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

ISTR that the Peugeot 205 Group B rally car only shared one part with the road car, the windscreen frame. Perhaps that was a myth, but it sounds good.

Andrews heat for hire was infamous in rally circles.

One of my favourite group b car is still the metro 6R4. For the beautiful engineering of the roll cage in to the shell A and B posts. Or the Lancia 037, look at how they build the replicas, so little of the original car.

The fiat coupe was indeed based on the same floorpan as the GTV, where they differed was that the GTV has very clever rear suspension with an element of passive rear steer and this ate into rear space , hence why you can get grown ups in the back of the fiat and it as a boot and not a letterbox.
But yes turning circle is hilarious , I cant get round my local multi storey car park .

Hopefully the engine will last more than 500 miles though!

Reminds me of my old pug 306 GTi6... Turning circle was fine going left... But turning right the 6 speed gearbox got in the way so it went from about 10 metres turning circle to 16 or something!

Back in the late 90's I had an Oselli built mini 1275gt and the guy who looked after it was an ex BMC Special Tuning guy and he also looked after Tony Ponds 6R4 amongst others , he was known as a 6R4 guru.
I popped by one day and he was building a one off 6R4 with full leather and air con for an Arab Sheik so he could go yumping in the dunes !
it had 600hp !!

Have you seen a real one up close? I worked on a few, beautiful isn’t really a word I’d use for the shell fabrication if I’m honest.

Having seen some quite crude roll cage installations, I find roll cage built in to that A and B posts looks very neat and well thought out and I find that beautiful.

Wonder how much leather there was in the interior, and how big (and power zapping) the air con system was as the inside is hot.

They were also cheap, 45k when first came out and then finally 16k..

What's the plan for holidays / family visits etc? Rentals / taxis / public transport

Yes - those three. Try and use trains more, but we will also be hiring cars.

Try and use trains more

Be cheaper to get a taxi!

This is it. Black interior.

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I only know that it was awesomely quick
It did 0 to 100 in about 6 secs. On gravel . MPH that is .

Nice. Let me know how it goes. It's something we'd like to move to in the medium term.

Had a great day at Anglesey on Monday driving my mate's MR2 as my MX5 is still out of action after the Feb trackday.

It is very good annoyingly, and now I'm considering whether to fix the MX5, sell it, and buy an MR2. Was lapping as quick as cars with 2-2.5x the power, and it's just such a well handling car. Last stint of the day was 1 hour and 55 miles, it didn't get hot, the brakes didn't overheat, it was so easy to drive right at the limit.

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Usual engine or the 180?

Yeah the concept is good, Both of the ones i worked on were quite rough in execution of putting the cage inside the the A pillar junction to the roof i remember

Have you seen Stavtech has put a VW 1.8T in his one with some sort of bolt in kit? It looks very quick

It is very good annoyingly, and now I'm considering whether to fix the MX5, sell it, and buy an MR2.

Having had a quick go in that, BenStillerDoIt.gif

That particular car is so well set up as well that even a chump like me was able to drive it fairly quickly off the bat. Looks like a corking day in Anglesey, bit jelly...

We had a mint condition mk 1 Golf gti in today.the owner is selling it .

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Is the VW better that the toyota engines that can be rebuilt to lotus spec or find the supercharged corolla engine ;)

Or is it that the VW engine is alot more common so cheaper.

Seen a few real group B and manufacture built touring cars and they all have bits that I admire/or look at and I think that is cool or well thought out.

Morrisson’s car park totnes

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^LOL, it now looks unstable in all directions, if you slammed on the brakes I think it would do a forward roll :)

I spotted this tank in west London and don't recall ever having seen one before, a Chrysler Saratoga, which would look better if it was an actual colour rather than beige.


And one for the old Saab lovers, spotted this very tidy one.

Never seen a Saratoga before,
but clearly it was designed for the Chrysler Straight 8 engine.

Or you could have had a Hemi V8 according to that link too. I think a better option still these days especially with our fuel prices, would be to convert this to electric. Not like Tesla ballistic fast, but enough for cruising. Cavernous inside, cool 50's diner retro styling but without the crippling fuel bills.