A Perpetual Picture Of Your Car Thread
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I know it's an old old old old joke but it still amuses me they use the MG branding on an electric car given the legends of how terrible the electrics were on old MGs.
I'll never get why SAIC chose to resurrect brands that had been so long dead that they were nothing other than a badge. Nothing good happened to anything British Leyland touched - Landrover, Jaguar (both now owned by Tata) and Mini (now BMW) were the only brands (out of around 20) that escaped from it not bankrupt and with reputations relatively intact. Why MG and LDV were brought back to life is beyond me. Did they have better reputations abroad than they did in Britain? LDV is probably even weirder than MG as a brand to re-use. Leyland DAF Vans.
OTOH, it lets them write stuff on their website that makes them sound less like a new Chinese brand and more like something with a heritage - but nobody seems to have questioned whether that heritage was any good.
It's this bit that I find odd - LDV didn't exactly join SAIC - it was more a case of SAIC buying up the badges of defunct brands.
OTOH, it lets them write stuff on their website that makes them sound less like a new Chinese brand and more like something with a heritage - but nobody seems to have questioned whether that heritage was any good.
It's this bit that I find odd - LDV didn't exactly join SAIC - it was more a case of SAIC buying up the badges of defunct brands.
If I was still in the sedan market, I would have had a Giulia by now. Gorgeous color. And a truly fantastic looking thing.
And for all the MG love (hate!) going around right now, here's Top Gear (the site) and their review of the MG Cyberster:
C'mon, Mazda! If the Chinese engineers can stuff this into an MG, surely you can do it too!
I went to Corvette night and just realized there's only one picture I took that has my car included. There was a sea of C5+ Corvettes that are much more fun to drive than look at. Amongst other things I found this Datsun Black Pearl, and the angle just caught my C3's rear.
It's an every-Tuesday car cruise, they have themes every week but anyone can come with whatever. So on Corvette night they reserve the first 80 parking spaces for Corvettes and then everyone after just finds a spot. I would estimate the weekly turnout is about 250 cars but on certain theme weeks it can fill the 500-spot parking lot.
Oops...delayed reply to @Diabolical, etc.
The Fraggle is the inside, ignore the flawed and gangly human shell.
It's a 1978 (76?) Chevette Scooter, maroon rather than brown, but it's an old Kodak Instamatic pic. Two door hatch, 4 spd stick, anemic 4 cyl engine. In its day, it outran a Yugo, and Renault Alliance, and a Porsche 928 (that probably didn't realize it was racing). It jumped railroad tracks. It made beer runs. It taught me the "bootlegger reverse", and the dirt-road equivalent of drifting. It led to teenage drive-in adventures. It ran at redline in 3rd for too long, and dumped all its oil on the interstate, but still made the drive home, then to the garage, without complaint. And, yes, was named "Christine", as it seemed unkillable (and, we watched the movie often back then). I put a (fake) "Turbo" badge on it. It was an complete piece of shit on many levels, but it was also somehow reliable, and...glorious. It was freedom.
The Fraggle is the inside, ignore the flawed and gangly human shell.
It's a 1978 (76?) Chevette Scooter, maroon rather than brown, but it's an old Kodak Instamatic pic. Two door hatch, 4 spd stick, anemic 4 cyl engine. In its day, it outran a Yugo, and Renault Alliance, and a Porsche 928 (that probably didn't realize it was racing). It jumped railroad tracks. It made beer runs. It taught me the "bootlegger reverse", and the dirt-road equivalent of drifting. It led to teenage drive-in adventures. It ran at redline in 3rd for too long, and dumped all its oil on the interstate, but still made the drive home, then to the garage, without complaint. And, yes, was named "Christine", as it seemed unkillable (and, we watched the movie often back then). I put a (fake) "Turbo" badge on it. It was an complete piece of shit on many levels, but it was also somehow reliable, and...glorious. It was freedom.
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Reminds me of my HS car; 1989 Escort LX. My first 5-sp that I learned to drive about a day before I had to get to school.
That damn thing went through a lot and kept on chugging.
My second car was a 1986 Mercury Lynx (Escort clone) with a stick shift. In understood the theory of shifting having been in the back seat when my dad taught my older sister to drive. When I went to sell my dying first car and buy this Lynx she came with moe and coached me through it on the way home, about a 25 minute drive.
And an hour after that, I had to start my Friday night closing shift delivering pizza
2005 Hyundai Accent5.
Felt fast, went slow, could fit you, four friends and all your luggage, bottom out the springs and keep driving with decent ground clearance.
Between that and my second car, a 2006 Hyundai Elantra GT, I gained my love of manual hatchbacks.
As you said above, nothing like your first car freedom.
I think the answer to that last question will come in time when it becomes clear how reliable they are and how the dealer/repair situation goes. Part of the cost of a car is all the other stuff besides the initial experience. If it can't keep running after 2 years or you can't get decent warranty and service or repair without extreme measures and expense, the money saved on the purchase might go away pretty quickly. But still, it seems pretty cool at first glance. The Chinese EVs are at least pushing a bit of competition.
80-something Pontiac Acadian, which is a Chevette for the Canadian market. 70hp and three forward gears of awesome. I think you could increase your chances of lung cancer just by sitting in it with no-one smoking (yet).
Never had my own car in HS or college. This was my first, 84 Celica GTS Manual. Drove it cross country packed to the roof. Started to rattle and shake like an SOB if you got close to 90. Driving through the mountains of Colorado I would lose the pack of cars I was with in the straights due to that, then catch them in the curves, as even though it was bottomed out it drove like it was on rails.
Wow looks good.The 986 has the perfect number of buttons
I installed a carplay head unit last weekend that looks OEM enough for me:
Similar vein, I just saw this for the 100-series Toyota Land Cruiser.
Here’s How a 2002 Toyota Land Cruiser Can Run Apple CarPlay on Its Factory Touchscreen
This vehicle is older than the iPhone, but you can still get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto to show up on its 22-year-old touchscreen display without changing the interior's factory look.
www.thedrive.com
I imagine a 22 year old touch screen feels pretty clunky compared to what people have become used to though - I imagine tapping is fine, but pinching and dragging etc probably less so.Wow looks good.
Similar vein, I just saw this for the 100-series Toyota Land Cruiser.
Here’s How a 2002 Toyota Land Cruiser Can Run Apple CarPlay on Its Factory Touchscreen
This vehicle is older than the iPhone, but you can still get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto to show up on its 22-year-old touchscreen display without changing the interior's factory look.
Pinching is impossible on that type of resistive touchscreen (they're not multitouch); dragging is usually possible but might be difficult to actually execute.
Fortunately, CarPlay doesn't dictate touchscreen type and actually provides affordances both for single-touch displays (zoom buttons in apps like Maps) and for displays where dragging is problematic (arrow buttons in apps like Maps). You can see them in the video included with the linked article.
In Canada there is BC aka British Columbia aka aka Bring Cash - cause yea, BC is frickin expensive
Not my car but was in my wife's parking area in town. It is in pristine condition. I don't know much about Porsche but whoever owns this, damn, they are paying to keep it in tip top condition. Hong Kong is very hard on vehicles (heat/humidity) so this thing can't possibly ever see 'the outside'. I tip my hat to the owner and figure give us all a bit of car porn.
It's almost a bench to sit on while you have your picnic.
You need one with one of those big, flat topped rear spoilers that Porsche did in the '80s to back up to it to use as the table.
OTOH, I've seen this presented as an actual life hack...
This video goes beyond the surface of how it looks. They talk about crash structures and diffuser engineering. And extremely high end luxury watches. And a gorgeous dash.
Oh, and 1800 horsepower. Electricity, yes. But also a naturally aspirated V16 engine, developed by Cosworth.
Catchpole, the lucky sod, guides us through the Bugatti Tourbillon.
View: https://youtu.be/PClxnRzIE4g?si=PTAcyZo31ll6knUK
There’s also a reference to the Atlantic coupe. One of which I’ve seen in person at the now closed Mullin Museum.
journal.classiccars.com
Oh, and 1800 horsepower. Electricity, yes. But also a naturally aspirated V16 engine, developed by Cosworth.
Catchpole, the lucky sod, guides us through the Bugatti Tourbillon.
View: https://youtu.be/PClxnRzIE4g?si=PTAcyZo31ll6knUK
There’s also a reference to the Atlantic coupe. One of which I’ve seen in person at the now closed Mullin Museum.
Bugatti 57 SC Atlantic coupe, the ageless masterpiece still inspires
The Bugatti Type 57 SC Atlantic coupe, Jean Bugatti's ageless masterpiece still inspires with its groundbreaking form and unique construction
journal.classiccars.com
In this weeks episode of 'will it fit'.....
Well, a 38 inch wide panel monitor will fit in the box in an M2....but it won't go in via the boot even with the seats folded down, it has to go in via a driver/passenger side door. I was pondering a 40 inch variant but couldn't go that route but that extra couple inches could have been incrementally a lot more problematic as this was a 'barely'. Somehow the previous one (a Dell rather than this Eizo) had a lot less width for packaging as it didn't even merit a photo at the time.
Well, a 38 inch wide panel monitor will fit in the box in an M2....but it won't go in via the boot even with the seats folded down, it has to go in via a driver/passenger side door. I was pondering a 40 inch variant but couldn't go that route but that extra couple inches could have been incrementally a lot more problematic as this was a 'barely'. Somehow the previous one (a Dell rather than this Eizo) had a lot less width for packaging as it didn't even merit a photo at the time.
In this weeks episode of 'will it fit'.....
Well, a 38 inch wide panel monitor will fit in the box in an M2....but it won't go in via the boot even with the seats folded down, it has to go in via a driver/passenger side door. I was pondering a 40 inch variant but couldn't go that route but that extra couple inches could have been incrementally a lot more problematic as this was a 'barely'. Somehow the previous one (a Dell rather than this Eizo) had a lot less width for packaging as it didn't even merit a photo at the time.
Better than when I bought the Alienware super fancy 34” ultrawide OLED back in november - at least your monitor fits completely enclosed inside the M2!
My 124 and that 34”?
Repost from November:
The MINI is a similar thing. I love it, in many ways. It holds a ton of stuff (did a rear-seat delete, which makes it a TARDIS), plus a roof rack, but, even as a very low-mileage car, it's out of warranty. And, anything requiring the dealer is going to be expensive. Bonus, I guess, it's paid-off. Given how little I drive anymore, I've started to think of just selling it and doing Uber/rental when needed. Though, not having the wee-beastie available would also make me sad.
Moved a headboard yesterday. Took us a good 10 minutes to figure out the right combination of seat configurations and where to bring it in to get it to fit. Had to have one leg sticking out the window.
Then it took us a good few minutes to figure out how the F*** we got it in and find a way to wrangle it back out.
Then it took us a good few minutes to figure out how the F*** we got it in and find a way to wrangle it back out.
My first car was a Mercedes A-Class - the original version, not the later design update and not the modern one that is pretty similar to the BMW 1 series.
It had the benefit that unlike most hatch back where you could fold the seats, you could also completely remove the back seats (although they were bulky and took up a lot of space in the house when I did it). You could also remove the front passenger seat (it had one extra step as you needed to disconnect the air-bag sensor.
W was that you had a surprising amount of space for a small car. At the same time though, I sometimes got caught out by the fact that at the end of the day it was still a very small car. I'd think that after removing all the seats it would give me heaps of space - but then still struggle to fit stuff in. I remember an Ikea futon only just fitted with all the seats removed. It was just that the overall length was still pretty short. It made it good for parking in city centres, but no amount of transformability could really alter this fact.
It was a shame IIMHO that Mercedes stopped making that design - I think a big part of their problem was that while it sold reasonably, hit had almost no parts in common with their other cars and that their cost models relied on more commonality - going for what they changed it to meant that more components could be shared with the C-Class.