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

:((

Nothing to stop that happening again presumably?

I think there was a freak fault with that particular cats eye or something. I wouldn't be driving helmetless in a no-windscreen car though [although admittedly the windscreen didn't help her :( ]

Reading that took me back to going to the Blue Note for the sunday metalheadz sessions when i lived round the corner in Haberdasher Street .. Amazing memories and monday hangovers

Meaty.

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Noice

That's going to be great

great interview with Storm here https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/apr/04/kemistry-storm-the-tragic-story-of-the-drumnbass-originals

Thought the MK2 gtd was 1.8 turbo?

no power steering or electric windows which is ideal in my book.

You are such a tease, ;)

I've driven a seven with less.

94?

Random bargain

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-E39-525I-MANUAL/283953982157?pageci=fa6ad487-8805-4243-bec0-9f7f39524a1a

@lynx Na 1.6 turbo. 70 bhp if I remember correctly. Managed to change the alternator, one handbrake cable, rear bumpstop and clean/regrease the bearing for that wheel today... Starting to get the 'old car repair' bug! Certainly a lot cheaper than getting a garage to do it. I love the fact that with these old VWs every piece is designed properly, and designed to be taken apart and repaired intelligently.

Thanks for this tip, ended up using them and would recommend/use again.

At a guess you know the tweaks to up the power, have you got the 4 speed +E gearbox?

Thought the mk2 had the 1.8 turbo...

May have mentioned before, I have (inherited when dad died) an 83 left hooker imported GTD. Taken to Italy on gb plates. The 1.6 engine was tired with worn rings, replaced the engine with the 1.8 from the mk2 with an added landrover intercooler as I had few. The really tall/long 5th E gear meant the car would do 160-180kph for tankfuls of fuel going from the midlands to sort of Naples.

Nice! Ours is the 5 full gears as it's a 91. Yeah, it's mostly tuning up the fuel pump with this engine isnt it? Tbh if I was to do anything with it I'd want to improve the economy not the speed. With it being the family car that's more important, although it's pretty good as it is. Especially compared to the petrol version. Would changing the turbo and intercooler give me more umpfh and more top end economy? As we said before the idea of this car with a modern economical engine is pretty tempting....

Once I've got it all out back together and polished I'll put up some photos

Anyone know exactly how the not extension works? It says on my gov.uk data that I have until sometime in November (as my original MOT date is May) but I definitely heard on the news that all out of date MOTS now had to be taken by August. Confusing...

I've driven 10s of thousands of miles in a car with no windscreen with just a cap and sunglasses. Not dead yet. The caps stayed on because we were wearing intercom headsets based on modified Peltor ear-defenders. They were also attached to the car by a lanyard, just in case. It was always embarrasing when you forgot to take the cap off before leaving the car. Mind you, the peak of Cycliste's cap always started lifting at speeds of over 80mph. If I went faster than that, Cycliste would tell me over the intercom system that 'The Hat Says No', which was code for 'slow down'. That's us in the silver car - it's difficult to tell from the low camera angle, but the top of the aeroscreen was somewhere between chin and nose height for me.

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As you can see the chap behind is also driving in a cap, intercom headset and sunglasses. That's in a 260bhp Caterham. We did used to wear helmets for long motorway journeys, but that was more for noise attenuation than anything else. That car's pretty low geared - at 80mph on the French autoroute in top gear the engine's doing just over 9krpm, and the induction noise alone is pretty deafening.

Oh, and hailstorms. They weren't fun. Not fun at all.

And given that the cars we were driving with tended to be tuned rather rich for performance rather than economy, you could tell when you'd had a long day's driving...

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If you put your VRM into the .gov MOT site it will give you the date. My mother’s date was extended three months and then for the full year. I suspect the full year extension was only applied when the three month extension was up or very close to the date. Hope that makes sense

Yeah it's saying Nov 20. The info I heard was that all not extensions which still had time after 1st August were being revoked however that must not bet the case.

Dadwagon acquired. It’s only a 1.5 but genuinely nippy and fun to drive and the boot space is hilarious. There’s almost too much room in the back.

*this isn’t how I parked. Just took a snap in a quiet car park the other night.

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I think the change is that MOTs due by some date in August or later would no longer be extended. I haven't read anything suggesting previous extensions would be revoked.

It seems I might have to cancel the MOT test I booked for Tuesday then...!

Wow, I guess they're too busy building gearboxes for a defunct V8 supercar series. Shame. Good luck finding a solution.