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.

I’m with Stupid, part 28.

So once all the family and household obligations were met this weekend, the family went off to see some moving pictures involving a pirate or something… and I spent some quality time in the barn with the car up on the lift. The point of the exercise being addressing some ongoing alternator problems. The exact issue isn’t relevant so much as the foolishness of doing some things by myself while working on on object that weighs thousands of pounds.

I disconnected the Jag’s bonnet in order to get some more space to work in the area up by the front of the engine. The bonnet seems to be a lightweight object when you manipulate its sprung bulk on the hinges. It is anything BUT however once unbolted from its brackets! I had strung it up to the barn’s hay lifting block & tackle, but did not have it under enough tension. When the last of the two bolts was removed it went for a little trip along the arc of its hinge. Thank goodness I DID have it attached to something as it could have resulted in a very expensive damage otherwise! Through some miracle of reflexes I managed to make some truly remarkable and swift maneuvers and catch it before it broke loose. (I’m still stiff and sore however!) I finally secured it, and carried on with the repair.

I will say that I’ll have to do this yawning bonnet trick again, as it does make for a nice, convenient work area. The damn thing just weighs a ton, so care needs to be taken when unbolting. For all the grief we give, I will say those British Engineers managed a neat trick with the E-type’s bonnet. The hinge and bracket are very easy to work with, and remarkably minimal, but do an awesome job of managing the massive bulk of the bonnet itself. Very well balanced and easy to operate given the size and weight. I’m impressed.

I did learn that my replacement/spare alternator turned out to be too large, so I’m going to return it to NAPA for a properly-sized Hitachi.

Good thing I found out before some road-side swap was required!