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Squarebacks are nice, but I prefer Notchbacks.
Liking a Squareback is no different to the current obsession with estate cars, of which I am an offender considering I'm about to buy a Passat Estate.
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OK, sled, then--low cars, anyway. Why do people like them?
Originally lowered cars were a sign of stiffened suspension for spirited driving. Racing cars try and get as close to the ground as possible to maximise stiffness and minimise airflow under the car.
Extreme lowering on road cars is an evolution of that.
Example, a car that's for sale at the moment, it's lowered purely for looks rather than handling purposes.
Initially cars we're lowered for lakes and salt flat racing to make them streamlined and therefore faster, (in a brick shaped '32 with flathead power you need all the help you can get) as Nurse has said this evolved into road cars trying to emulate their race prepped counterparts.
Sled's are lowered to look good - the roofs are chopped, the lights frenched, hoods and trunks nosed and decked, sometimes bodies channeled and sectioned, all to make the cars look more 'rounded' and streamlined - lowering accentuates this. In the space obsessed '50's streamlining and low and slow was important. They we're lower at the rear than the front because back then it was easier to lower leaf-springs than re-weld spindles/chop springs to lower the front. Customising was just to make the car appear more modern, taking styling cues from the current cars and applying them to you're 2 year old ride. Just as had been done in the 40's when VW owners cut the middle out of their rear window to make it look like the latest oval rear window.
Love the plate on that golf BTW.
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I don't know why I like it either but I just know I love a lowered car. My dad had a car that was too low to drive on to garage ramps, and it was also too low to get on to the ferry to Holland when I was younger. I think I've been affected by that.
I took my Model T to be MOT'd recently and it was too low to get on the ramp and the brake test rollers.....on the downside I put a hole through the oil pan on a speedbump last year..
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Dude you have a Model T?!
Pictures. Now.
You'd like my friend's project, he's making a rat rod from custom chassis, Jag V12, and Mini Clubman Estate shell.
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Squarebacks are nice, but I prefer Notchbacks.
Liking a Squareback is no different to the current obsession with estate cars, of which I am an offender considering I'm about to buy a Passat Estate.
Audi RS4 Estate . . . my DREAM car!! Notch's are cool too. Was close to buying a fast back before I got my bug, back in the day!
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Dude you have a Model T?!
Pictures. Now.
You'd like my friend's project, he's making a rat rod from custom chassis, Jag V12, and Mini Clubman Estate shell.
Did have - built it, got it MOT'd, on the road about a week and somebody made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Never had the time to enjoy it and with weather like today I think i might miss it... pics here. http://www.londonfgss.com/post722916-3648.html
As for your mates project that sounds familiar. Was his lock-up in Retro Cars last year?
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Yeah, he was in the 2nd issue of the re-release. We're friends with Matt Woods the photographer for many many different car magazines, not to mention a few of the writers for various mags. Matt Woods's Mini is ridiculous, I've had him sitting alongside me on the motorway, he lifted off and his car backfired so loud it sounded like gunfire. 100 mph torque steer in his Mini is shit your pants mad.
Your Model T looks lush.
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It's not far from the start.. LOL. He's got quite a few cars in his fleet and I think that's taken a back burner while he sorts his Camper out.
You don't need to tell me about Minis, I just sold mine because I got fed up with it.
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Audi RS4 Estate . . . my DREAM car!! Notch's are cool too. Was close to buying a fast back before I got my bug, back in the day!
The mother - in - law to be has an RS6 estate, it's AMAZING!!!!!!!!
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mines nothing special, an 85 city e, a bare shell which i've restored and painted so i'm putting it back together.....slowly. But it's in my old mans garage and he's getting pissed off now....it's been there a couple of years and he tripped over the subframe the other day. And his car has to stay outside......I moved out 15 years ago and I'm still annoying my parents. It was/is my first car though so I don't want to get rid of it, i've had it 18 years......how come you sold yours? Did it need work? Obviously....it's a mini.
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yeah his mini is mad. On 10" wheels too..is your mates project anywhere near completion?
Don't talk to me about mini's though - they are such a PITA to work on and all my weekend is going to be taken up putting the rear subframe back on mine. Nothing ever goes right.
+1 3-4 days to change the water pump on mine all because it's a stupid fickin' Jap import with Air conditioning and it has absolutely NO space under the bonnet, even with the bonnet and grill off it's a bitch to get in anywhere, add to that seized sleeves on radiator bolts and a lack of suitable tools and you have a lot of mangled fingers by the end of it... still not working properly either, think my alternator's fucked now...
Was driving home last night and it just cut out at the lights... restarted it and it was labouring like fuck and crawling along sounding unhealthy, if I let it idle it cut out... had to keep it over 3,000rpm all the way home with the lights turned off and use the handbrake to slow down to keep it running... :(
Any suggestions on possible fault? It's a 1997 Spi Works Cooper S...
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I also feel slightly guilty that I'm hoping the engine might just be fucked... I don't want to swap it out because it's a Works engine but at the same time I'd rather have a V-Tec/ Bike engine in it... I feel very guilty indeed... :(
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mines nothing special, an 85 city e, a bare shell which i've restored and painted so i'm putting it back together.....slowly. But it's in my old mans garage and he's getting pissed off now....it's been there a couple of years and he tripped over the subframe the other day. And his car has to stay outside......I moved out 15 years ago and I'm still annoying my parents. It was/is my first car though so I don't want to get rid of it, i've had it 18 years......how come you sold yours? Did it need work? Obviously....it's a mini.
It's a moot point at the moment, I plugged a lot of cash into that car, and it was my 21st birthday present too. I basically ran out of money to keep it going while I was in my last year of uni, so I left it in my garage where it accumulated further faults standing there. My parents persuaded me to sell it since it was a bit of a waste. Now I've sold it (for a massive loss overall), my parents are trying to stop me buying another car with the money and get me to use my sister's car which is a New Mini (she is out of the country for another year doing a masters at NYU). Now I like that car despite it's major electrical problems, but they want me to use it and not do anything to it. I've been into modded cars since I was very young, I've been tinkering since I was about 12. I can't stand owning a car with a fucking great arch gap like that New Mini has. My point to them is, if they just wanted me to use that car, why the fuck did I sell the classic for such a massive loss? I could have trailered it home and fixed it up over time since I had the New Mini as a daily driver. They've now realised what a fucking great error they forced me into doing and are relenting but I'm quite bitter about the whole thing. I loved that classic no matter how much it pissed me off and the whole experience has kind of tarnished my love of classic Minis :(
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+1 3-4 days to change the water pump on mine all because it's a stupid fickin' Jap import with Air conditioning and it has absolutely NO space under the bonnet, even with the bonnet and grill off it's a bitch to get in anywhere, add to that seized sleeves on radiator bolts and a lack of suitable tools and you have a lot of mangled fingers by the end of it... still not working properly either, think my alternator's fucked now...
Was driving home last night and it just cut out at the lights... restarted it and it was labouring like fuck and crawling along sounding unhealthy, if I let it idle it cut out... had to keep it over 3,000rpm all the way home with the lights turned off and use the handbrake to slow down to keep it running... :(
Any suggestions on possible fault? It's a 1997 Spi Works Cooper S...
Doesn't sound like your alternator - a knackered alternator shouldn't give those symptoms.....at night you say. We're you're lights on and if so does it only cut out with the lights on? I know fuck all about injector systems, always stayed away from them cos carbs make much more sense to me but it sounds more like fuelling or ignition timing than electrical. Do those MPi's have an electric fuel pump?
As for vtec/bike engine, yeah they are great. I love those VTEC engines, real good fun, had one a few years back for a summer as a company car......bike engine though I think is just too awkward and impractical for the street...both a loada work and expensive. Don't bother putting one in your car - get a unfinished project from someone who is giving up on it...
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It's a moot point at the moment, I plugged a lot of cash into that car, and it was my 21st birthday present too. I basically ran out of money to keep it going while I was in my last year of uni, so I left it in my garage where it accumulated further faults standing there. My parents persuaded me to sell it since it was a bit of a waste. Now I've sold it (for a massive loss overall), my parents are trying to stop me buying another car with the money and get me to use my sister's car which is a New Mini (she is out of the country for another year doing a masters at NYU). Now I like that car despite it's major electrical problems, but they want me to use it and not do anything to it. I've been into modded cars since I was very young, I've been tinkering since I was about 12. I can't stand owning a car with a fucking great arch gap like that New Mini has. My point to them is, if they just wanted me to use that car, why the fuck did I sell the classic for such a massive loss? I could have trailered it home and fixed it up over time since I had the New Mini as a daily driver. They've now realised what a fucking great error they forced me into doing and are relenting but I'm quite bitter about the whole thing. I loved that classic no matter how much it pissed me off and the whole experience has kind of tarnished my love of classic Minis :(
that sounds shit - get your parents to stump up and buy it back.
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BOOGIE VANS
Reminds me of this:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evJsFwxrv2E"]YouTube
- Fu Manchu Cyclone Launch[/ame] -
I couldnt find the motorbike thread so ill post here....
Michael, you'll appreciate the Duc's now you've come over from the "other" side :p
Alex- you still have your chopper?
This is the Ducati D66, a custom chopper made by Luca Bar from Italy.
The D66 has an original 1098 (which also does duty on the new Streetfighter)
or some Lambo motoporn....
or this beauty...
BMW R7 1934
Donut!
NurseHolliday
bigbadad
Nahguavkire
andy.w
philjay
Epifania
dogsballs
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Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc
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I don't know why I like it either but I just know I love a lowered car. My dad had a car that was too low to drive on to garage ramps, and it was also too low to get on to the ferry to Holland when I was younger. I think I've been affected by that.