Category: Cars

I am a “car guy”… I love old cars.

WTF is THAT? (name that car!)

Thanks to Bruce Cox in Burnaby who sent me a set of photos of something even MORE obscure than the BMW 503 (I thought I’d stump you guys with that one :\ )

Unlike the elegant 503, this thing is about as ugly as you can get without going to Soviet Russia. Let’s see if you can guess this one.

If you can’t, I’ll reveal more pictures of it as hints.

Jerome got the answer, so here are the pictures:





Makes me wanna barf.

Time for another round of: Name That Car!

I actually will have to go dig in my notes to know the answer myself!

This was shot in Poulsbo, WA on a local vintage car rally a few years ago. Christopher & I won our class that day. This was the prettiest coupe in the crowd though.

I think I know what it is, but I’m wondering how many of you can spot it.

Roger, your task is to name the fraction of a car visible behind the rally staff. 😉

Update: I found my notes. NOBODY is going to guess this one right. This is such a rare bird that I’ll be shocked if anyone does get it. Guess away. I may just leave it up here forever and see if I get any correct guesses.

Finally, a carmaker with BALLS

I’m a casual reader of a few auto “trade blogs”… one of which is “The Truth About Cars“. In a post yesterday they related how Audi is considering a TDI engine for the TT, and not just any TT mind you, the TT ROADSTER. Whoo hoo! FINALLY. I have been saying for years that some car maker needs to grow some cajones and drop a TDI into a sports car… and not just any sports car either, but an open topped one.

When I say that, people think I’m nuts. They think Diesel must equal slow, noisy, and smelly. They obviously haven’t driven a TDI powered car. They obviously weren’t watching the Audi R10 kick ass last month at Le Mans. They obviously don’t have a clue.

I love this quote concerning the oil-burning R10:

The R10’s performance at Le Mans was so convincing that race organizers are now deciding how to level the field, so that gasoline powered cars can compete.

Ha! I love it. Now give me my ultimate sports/commuter.

A 4-cylinder, TDI driven two seater, with a ragtop. I can burn my leftover french fry grease based fuel, and smell like a rolling burger joint while I soak up rays and get 60 MPG. Life would be good. I LOVE my VW Jetta TDI, but gawditisboring… the most dull-yet-functional design… it sits there, looking very germanic, and very … um… practical. Yawn. As Paul Wigton Sr once famously said: “Life is too short to drive a boring car.”

I only have two issues with the Audi and the TT. One is price… Audi’s are basically expensive VWs. They carry a huge (100-200%) price premiums over an equivalent Volkswagen. For example, the Audi A4 is basically Auto Union’s take on the Jetta. The TT is, (hold your breath) built on the New Beetle chassis. For some odd reason I bet Audi charges a premium price for the TTTDI. We’ll see.

My second issue is weight. The TT is a very small car, but the damn thing weighs a LOT. The lightest is 3131lbs, the heaviest is almost 3500lbs! Yep, a full ton and a half of “road hugging mass” Mein Gott! Put that thing on a diet! Look at the Lotus Elise, now THAT car is begging for a TDI engine transplant… 1600lbs + TDI engine = a REAL open topped sports car with fuel economy that would make a Prius look like a Hummer. The TT tugging around over twice the weight would likely perform about as well as the Jetta… maybe worse. 45-50MPG tops would be my guess.

But, if they build it, I will come (and lay my money down)… I have to put my money where my mouth is. So unless Lotus can deliver an oil-burning Elise first, look for me in a TT.

–chuck

(Photo linked from the Audi USA website)

Oh my… Aston on Blocks

I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or shout.

I received these photos from reader (and frequent commenter) Jerome Lumley in New Zealand this evening. Apparently this happened in Auckland. he included this quote:

Somewhere in Auckland there’s a 1976 Cortina Station Wagon with a vinyl roof, louvres and a Supercheap Autos 5 speed gear knob driving around with 21″ wheels worth around $40k!

You do have to give it to the theives how they left the car in such a minimal state, balanced on merely two cinder blocks. But it does beg the question… where’s your garage and why wasn’t the car parked in it Mr. Aston-Moron?

lust

The fact that it is painted OSB just makes this one that much more desirable, no?
These cars are almost always presented in BRG or EEB.

It is a dead easy guess, so Roger, you are disqualified from the get-go. 😉

Very little car geek cred is on the line here (it is just too easy), but bonus points if you can expand my TLAs above.

enjoy…

–chuck

Finally… result of my mileage test.

Several weeks ago I drove our rarely used pickup truck to work. It is a Dodge RAM 1500, so it makes a reasonable substitute for your average SUV; lumbering brick-shaped, V8 powered, gas-guzzling Detroit stupidity. Fine for hauling lumber, hay, and horses (what we use it for really) but about the worst vehicle imaginable for commuting. Oddly enough I see plenty of them, and like machinery on my daily commute. I drove to work, around the area a bit, and back home, and ended up spending a LOT of money in gasoline to do it. Mind you, my commute is long… probably over 2x what the average american commuter drives. The pickup managed a truly terrible 11 MPG and that was with me driving it very conservatively… staying under 2000 RPM, using the cruise control, mostly obeying the speed limit, smooth starts, etc. You can read about it here, but here’s the executive summary: “I did not run the tank dry, but just down to half. When I refilled the half-empty tank last night, it cost me $54.10(!) and I had only run it 165 miles. Just over 11 MPG.

I’m sorry but that is truly dismal.

As many of you know, I drive a Diesel powered car. It is a 2002 VW Jetta TDI. I love it. Sits four comfortably, has a huge trunk (you could hide dead bodies in there… several of them!), it is in no way slow… turning a respectable 0-60 in 11 seconds and can comfortably cruise at Autobahn speeds – it can make, and hold “a ton” for hours on end. Best of all, it will get in excess of 45 MPG while running that 100 MPH. I decided to test my patience and driving ability and see what sort of mileage I could wring out of it by REALLY watching my habits. Again, keeping the revs low, using the cruise where possible, measured starts, mostly staying within the speed limits, etc. So for the latter half of last week, and into today, I drove like a sedated Volvo owner. It was in no way an ideal test… I ran into traffic jams, had the A/C on at times, dealt with Seattle’s inevitable stop-and-go, I lost my discipline a few times and went 80 MPH, etc. My wife and kid also drove the car a little bit, so I have no idea what happened during those miles.

I was also running on a 50% mix of my home-brew fuel… which means I’m running on the cheap. Keep in mind I paid less than $12 to run the following distance:

458.2 miles

7.8 gallons (just over half a tank in the Jetta)

That means I pulled off 58.74 MPG!

OK, so somebody tell me why the hell Americans choose to drive big honkin glorified station wagons tarted up to look like trucks that get less than 20 MPG when they COULD be driving vehicles that can more than DOUBLE that figure?

I have some photos of my odometer and gas gauge on my cell phone, as soon as I can grab them from the phone and upload them, I’ll post them here.