The car thread 2.

[Colin]

I tried watching ‘new’ top gear the other week, the big foot episode, horrendous.

My wife walked in to the garage the other day and I’d stripped the front grille, rear diffuser and half the interior out of the Vantage for a couple of wee modifications. She said “I’m not really sure how I feel about you doing these jobs yourself on this car, do you know what you’re doing?”. Which I didn’t really, but it all worked out fine.

[Neon Ignition]

For some reason found myself pondering Car Fashion.

Clothes, film, music etc go through nostalgic swings with all sorts of era-related revivals and homages fuelled through changing tastes and nostalgia's. Cars though, not so much. The bell curve in car aesthetics is fairly consistent and has increasingly become quite homogenised over time in some aspects. There are some exceptions and throwbacks either in overall design or in reviving elements like when these first started to hit the market:



Or like when the Beetle was revived and aped the style of the original, or even aspects of the Mustang when it was revived initially. However there's no wide reaching revival or trends. A shame in a way.

[nonny]

Two cars I've owned multiple of growing up are the Beetle and the Mini, both got reinvented and both of those I hated with a passion as to me they missed the entire brief of the original.

The Beetle I'd argue it had to change substantially because the original had a tonne of issues and any modernisation needed to fix them but the Mini, what the hell have they done to it... It's now an SUV?!? Stupid. I did appreciate the balls crazy GP version but give me the original cooper any day.

The closest crazy mini in recent years for me was the Abarth 500.

Rant over. But agree car design is so sterile these days... Very few risks.

[fishbowlhead]

I tried watching ‘new’ top gear the other week, the big foot episode, horrendous.

My wife walked in to the garage the other day and I’d stripped the front grille, rear diffuser and half the interior out of the Vantage for a couple of wee modifications. She said “I’m not really sure how I feel about you doing these jobs yourself on this car, do you know what you’re doing?”. Which I didn’t really, but it all worked out fine.

I know, I’ll just take my Aston Martin apart to mod it 🤔



I’m still pondering what to do with my bug wagon body work. After I replace the front suspension with some excel-g’s (all springs are fine) the mechanical stuff is really done. I’m not bothered about more power as it would be easier to just buy a fully moded STI.

However the body work is another matter. Loads of scratches, dented front bumper, rear, and dents in the roof.

I’m thinking about a complete re spray, however it’s not like it’s going to add to the value of the car, a bug WRX wagon won’t fetch good money at all. So the re spray would be for my pleasure really.

Or just keep as is and keep it as.


Thoughts?

[sanjeev]

Did anyone catch this weeks Top Gear?
They smashed up a mint Rx7 for cheap laughs, fking pricks and hyperbole-ed about how "bad" rotary is for the dumbed down audience.

Pricks

*edit* oh guess i should update car stuff.

RX8 is going strong. I was never happy with my local mx5 specialist garage, they did some work and i wasnt happy with it so i looked ... prob a year ago now for another local specialist, turns out the nearest was 2 hours away from me in Exeter, anyway great chap, has had his project RX7 and other builds published in Banzai magazine etc. Knows his stuff, so started going to him, 4 hour round trip so you know hes worth it...thats the rotary life.

Anyhow Since the last garage replaced my clutch with not the oem spec i wanted, and generally did a poor rush job on it (turns out the box only had 3 of the 7 screws holding it in place when we got it up on the ramp) i decided to replace a ton of stuff to set my mind at rest and get rid of annoying bearing whine.

So it now has super lightweight flywheel, titanium lightweight flywheel nuts and such, replaced all the bearings with new mazda oem ones, input shaft, release bearing, flyout bearing whatever. New RTS sports clutch etc.
Also now running full Racing Beat exhaust , decat but two resonating champers to keep the noise a-ok.

Of course i should take this time to write that if anyone from the ministry of transport is reading this post, i am of course not running a decat and am instead just pretending to on the internet to appear cool.

Had an oil cooler line leak so replaced all the oil cooler lines with Racing Beats own brand, now all sparkly and solid.

Finally in some rather awesome club news: In 2005 or so mazda teamed up with Prodrive to produce a short run of special edition RX8's the PZ Series, Prodrive developed a upgraded suspension system for the car, blitsen and echiba etc for this run of PZ cars, around 500-700 i think were produced. Very saught after these days, not sure how many are still registered on the road.
Anyway the RX8 owners club has negotiated with Blitsen/Echiban etc. and they are going to reproduce this suspension setup brand spanking new, run of 100 or so sets for interested members. Pretty cool hey? So ive got my name down for that.

I really need to work on the paint work though its still the weakest part of the car, i cant afford a respray in a million years though hmm, maybe ill look into cutting and polishing in the summer weather.


Damn you all with Aston Martins! *sniff* :'(
Come on RX8 we know we're outcasts, lets go ...

Now this is a blast from the past. I actually had two RX8's. 192 and 231 versions.
I had the black pro drive version and man was that some machine.

[charlesr]

[MENTION=345]Superman Falls[/MENTION] you can probably blame the progression of the front end shape on me. I designed the NCAP tests for pedestrian safety. To pass them you need a certain amount of space under the bonnet for head impact and on lower cars, a certain shape to roll the knee around instead of trashing the ligaments.

[Neon Ignition]

Now, I've no chance of a modernised one of these

[fishbowlhead]

Perfect for a no seatbelt ride on on down to the milkfloat shoppe.

[kryss]

I think I must have posted in my dream rather than the forum. Looking at a 2018 Mazda3 GT for getting me around when subbing from May onwards. Financing isn't bad but places want $3500+/year for insurance as I have no history.

Still hoping the wife let's me get the aluminium racing pedals

[fishbowlhead]

I think I must have posted in my dream rather than the forum. Looking at a 2018 Mazda3 GT for getting me around when subbing from May onwards. Financing isn't bad but places want $3500+/year for insurance as I have no history.

Still hoping the wife let's me get the aluminium racing pedals

Forget anything like that for at least 5 years any get something that’s 1.0l engine. Otherwise the insurance WILL bum you hard.

Basically, every car you actually want, forget about

[Largo]

@sanjeev Awesome dude

[fishbowlhead]

I’ve been given the all clear to go view a Forrester XT Prodrive edition at the weekend mohahahahaha.

[charlesr]

I’ve been given the all clear to go view a Forrester XT Prodrive edition at the weekend mohahahahaha.

Excellent.

I just put rallyflapz on the front of mine. Need to wash the previous mud off now.

[fishbowlhead]

I had no idea that there was a uk prodrive forrester. Itle scratch that itch of a forrester sti I’ll never scratch.


Tasty flaps there . I got some mini flaps for my wagon however the lettering fell off so now there just plain black.

[charlesr]

I don't know if it's an official upgrade, but Prodrive traditionally did options for slight engine tuning (exhaust and remap) and better suspension components (anti rollbar etc)