For those interested in old cars.

[boxbrownie]

19 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Never mind a Stratos, I just wish I'd bought an Integrale in the early 90s before the prices went silly.

We had an Intergrale on the fleet when developing the Escort Cosworth, went really quite well (as long as you kept the water cooled intercooler system topped up otherwise the power was cut back), also the brakes were naff after half an hour of Essex country lanes........good fun though  ......oh yes and the alarm system on ours was as well built as the Italian electrical system, kept going off and a lot of the time the alarm fob didn't deactivate the system, bit embarrassing  when your sneaking it out for lunch 

[Rugd1022]

2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Didn't the Integrale eat tyres? 

 

''Oh they all do that sir....'' 

 

Another gratuitous Stratos pic....

 

 

[steve1]

Nice enough but if I had a gash £40k to spend on a ‘toy’ car it wouldn’t be a Stratos rep.

 

For me, it would be a 7 any day and enough left over for a Saab 900 Coupe.

 

steve

[peanuts]

if anybodys interested in 69 vw bushttps://www.facebook.com/groups/682526165241791/permalink/1601967089964356/?sale_post_id=1601967089964356 

[PatB]

10 hours ago, steve1 said:

Nice enough but if I had a gash £40k to spend on a ‘toy’ car it wouldn’t be a Stratos rep.

 

For me, it would be a 7 any day and enough left over for a Saab 900 Coupe.

 

steve

Well, no, I wouldn't either. If nothing else, I strongly suspect the cockpit of being unfriendly to tall people, and that rear bulkhead doesn't offer much scope for improvement. 

I think, in that price range, I'd have to consider a Morgan trike. 

[Enterprisingwestern]

6 hours ago, PatB said:

I think, in that price range, I'd have to consider a Morgan trike. 

 

Like riding a cast iron bath down a fire escape.

 

Mike.

[Richard E]

10 hours ago, PatB said:

Well, no, I wouldn't either. If nothing else, I strongly suspect the cockpit of being unfriendly to tall people, and that rear bulkhead doesn't offer much scope for improvement. 

I think, in that price range, I'd have to consider a Morgan trike. 

It is, friends car had to be modified in order to accommodate anyone over 5'10" or so. OK for her (she's 5'2") but not for another friend who has driven it who is 6'2". Solution is to drop the seat down onto the floor instead of using the supplied mounts and change the floor to steel sheet from aluminium. Oh and make the squab with a removable cushion for tall drivers!

[PatB]

8 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Like riding a cast iron bath down a fire escape.

 

Mike.

Yeah, but I spent my 20s rendering perfectly serviceable motorcycles both grotesquely uncomfortable and dynamically inferior to the standard product, so I don't really know any better . 

[Northmoor]

47 minutes ago, PatB said:

Yeah, but I spent my 20s rendering perfectly serviceable motorcycles both grotesquely uncomfortable and dynamically inferior to the standard product, so I don't really know any better . 

A Hardtail Chopper builder, obviously......

[PatB]

8 hours ago, Northmoor said:

A Hardtail Chopper builder, obviously......

Amongst other offences against sensible engineering . The sidecar outfit was probably objectively the worst, despite being the most conventionally respectable. And just to prove I'm a slow learner, I'd do it all again, given the opportunity. Just rather better, given my greater resources and the fruits of a couple of decades as a professional engineer. 

[PhilJ W]

11 hours ago, PatB said:

 

Amongst other offences against sensible engineering . The sidecar outfit was probably objectively the worst, despite being the most conventionally respectable. And just to prove I'm a slow learner, I'd do it all again, given the opportunity. Just rather better, given my greater resources and the fruits of a couple of decades as a professional engineer. 

I do recall a few three wheel cars that were no more than a motorbike combination with the rider/driver sat in the sidecar. The handling must have been 'interesting' with only one rear wheel driven.

[Rugd1022]

I know we have some spirited Citroen enthusiasts on here - just found this CX25 on ebay, it looks glorious....

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1985-Citroen-CX-25-GTI-Turbo/114290808220?hash=item1a9c43559c:g:QNMAAOSwh3Ve16ve

[boxbrownie]

14 minutes ago, Rugd1022 said:

I know we have some spirited Citroen enthusiasts on here - just found this CX25 on ebay, it looks glorious....

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1985-Citroen-CX-25-GTI-Turbo/114290808220?hash=item1a9c43559c:g:QNMAAOSwh3Ve16ve

Beautiful, and comes with the ubiquitous spare bottle of LHM.......we’ve had several CX over the years (not for many years now unfortunately) and each one was a delight, and amazingly reliable......I wouldn’t say that of the XMs we had after!

 

Shame it’s black on black as Citroen did some lovely metallics and lighter interiors, nice car.

[Rugd1022]

I don't really know much about them but that one looks like a lot of car for the asking price and heaps of fun. Still looks futuristic to me too, very 'Gerry Anderson'!

 

And it's stopped me looking at Italian stuff for a whole ten minutes....

Edited July 28, 2020 by Rugd1022

[PatB]

3 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

I do recall a few three wheel cars that were no more than a motorbike combination with the rider/driver sat in the sidecar. The handling must have been 'interesting' with only one rear wheel driven.

Indeed. Sidecar outfits and, by extension, all single offset drive trikes, behave in a unique manner under drive, braking and cornering forces. The trick is to recognise these characteristic behaviours and to use them rather than fighting them. Early on in the piece that can be both counterintuitive and terrifying but, once learned, the whole process can become tremendous fun. 

[alastairq]

 

GET DOWN, ya boogah!!

[Phil Traxson]

5 hours ago, PatB said:

Indeed. Sidecar outfits and, by extension, all single offset drive trikes, behave in a unique manner under drive, braking and cornering forces. The trick is to recognise these characteristic behaviours and to use them rather than fighting them. Early on in the piece that can be both counterintuitive and terrifying but, once learned, the whole process can become tremendous fun. 

Like, do not shut the throttle when you overcook it with the chair on the inside of the bend or it will come over you. And make sure the tyre on the chair has as little tread on it as you can legally get away with and is pumped up hard,you don't want it to grip! you corner a lot quicker if it drifts a little.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Phil Traxson

[PatB]

2 hours ago, Phil Traxson said:

Like, do not shut the throttle when you overcook it with the chair on the inside of the bend or it will come over you. And make sure the tyre on the chair has as little tread on it as you can legally get away with and is pumped up hard,you don't want it to grip! you corner a lot quicker if it drifts a little.

When I built mine, the few people I knew who'd tried driving an outfit had mostly ended up inverted in a ditch on the outside of a left-hander. I considered myself ahead of the game when I entered the ditch upright . 

 

As for tyres, I used to buy mine secondhand from Bristol Bike Breakers, scouring the racks for the oldest, most age hardened, squared off dross they had, at a fiver a pop. One of the things with an out fit's handling is that, conventionally set up with a little toe-in on the chair wheel, it is unable to corner without at least one tyre slipping, to a greater or lesser extent, apart from one particular radius of right-hander. Because there is always some slip occuring in cornering, higher speed just means there is a bit more. As a result, there isn't any sudden transition from "grip" to "no grip", just a smooth, progression to whatever angle of drift the driver chooses. Bringing this back to old cars, it's rather akin to the descriptions I've read of the handling of GNs, Frazer Nashes and other diffless wonders. They cannot corner at any speed without some loss of traction, and so are easy and safe to drift because it's just what they do. 

Edited July 28, 2020 by PatB

[Enterprisingwestern]

19 hours ago, Rugd1022 said:

I know we have some spirited Citroen enthusiasts on here - just found this CX25 on ebay, it looks glorious....

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1985-Citroen-CX-25-GTI-Turbo/114290808220?hash=item1a9c43559c:g:QNMAAOSwh3Ve16ve

 

An absolute snip at the price, a floating flying machine that will surprise many modern cars off the line and leave them for dead when it comes to a bend.

Now, how much can I get for a kidney?

 

Mike.

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

An absolute snip at the price, a floating flying machine that will surprise many modern cars off the line and leave them for dead when it comes to a bend.

Now, how much can I get for a kidney?

 

Mike.

Just shows there are genuine classic around that are still within the reach of enthusiasts rather than investors, one Cit we never got around to acquiring was a 2CV Sidewinder.....now there’s fun.

[Enterprisingwestern]

Just now, boxbrownie said:

Just shows there are genuine classic around that are still within the reach of enthusiasts rather than investors, one Cit we never got around to acquiring was a 2CV Sidewinder.....now there’s fun.

 

Around here there are quite a few Meharis, mostly ex Spanish army I presume, my resistance level is quite high,,,,,,,,,,,,, at the moment!

 

Mike.

[boxbrownie]

3 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Around here there are quite a few Meharis, mostly ex Spanish army I presume, my resistance level is quite high,,,,,,,,,,,,, at the moment!

 

Mike.

Not seen any here in the Easty bit.....but hundreds of Audi A2s......the old aluminium ones, the A2 is so narrow it is perfect for our tiny lanes

[PhilJ W]

I looked up the Mehari's for prices. Surprisingly the later ones are the cheapest. The rarest ones, only just over 1200 built were some specials for the Swiss Army fitted with the 4 cylinder GS engine instead of the usual 2 cylinder unit. Swiss army vehicles were at one time mostly right hand drive I wonder if some of these were? 

[Enterprisingwestern]

44 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I looked up the Mehari's for prices. Surprisingly the later ones are the cheapest. The rarest ones, only just over 1200 built were some specials for the Swiss Army fitted with the 4 cylinder GS engine instead of the usual 2 cylinder unit. Swiss army vehicles were at one time mostly right hand drive I wonder if some of these were? 

 

On Milanuncios they go for between 1k and 5k€, not seen the Swiss variety though.

An oven roasting tin with 4 wheels is perfect for the current 40°+ temperatures!

 

Mike.

[boxbrownie]

8 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

On Milanuncios they go for between 1k and 5k€, not seen the Swiss variety though.

An oven roasting tin with 4 wheels is perfect for the current 40°+ temperatures!

 

Mike.

Especially with a 4 cylinder GS lump.......very nice indeed.