1/2 way through the first hairpin ahead when the nose of the car behind will violently dip, with a puff of blue smoke off the tyres, plus a little slalom to regain control for good measure...
Even a humble 45km hairpin can totally make my day
Can totally love that.
We were returning from a rally stage up north on a windy gravel road and had a couple of the local farm boys in the flat bed farm ute following thinking they were the bees knees keepng up with the Legnum. I went round a flat corner at a 'comfortable' speed, maybe 70 kph. They nearly ended up in the mangrove swamp on the outside of the bend. Funny as heck to watch in the mirror..
I concur about the Mirage's - a total shock to me. I drove one as a hire car SOMEWHERE (might have been Canberra). That little ugly duck not only handles nicely, it really does have some giddy up.
And I would MUCH prefer a Magna to a Commodore or Falcon any day of the millennium. Falcons are truly the most Bleh of Bleh possible, and Commodores just as bleh. I think they succeed in making noise and smoke (usually from the exhaust) more than anything.
I have had the Passat up at 240 (max indicated is 260). Held the road superbly, with NO sign of lightening or tightening. It again, like some of the others mentioned, is one of those cars you do NOT need to brake before taking corners etc, as it just does what it is supposed to. I get into a trap sometimes driving the Murano like I drive the Passat - after a couple turns and needing to brake 40 metres earlier, you adapt
I admit I took the Passat to a road I know nearby a week ago that is relatively straight, secluded, and has NO street lighting (hmmmm... good astro spot!). Got the Passatski up to 180 in no time and took the curving bend at the end JUST fine. Adrenalin suitably satiated, I let her coast back to the regulated 80. Would have been a dandy ticket if any Plod were there and not sure if my 5 airbags would have helped much if I hit something, BUT... just had to be done (once in a while, solo)
A couple of years back my daily driver was an Audi RS4 V8...sweetest noise I've ever heard, and oooooohhhh so much fun around English country lanes early in the morning
Oh, I know what you mean Dunk. I always wanted the Passat B5 with the 270 BHP W8 engine. I think the Polizei in Germany used it, but it was also available to civilians.
I have had a few cars over my 44 years. Many were "Meh" but a couple stand out.
We used to have an MG Midget, stupid little car, constantly banging elbows if you had two in the car, not all that fast, choppy ride, noisy, but I would have it back in a heartbeat.
I used to have a lightly modified 240Z and drove it to work for a decade, and ALWAYS arrived with a smile.
I currently have my sisters S15 200SX on loan (Absolutely stock) I just arranged her a cheap but good car to drive to work so she and my brother in law don't have to contort themselves time wise to avoid driving the 200 to work and leaving a theif magnet in a supermarket car park. In the hour and a half driving it home to my place I remembered how I used to enjoy driving (I do 50,000km a year for work and driving has become pretty mundane)
Hopefully the current arrangement on the S15 stays as is for a while which is if I maintain it and pay the insurance and rego I can drive it. But I don't drive it too far as the driving position is actually a bit clumsy and I find it tiring after a while. Now it is in my hands maybe it is fixable.
Looking at the above, pretty much everything that I have enjoyed has been what I would regard as a "Sports car". Small, light in the context of the day (Given the S15 weighs about twice what the Midget did) lithe handling and good steering feel and a moderate amount of power, just about enough that you feel the car could use a bit more.
The most mundane thing I have driven? An early 90's Corvette ragtop with manual gearbox around Winton raceway, only used two gears for the entire lap as the gearing was moon shot tall and the car just understeered away unless you provoked it with wheelspin to do something else, and even that took timing as it would usually just spin the inside tyre.
I had a passenger ride in an Alfa 4C on track recently and I reckon one of them would float my boat.
I had the misfortune to be IN a Hyundai i20 recently with my sister - just her and I. Now, I am a big guy, but my sister is a waif.
We went to the bottom of a hill to inspect a house she wanted to buy. Going DOWN the hill was fine. Coming back up was a laugh! I don't think it got out of first gear!
I suppose these cars are fine for city and town, but subject them to a 4% slope and it's game over. I now perfectly understand these old people in these cars - I always thought they were just being old biddies - truth be told the car just ain't cutting it
You guys seem to get 'cut power' imports for some reason.
Hired a Camry Sportivo last time we were over to get up to the Hunter Valley. Boy, was it ever misnamed ! Tuned out to be a standard 2.0 litre detuned sewing machine (with the appropriate sound).
Over here the Sportivo came with a 2.5 litre engine and was no slouch for a bigger car. The Aussie version seemed to have all the bling with none of the zing.
Actually yes, even my sisters S15 is 40 odd KW down on the Japanese equivalent. Apparently fixable by replacing a boost control hose that has a restricting orifice in it with one that does not so that it bleeds more air off the wastegate actuator. Not something my sister was interested in doing while it was under warranty, but hey, that expired a decade ago!
And I agree with you completely Steve, the only car in my list that I would call "Fast" is my race car, and you can buy plenty of road cars nowadays that would match it.
Last edited by The_bluester; 08-07-2015 at 11:25 AM.
My westie does have a windscreen, but that caterham has considerably more HP than I've got. But I sure recognise the handling, and getting hard on the power much much earlier than anything else can. You can see that the Ferrari never really gets a chance to stretch its legs on that track though. It would be a very different story at the Nurburgring.
...
Here's one on the limit around the Nurburgring. It has a 2L Ford engine, all be it a very finely tuned one. It is up against a Porsche 996 GT2 'Widow Maker' with the 3.6L twin turbo - essentially the same unit used in the company's Le Mans-winning GT1. The 996 is a 320km/h car if it is in standard trim.
As raw as the Porsche is, the Caterham is something else entirely.
Whilst there is nothing in it as far as lap times, the Caterham will leave you with a day long smile.
The contrast between the driving experience might be glimpsed from these videos:
If you only watch one of these, I'd recommend the second lap in the Caterham. The guy behind the wheel has impressive and equal measure of skill and testicular fortitude. The gentleman in the 996 is no mug on a Sunday drive either. It starts with the Caterham flat out in top gear on the straight and the 996 blows past it like it is standing still.... then come the corners.
enjoy,
c
Last edited by clive milne; 08-07-2015 at 11:45 AM.
You guys seem to get 'cut power' imports for some reason.
Hired a Camry Sportivo last time we were over to get up to the Hunter Valley. Boy, was it ever misnamed ! Tuned out to be a standard 2.0 litre detuned sewing machine (with the appropriate sound).
Over here the Sportivo came with a 2.5 litre engine and was no slouch for a bigger car. The Aussie version seemed to have all the bling with none of the zing.
Yup, and hence why a good kiwi mate chipped my Passat gratis. He also showed me a VW tech tip (that even the local VW dealers didn't know or won't admit to). It may only be applicable to SOME Passats of model/make/vintage:
Put the key in the ignition, but leave it in the off position. Push the accelerator pedal flat to the floor, through the kick down position. Hold it there for 3 seconds. Let go of pedal, and start car. It has now been switched over to the "Sport" mode.
At least in mine, it makes a SERIOUS difference. Obviously "unlocks" a restriction programmed into the computer, and perhaps many Aussie dealers/service agents either don't want to let people know or are not allowed to.
If I want to go back to normal mode, the reverse applies.
E34 M5, steering is a little vague but fantastic straight six w/itb's engine (when everything is in 100% working order) and very comfortable for long trips... Not that I take it on many!
I had the misfortune to be IN a Hyundai i20 recently
Horses for courses ...
My 18 year old daughter recently bought a brand new red Hyundai i20 3-door automatic (there's not a single word in that sentence with any redeeming feature - apart from "red"! ) as her first car - and she loves it! It's got 5-star safety rating, 5-year warranty, roadside assistance, fixed-price servicing, Bluetooth, air-con, etc, so in many ways, it probably is an ideal first car for a teenager who just wants a driving appliance, and isn't an "enthusiast".
(And while it's not a car that I "love" to drive, I'm surprised that it's not as horrible to drive as I feared.)
I often take the vintage Fezza for a run though "The Royal" (national park). I've discovered the corner speed advisory signs can be ignored by a factor of 3.
e.g. if the advisory is 15km an hour, you can safely negotiate the corner at 45km an hour....have fun and and still avoid a speeding ticket.
This becomes hilarious when a P-Plater (usually in something Japanese with "fully sick" body kit) sees something mid-engined and low ahead, who then proceeds to rapidly catch up and expect some sort of race or to tailgate or both.
I'm usually 1/2 way through the first hairpin ahead when the nose of the car behind will violently dip, with a puff of blue smoke off the tyres, plus a little slalom to regain control for good measure...
Even a humble 45km hairpin can totally make my day
Quote:
Originally Posted by Starlite
Not much attention went into the body panels and interior fittings on the pre 90's models.Like Ferrari said " you pay for a great engine and great running gear and we give you a body and interior for nothing." Ours is a 308 GTS same as Tom Sellick drove in Magnum PI.Took a lot of work to get it looking as it does now.
Oh, you guys just don't get it do you!!! Do either of these old, hideously expensive to maintain bombs have:
Blind spot alert
Radar cruise control
Rear cross traffic alert
Reverse camera
Parking sensors
Satnav
Traction control
Vehicle stability control
Precollision safety system
Lane departure alert
Touch screen
Auto high / low beam
Rain sensing wipers
Voice recognition
USB and bluetooth connectivity
Steering wheel controls for everything
My wife's 3 week old 2015 Camry SL does and all for the price of a few Ferrari services!
But I bet you the Camry does not have the sound of a bunch of Webers sucking in air (Forgot that about my 240Z, at once stage I had individual throttle body injection on it, the noise was fantastic!)
I would trade that noise on the weekend for just about every safety item under the sun.
I hire good automatic cars over in Europe because I figure that's where I'm most likely to have an accident and want protection around me. So I've driven,
- a Peugot with doors that went out and slid back - great for when walking back to a hot car, open the doors 80 meters away and it's nice and cooler when you get to it. It took me a week to figure out I had to double push the accelerator to make the automatic transmission kick down and give me more power.
- a BMW which I thought was good, except it always gave me a sore back no matter what I did to adjust seats/use pillows etc.
- a Ford Fiesta - hopeless power wise, but the most comfortable car on my back I've had over there.
- several Audis A4 - one I didn't like at high speed, one was okay, but they didn't grab me - especially with the default economy mode where the engine stopped whenever the car came to a stop. Though they had the best radios for driving round Europe, they kept homing on the same type station I had selected - it felt like you were always on your favourite station.
- a Lancia Therma - the most magnificent car I've ever driven, but way too big for the streets over there. People kept asking me if I intended to do weddings during my visit. I gave it back and said to give me something smaller.
- and my absolute favourite car, the one that was comfortable and felt absolutely safe and was a joy to drive - a Volvo S60. I loved that car, then one day Hertz rang me up and said to please bring the car in as they had sold it, and they gave me an Audi in exchange - I was very unhappy.
Do you mean the OLD original Lancia Thema (Italian design), or the rebadged Chrysler 300 (aka Lancia Thema)?
I know several people who own Chrysler 300's... none been too happy with them. Our neighbour at a former place had one, and I saw her swearing profusely at it in Hungarian before she threw a house brick at it! And it hit...
Do either of these old, hideously expensive to maintain bombs have:
