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

Paid my rent in London in the 90's buying, fixing and selling cars.

Have you driven a car with ceramic brakes? Same model with normal brakes?

Nope, I'm assuming there's a reason they make them if you can afford it though.

The idea is lighter and last longer, if you have the carbon ceramic discs and pads, so lighter discs mean car handles better and requires less energy to accelerate and decelerate.

Wondered about other peoples experiences, have experienced on big heavy road cars not lithe race cars.

Is this you :) https://www.gumtree.com/p/car-part-accessories/bmw-e30-hardtop-for-convertible/1213861088

If I had kept them I would not have the space to keep them nor the money that I used to buy other cars.

I've had 996 GT3s with and without Ceramics and the difference is noticeable.

You can feel the lower unsprung weight and they stop harder and with a better pedal feel and firmness.

I've seen a 997 Turbo that needed new Ceramics at less than 10k miles, which cost £6000, and a GT3 on its original ceramic brakes with 30k miles, so I guess it's how you treat them.

On 911s you can just fit steel discs to cars that came with Ceramics if they wear out so there's no reason to avoid them. I'd say they're worth the dollar on a £50k sports racing car, they do feel awesome, but on a lardy £20k Bentley that you're just going to waft about in I'd be less sure.

Cool. The enemy has to head over for work, so I am going to tag along. I am assuming your work email is different now? Can you pm me your email address?

End of Feb=hardtop off. Exhaust note much improved!

However, and this is after much polishing with plastic window renovator, I have some issues:

It's possible that all of the scratches can be polished out - but can the opaque line be got rid of, or is this a "need a new one" situation?

Itch meet scratch. 😎

Just drive everywhere with the roof down

Just use your side mirrors. Like a van.

Options, as I see them:

• Fix opaque line (which I suspect is tricky as it would appear to be all the way through the plastic)
  
• New hood with plastic window (place in Southend does this and has been recommended)
  
• New hood with (smaller) glass window, although it is heated which makes up for smallness to an extent (place in Lymington does this)
  
  

Replacing the hood is going to be ~£1,000, so I'm keen to explore option 1.

Replacement plastic rear window:

Replacement glass rear window:

Living with it not an option I guess, based on your track record!

Plastic window looks more aero, but then you've no laminar airflow that far back anyway.

Mate, start a seperate thread.

You're going to hate the next couple of weeks, I'm having a load of work done on the Volvo.

I went to see the chap who's going to be restoring my Morris Minor Traveller today, as it's finally got to the front of the queue and into the workshop. Two major decisions made today - new wood for the back end, and a return to its original colour of Smoke Grey rather than the current Trafalgar Blue. Oh, and no modifications - all entirely standard.

There's also been a change of plan in that @Cycliste and I are going to own it and pay for the resto jointly. It was her car, then it got passed (in a non-running condition) to her father, then it came to me. Now it's going to be ours. So romantic.

The strip down should start next week. I imagine the first invoices will follow shortly afterwards.

Godam 993. NNNNNNNNNNNNNnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggggggg.

Looks like it's had a front end prang

I'd disagree, I'd go for better brakes,better gearbox, better running gear. Oh and better kingpins ;)

Are all the panels being remade?

Really into these at the moment

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Teenage dream though

I can't take my eyes off these at the moment, ideally with the competition package.

2006 M3

Some of this happened today:

And we did indeed manage to remove some of the milky line - indications were good that we could remove all of it if we kept going, however the screen started to suffer from fog "bloom", so we stopped.

The larger issue is that the milky line will come back due to the way the screen folds:

Which means that it's always going to be a battle to keep it from doing this:

I spent the two hour drive home considering the situation and I think I'll book the car in to have the hood-with-glass put on, it is smaller but you tend to look "below the fold" when checking the rear view, and ultimately a slightly smaller field of vision that is crystal clear beats a larger field of vision that is cloudy to opaque.