Is there a car...

digitalscream

A guy just up the road from me has a Noble M400 (I think). It's just one of those cars.

He also has a Ferrari, a couple of Jags and an M3 that he's converting to blingland.

stickyfiddle

I honestly think E-types are way overrated. The Mercedes 300SL, Lamborghini Muira, Ferrari 250 GT California, and Ferrari Dino are all way better off the top of my head.

Followed a new Viper into work today.I'm sure it's rubbish round a track but it's a badass looking car.

http://www.drivesrt.com/assets/images/2015/viper/gallery/gallery4-lg.jpg

chillidoggy

I knew a guy who worked for Jaguar, doing testing. He said they used to lend each other cars between manufacturers. He delivered an XJS to the Chrysler importer, and picked up a Viper, and rocked up at my place of work with it. He said it was embarrassing that it used less fuel than the XJS, and it's torque was "staggering". But then at 8-litres, I guess it would be!

goldtop

I've seen a Citroen SM around here twice and each time have been too slow to do anything other than gawp at it. It looks like its from another world in today's traffic.

Alnico

@ICBM
Thank you for the new wallpaper on my phone !

Phil_aka_Pip

Alnico said:

@ICBM
Thank you for the new wallpaper on my phone !

the car or the bra?

boogieman

dano;587917" said:

There is a Delorean drives around our town a lot.


the owner is a really nice friendly guy to talk too, whereever its parked up there is always a group of people stood around it.

A gig buddy of mine owns two. One he's rebuilding at the moment, plus one's in use regularly on the road. There's a very strong DeLorean community over here, they probably know each other (mate is called Mike Ward).

I saw one of those new hybrid BMW i-thingys yesterday. Stunning looking car.

Sassafras

I know it wouldn't be most people's idea of a classic car but I wouldn't mind owning a Citroen 2CV. It's a very relaxing ride and it's low speed ensures you're never in a hurry, so less chance of suffering from road rage. Plus, cheap to run.

Not a babe magnet but a very practical car.

Bogwhoppit

Nunogilberto said:

 I spoke to the owner once, who said it was a 2.3 Ghia.

Having been dragged up in Dagenham, most of my family worked at Fords and owned each consecutive Cortina, Capri and Granada that was made throughout the 70s.

Towards the end of the decade we used to predict the suffix of the latest Cortina.  It grew steadily from X to XL to GXL , then Ghia, then Ghia X, then Ghia GXL Xi....until the boot wasn't big enough or the alphabet had ran out.

thomasross20

Great thread. 

Everything looks good compared to my 2007 Focus. 

I bought mine for £8.5k but newer models seem to go for £10k+ at least - prices seem well up. WOuld love a new car but so expensive..

Some great cars here - love the classics... and that Audi R8 - nice! I also like the hulking great Audi models.

Alnico

We used to play a game while walking home from school in the 80's.
Wait until it's a Ford coming towards you and then trying to guess the model suffix from the trim and fittings you can see as it approaches and goes past. You get your answer when you can see the boot lid.

Ahhhh, jumpers for goalposts !

Evilmags

Owned and Alpina B12 and an M3.

Conclusion: if it looks good, performs well and is something you can drive, fly, sail or fuck, it's a lot cheaper renting.

thomasross20

Lol... wisdom given for that @Evilmags..!

Sassafras

I used to do warranty work on Mercedes, VW and Audi. The Audis were by far the best made cars of the bunch. Don't know if that's still the case but some of them go like shit off a shovel. If I wasn't a biker I'd be driving an Audi or a 2CV.

Axe_meister

I could never get into Audis. Had a few as company cars, the fact that they were front wheel drive annoyed me, whereas BMW and Mercs just handled so much better being rear wheel drive, although Mercs were overly soft.

ICBM

Sassafras said:

I know it wouldn't be most people's idea of a classic car but I wouldn't mind owning a Citroen 2CV. It's a very relaxing ride and it's low speed ensures you're never in a hurry, so less chance of suffering from road rage. Plus, cheap to run.

Not a babe magnet but a very practical car.

You're surprisingly wrong about several of those points! I've owned three of them.

The lack of power actually makes them *not* particularly relaxing to drive, unless you really aren't in any kind of hurry and there's no other traffic around. Its low speed ensures that you do need to drive fairly hard in order to get anywhere even remotely quickly, and losing momentum is a major problem, especially when going uphill, so if some twit in a modern car gets in your way and makes you slow down (then usually just speeds away into the distance) it can make you very cross indeed… and you will spend a lot of time with the gear stick, since top has no pulling power whatever.

They are great fun to drive within those limitations though - on country roads especially, although moderate motorway driving is OK… there's a form of 'cruise control' on them which is basically just to plant your right foot down as hard as it will go, and leave it there! The car will take care of the speed, assuming no-one gets in the way - 55mph uphill, 75 downhill. (I lowered the suspension on mine and did other tweaks, and they would do 90 downhill as long as there wasn't a headwind, but that was probably a bit silly…)

And they do attract women, amazingly! And are so narrow that close bodily contact with the passenger in the front is unavoidable. But then you also become painfully aware that there is half a millimetre of steel and a piece of vinyl-covered cardboard door lining between your body - which is pressed against it - and anything that might hit you from the side. I stopped driving them when I had kids.

musicegbdf

:-)
Icbm , I bought my wife a red and white dolly (2cv) years ago.

You really had to drive it as you say.
It was great fun and actually took skill. You just have to keep that flywheel spinning and never brake...

Understand they are collectable now and can go for good money. How they get through a modern mot though ?

Sassafras

I drove one around France for nearly 2 years and thoroughly enjoyed being bounced around and leaning into corners or rather out of corners like the opposite to a motorbike. Since I was never in a hurry, it's lack of speed and acceleration never bothered me. As for the babe magnet thing, it never really impressed the mademoiselles since there were so many of them puttering round. I'm probably wrong but I don't remember ever putting oil in it and there wasn't much about it that couldn't be fixed with a piece of string or duct tape. 

ICBM

musicegbdf said:

Understand they are collectable now and can go for good money. How they get through a modern mot though ?

Because the regulations are not retrospective. They're surprisingly modern in engineering terms too, given when they were designed and built - although some things cause trouble with MOT stations that don't know about them, in particular the amount of play that's *meant* to be in the kingpins, to allow them to lubricate themselves properly - some modern mechanics try to make them too tight and they can then dry up and seize. So you need to find a good garage that understands them.

I have to admit I wouldn't pay the price a good one goes for now - partly because that reflects the amount of work you need to do to replace the chassis, rid the bodyshells of rust, replace the wings and other panels that have turned into tissue paper held together with the paint… it was that and the deathtrap aspect with kids in the back which made me give up on them, finally.

Rox

Classic Minis for me.  I loves 'em, I do.