Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Is a new shape Beetle as impractical as it looks?

It's probably less practical than an original one.

And an even bigger piece of shit.

I'll give that a miss then. She is a big fan though.

Looks like some of the newer shape Civics could sneak into the price range which would maybe be good.

She is a big fan though.

new beetle it is then!

@Cycliste and I hired a car for a holiday in Ticino (in our pre-cycling days). We hired a diesel Golf. They gave us a convertible Beetle. I suspect my look of deep and profound disappointment wasn't quite what they were expecting. What a total and utter POS that was.

Nah. If I have to get rid of the Merc then I'm putting my foot down about the new one.

The old new beetle is meh, but a neighbour has a new new beetle, slammed on steelies in metallic brown and I think it looks all kinds of phresh. Would get for the wife.

I hate it when that happens.

A few years ago, I'd hired a Passat estate to do some driving and lugging things around it. This must have been 2003-ish.

The guy at the desk offered me an upgrade for free if I wanted it and really built it up so I agreed and got on with sorting the paperwork. He kept on telling me how he'd driven the car I was getting and how fantastic it was. So, I get outside to go and look it over and what comes careering around the corner?

A fucking Street Ka.

He was genuinely confused and quite upset that I didn't want it. I was (and still am) utterly bereft of ideas as to why he thought I would.

Strange. I saw a dark metallic brown new new new Beetle in Switzerland the other day as I set off for a bike ride, and spent the whole ride trying to work out what thought process ends up with 'I want a dark brown Beetle' other than 'I want something that looks like a big poo on a roller skate'.

Ah, @Cycliste once hired a Golf Estate (or similar) because she was getting a new flat and wanted to do an IKEA run to get some new furniture. They gave her a Volkswagen up! (stupid exclamation mark included as part of the stupid name), as that was all they had left, no swappsies. Still not sure how she got the bed back, but she did.

Apparently RX-8s average about 20mpg. Fuck that.

According to wiki;

The RX-8 was removed from the European market in 2010 after the car failed to meet emissions standards.

Anything that needs to rev to 9000+ rpm to produce power isn't going to be fuel efficient.

What was the reasoning for the Wankel? I mean what's the advantage over piston driven engine?

Marketing.

Smoother, smaller, lighter weight. They've never been able to properly sort the efficiency and rotor tip wear. Plus they don't produce tourqe. So ideal for lightweight vehicles. And some aircraft.

I think it's one of those 'retro' colours that don't really translate well from their vintage origins onto newer versions.

The bronze colour Porsche used for the 911 is another.

One day Wankel realises this would happen...

https://youtu.be/az39eqLIbyU

The street KA was brilliant. Had the wider stiffer suspension from the ford Puma, and a 1.6 engine they are lots of fun.

Fewer moving parts. Theoretically better than a piston engine, but due to less development has gone in to the wankel engine. Look at what people like Ricardo did with making two stroke engine meet euro regulations.

Rotor tip issue is partly to do with sealing as at low revs and low engine load. This issue causes exhaust gases to leak in to the preceding chamber and reduce compression in that chamber. Also sealing is an issue as the chamber is exposed to temperature differences that are in a greater area that in a piston engine.

How about radial engines?

Efficiency wasn't an issue, was meeting unburn fuel and carbon oxides at low revs

Radial engines are just plain cool. Wankel is fine by me too, but as you stated they've not been fully developed.

Sort of a non issue anyway as converting energy into motion is much better done with coils of wire and magnetic fields.

Apparently all the other drivers at Le Mans used to pray that the 787B would break down, because it meant trying to get any sleep was impossible. Touch and go whether it sounds better than the Matra V12 in my book. I think the Matra just edges it.

What's not to like about a big poo on a roller skate?

Wait til you see what colour I'm going to paint the 850kg, 400bhp 3.0 turbo 924S I'm building (in my mind).

Basically suitable for something like a motorcycles rather?