Great Cars

Favorite of my youth:

karmann-ghia.jpg


Nowadays, they tunnel, funnel, igent them and put a V8 in:

 


The 2010 version looks better than the later one. I think they put a big V8 hybrid in the latest one, which doesn't make sense to me.
 
Leitmotif said:
The Quattro was a great car! One of the best rally cars ever made, but it was not much of a match against Lancias, specially the Delta S4. 6 championships in a row.
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True, but it was the first to win that class. In essence, it started the group B era.
 
pan51 said:
Favorite of my youth:
karmann-ghia.jpg

Nowadays, they tunnel, funnel, igent them and put a V8 in:
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The Karmann Ghia is a beauty. Some kid in high school had one and I seem to recall that the gas pedal was actually a roller?
Scherensammler said:
I like a(ny) 5-cylinder Audi engine, but in particular this one:
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WTF is the point of an inline five? I have no experience with them, but seem to recall reading nasty comments on the exhaust note and the old jokes about V-6 fuel economy with I4 power.
 
Russell Street said:
WTF is the point of an inline five? I have no experience with them, but seem to recall reading nasty comments on the exhaust note and the old jokes about V-6 fuel economy with I4 power.
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My old Audis with a non turbo inline 5 were a bit more torquey than 4 cylinder cars with a similar power output, and had the torque at lower revs.
About the exhaust note: You either like it or not. It's not the roar of a big V8 or the fanfare of a V12 engine. But it's way better than any i4 engine sound, IMHO.
 
Scherensammler said:
About the exhaust note: You either like it or not. It's not the roar of a big V8 or the fanfare of a V12 engine. But it's way better than any i4 engine sound, IMHO.
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People think the car needs a tune-up, but I rather like the sound. It's poppy.
 
pan51 said:
Audi Sport Quattro S1 IS Walter Röhrl, Pikes Peak 1987:
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I was lucky enough to see Walter Rohrl compete in the Targa Tasmania (a multi-stage tarmac rally race) in 2000, when he brought over a Porsche 356 from the Porsche factory museum.

It was an absolute revelation to watch him drive. The 356 was much slower than modern cars along the straights but Rohrl is such a phenomenally good driver that he lost hardly any speed through the corners so he came out of the corners much more quickly. He beat a lot of modern 911 GT3s on a number of stages. The speed and fluidity was poetry in motion to watch.
 
Journeyman said:
I was lucky enough to see Walter Rohrl compete in the Targa Tasmania (a multi-stage tarmac rally race) in 2000, when he brought over a Porsche 356 from the Porsche factory museum.

It was an absolute revelation to watch him drive. The 356 was much slower than modern cars along the straights but Rohrl is such a phenomenally good driver that he lost hardly any speed through the corners so he came out of the corners much more quickly. He beat a lot of modern 911 GT3s on a number of stages. The speed and fluidity was poetry in motion to watch.
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Here here. You're lucky. I watched Senna drive a few times and it was special in the same way.

F1 and road courses get the most attention, but the best drivers are probably the rally drivers. To maintain control of those cars in such constantly changing conditions is a massive challenge. On a track, you master 15 corners and you're on the pace. In rally, you need to navigate 100 corners in 1 single stage, and there are like 15 to 20 stages. It's harder. I watch rally and just accept that I couldn't do it.

Here is another example:




And this is one of the finest pieces of footage I've ever seen of a rally car:

 
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Scherensammler said:
From the days F1 drivers had to control the car and manually shift the gears:

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I have always thought that Honda it is the greatest Japanese car maker, Toyota gets close, but when it comes to pedigree Honda just has it by miles. The sound of that turbo charged 753 HP Honda engine is just intoxicating.

 
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I still don't understand why the F1 went from V10 engines to 1.6 litre turbo engines that make less noise than a normal road car with a sport exhaust. When you take away the noise and let computers control the cars you take away the excitement. So it is no surprise that people don't want to watch F1 no more.
Plus it's more than suspicious that a team, that had almost no chance at winning with their V10 all of a sudden is so far ahead.
I'm sure they paid someone (Ecclestone?) big bucks to have the new rules changed in their favour. Along with a good head start in development. But then, of course, it's not the first time they cheated.
 
Scherensammler said:
So it is no surprise that people don't want to watch F1 no more.
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When I learned of pushbutton transmissions, I no longer felt a sense of connection to what they were doing.
The tiny "eco" engines are supposed to either advance street car engine tech, eliminate the veil of eco-villainy, or make the econobox viewer identify?
 
Usually it was the other way around in the past, that components of serial production found their way into racing, like ESP and now hybrid technology, which has been in road cars long before they were in F1 cars.

I don't mind the flappy pedal shifting, as long as it is real and has an effect on the actual process. But the fact that they can re-program or even restart an engine wireless makes it plain boring, along with the possibility to change the setup of the car.
In the good old days the drivers had to make a decision and had to live with it during the race.
I don't see the point of the small engines. The spectators are usually (at least in Germany), beer drinking, barbecuing petrol heads who want to hear the noise of the cars when they shift and accelerate.

I wish F1 was more like the Indycar series with 2 chassis and more than one tire manufacturer. Let them use their own engines, but everything else needs to be comparable. So no team would have an advantage because it has half a billion $ to spend on that project.

But enough about that, here's another gorgeous car to look at: Maserati 3500 GT and as a Spyder:

Maserati_3500GT_silver_vr_TCE.jpg


12417094805_faa7bc98df_b.jpg
 
Scherensammler said:
From the days F1 drivers had to control the car and manually shift the gears:
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His quali lap, believe '88 or '98 could be the greatest lap in F1 history. Cars were more fun to watch back then. That lap was awesome.

Leitmotif said:
This is a great video!
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Fuck ya.

Leitmotif said:
I have always thought that Honda it is the greatest Japanese car maker, Toyota gets close, but when it comes to pedigree Honda just has it by miles. The sound of that turbo charged 753 HP Honda engine is just intoxicating.

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I've seen that, awesome.


Just an FYI, I started a thread for just this type of stuff.

Amazing Motor Racing Footage | DressedWell
 
Scherensammler said:
I still don't understand why the F1 went from V10 engines to 1.6 litre turbo engines that make less noise than a normal road car with a sport exhaust. When you take away the noise and let computers control the cars you take away the excitement. So it is no surprise that people don't want to watch F1 no more.
Plus it's more than suspicious that a team, that had almost no chance at winning with their V10 all of a sudden is so far ahead.
I'm sure they paid someone (Ecclestone?) big bucks to have the new rules changed in their favour. Along with a good head start in development. But then, of course, it's not the first time they cheated.
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The didn't nail the balance between tech, performance and excitement. The sound needs work. More concerning is how its possible a 17 year old can handle an F1 car, seems they are not on the edge anymore.


Russell Street said:
When I learned of pushbutton transmissions, I no longer felt a sense of connection to what they were doing.
The tiny "eco" engines are supposed to either advance street car engine tech, eliminate the veil of eco-villainy, or make the econobox viewer identify?
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I don't mind semi-auto transmissions, but it makes it easier to drive. These things should be almost impossible to handle, but they aren't. And you can't follow anyone anymore.
 
OfficePants said:
What the fuck was that about?
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It takes some muscle to destroy a muscle car. A team of sledgehammer-wielding men in China pulverized a new Lamborghini Gallardo with the owner's permission, because he was fed up with a mechanic who repeatedly failed to fix an engine problem.

A businessman from the city of Qingdao in eastern China bought the souped-up Italian sports car in October for about $750,000, but that didn't stop him from reducing it to pile of scrap metal on Tuesday.
Read more at LiveLeak.com - Destroy A Lamborghini Supercar with Hammers in 5 Mins!
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Wouldn't it have made more sense to have bashed the mechanic with hammers, rather than the car?
 
Scherensammler said:
Only in China (Unhappy with the service? Have your $750.000,- Lamborghini destroyed):[/MEDIA]
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If you have plenty of money it wouldn't be a big deal. If they own large Chinese factories that pay people $1 per day then they could buy heaps more of those cars.
 
The Shooman said:
Not into fancy cars and stuff, but you guys might like this short video of a very extravegant man who has a sky garage to park his cars.
Parking a Lamborghini at a Sky Garage in Singapore
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The Bruce Wayne fantasy is nice, but I'm failing to see the appeal of this big, slow, conveyance that exists solely so you can have your view blocked by your garage. I see the reality of coming in from the rain and having a wet car fogging up all that glass...
 
Russell Street said:
The Bruce Wayne fantasy is nice, but I'm failing to see the appeal of this big, slow, conveyance that exists solely so you can have your view blocked by your garage. I see the reality of coming in from the rain and having a wet car fogging up all that glass...
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Just send one of your slaves to clean the glass.
 
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