Diesels Dominate Le Mans Qualifying! And I begin to quantify how dumb Americans are (and not just about Diesel.)

Who says you can’t go fast, cheap? Have a look at this!

Can’t wait to catch some coverage on speed channel over the weekend. Le Mans has always been the place where the vision of future car development is seen. My 60’s E-type was the direct descendant of the Le Mans winning D-type of the 50’s. So by the teens we’ll all be driving fast, yet economical and eco-friendly veggie oil-burning cars perhaps?

Oh wait, I already am! The future is now! 🙂

Speaking of Diesels and my foolish countrymen who refuse to use them, sell them or buy them… have a look at this. I happen to own a Dodge 1500 RAM pickup… that is not a Diesel. I wish it was, but it isn’t. The wife bought this as a tow vehicle for her (damn) horses, and I will admit it is handy to have around when hauling something is required. It usually lives out in the barn where the veggie oil fuel system runs, and very rarely gets driven. We’ve had it for 7 years and maybe put 15k miles on it. I brought it to work this week because we needed to haul some stuff needed for our datacenter expansion and I attempted to replicate Clarkson’s feat while driving what is basically the standard American vehicle… a truck-chassis based, non-aerodynamic, mid-sized V-8 powered, slush-gearbox, gas guzzler. I drove it to work, then around town on errands, and home. The highest I let it rev was 2000 RPM, and that was on a very steep uphill grade in West Seattle… the normal rev range was 1200-1700 RPM, cruising on the freeway @ 55 or 60 MPH (in the right lane only, like a decent human being should at this speed! {for my British and antipodean readers, that would be the left lane… aka the “slow lane”… a concept that Americans outside of Montana are completely unaware of… grrrr) I maintained a steady 1500 RPM… and used the cruise control whereever I could.

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.

Jesus H. Krist on a pogostick! I have NO IDEA how the average American family can afford to drive these Tahoes and Explorers?!?! This is insanity. I buy about ~5 gallons of Diesel fuel a week from the pump, and burn about ~5 gallons of my own home brew, and rack up over 450 miles doing it. AND I drive around with a lead foot most of the time.

Next week, I’ll track for you how much fuel I burn, and what the costs are to me to do it, while driving as I do “normally”… then I’ll try another week and drive like I did in the truck, with maximum fuel savings in mind, and document the results. Should be interesting.

Here is another metric of how dumb my countrymen can be… most of them will be watching NASCAR make nothing but left turns while I’m watching Le Mans. sigh.

A little rice with your sauerkraut.

I saw this one a few years back on Bainbridge Island. Something of a parody on wheels n’est pas?

* PVC? Check
* Snowboard/wing? Check
* Coffee can exhaust with real coffee can? Check
* Lime Green paint? Check
* Home made “ground effects package”? Check

All that’s missing is the “V-tec” and “bad boy club” stickers and it will be up for a starring role in “Fast & Furious 4”

A Jagick, or a Buiguar?

This one is up on eBay right at the moment so if this sort of thing floats your boat, go bid now!

It is basically a Buick with an E-type FHC body. Thankfully it was just an FHC tub, saved from the crusher, not a complete Jaguar lumped and chopped. The latter is a crime, while the former… well let’s just call it “inspiration.” If what Picasso* said is true, this guy is an artistic genius. He stole the most beautiful car design ever, and plopped it down on … well… a Buick. So on the one hand it is a VASTLY improved Buick, but on the other hand it is a horrifically ugly Jaguar! Depends on your perspective I guess. So let’s change our perspective and have a look from the front:

Oh my.

* “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” –Pablo Picasso

Stanley Cup Comments

I watched game one. Well, actually I watched MOST of game one. It went like this:

Oiler Goal, Oiler Goal, Don Cherry in an insane suit made of drapery remnants saying that Edmonton would win (did I mention I’m so happy to live close enough to Canada to be able to watch the NHL on HNIC), Oiler Goal. Chuck thinking, wow, these guys are dominating. I had a feeling it would be a five or even four game series.

That is when I had to walk away from the TV and do some things… first I had to carry a bag of rabbit food out to the barn. It took me a while. When I walked back in the house the score was tied 3-3… before I could digest that Carolina scored again… then I noticed Edmonton had switched goaltenders. I then had to make dinner, but kept walking over to the TV to stare slack-jawed at what was happening. I iChat a friend in Vancouver who informs me as to why Roloson was off the ice… his own teammate dumped an opposing player on him and he’s tweaked a knee. That is exactly how my hockey “career” ended. sigh. At least Roli’s happened in a Stanley Cup final instead of a Wednesday night beer league game. :\

(Un)fortunately I was unable to watch game two, but Chuq posted a nice analysis, and this still could be a sweep, or maybe a 5-gamer but not in favor of the Oilers. Oh well.

There have been some legendary Cup Finals where injury-plagued underdogs pull off amazing feats. Ironically, my favorite was in 1987, when the Flyers (a team I hated up to that point) managed to wring seven games from what was essentially the Hershey Bears first two lines, up against the legendary Edmonton Oilers. What got them there was a hotheaded but brilliant Goaltender named Ron Hextall. You can’t win Stanley Cups without goaltending and the goaltender that got the Oilers there is now out. It will be a miracle if the Oilers can pull off a win, much less a Stanley Cup.

I hate to see it go that way, but as Don Cherry says on Coaches Corner “Kids, watch this… YOU DON’T DO THIS: Dump a player on your own goaltender!” I don’t know if Grapes pointed out Marc-Andre Bergeron’s grave error, but he should have.

A fake 356?

I was out running an errand today and stumbled across this car. It is a psuedo-porsche built from a VW… which in a way is ironic because Porsches are just Psuedo-Volkswagens right? =)

Anyway, while I pull on the asbestos pajamas in preparation for the flames from Porschephiles, have a look at this:


Sorry for the crappy phone-cam images… I literally snapped it from my car as I drove by and did not have time to pull my camera out of my bag. Like so many repro-cars, it gets enough of the detail wrong to throw the whole thing off. It is obviously based on a VW beetle or ghia (likely the latter.) Note the 70’s style 911 wheels. I always liked those “flower petal” wheels on 911s, but they sure look funny on a “356”!

The weirdest of all is the roofline in the back. How hard would it have been to get it to consistently slope? That sedan-notch-thing going on is just bizarre.

I can see building a Speedster, or a Spyder from a VW, but a 356 Coupe? Oh well. Let me know what you think.

BTW: for reference, here is a real one (a hastily edited photo from my own collection… Dr. Fisher’s Porsche from the Forza Amelia… I beat this car on our track day driving a 450sl. 😉 )