Car Design.

[Nige005]

The Italian Alfa designer does a little work in the morning and then goes for a very leisurely lunch in a very nice open air piazza, watching all the beautiful people go by whilst enjoying good food and fine wine. He then goes and spends most of the afternoon making passionate love to his beautiful mistress. With half an hour left to knocking off time he goes back to work and pens another beautiful Alfa design.

Meanwhile Keith in Solihull finds that the leather patches on his cardigans arms are coming loose and that the Sellotape holding his glasses together is coming off. Struggling to design the latest piece of BL crud he gives up and goes to Lunch. Sitting on his stool looking out through a dirty and cracked window over a grimy and wet Solihull he munches the Fish Paste Sarnies that his dowdy wife slung together for him. He's not a happy man.

Now which car design is the best do you think ???

Mmmm, don't have to think too long do you !!!!

[Johnboy]

True I like fish paste

[Nige005]

Yeuk !!!!

How about a Dairylea and Jam Sarnie instead ?

[Johnboy]

That's just wrong

[Nige005]

Must say it's been a while since I last tried it but as lunchtime is looming.......

Mind you I thought the same about Peanut Butter and Jam before I tried it and then was amazed how nice such an unlikely sounding combination was !

Go on, give 'em a try.

[Johnboy]

Try peanut butter on fries tryed it when I was in Amsterdam , bit Strange but not bad

[lee16v]

That's not the only thing you tried in Amsterdam eh John?

[Johnboy]

I plead the fifth amendment

[lee16v]

[Nige005]

It seems a long time since I was last in Amsterdam. Don't remember too much about it so it must have been pretty good.

If I go again I think I'll give the chips and Peanut Butter a miss....... !

[Johnboy]

[PETROLHEAD]

Odd little thing about car design, was that i'd been saying for a few years that if Alfa made the Sud today ( a few years ago actually!) it wouldn't be a Mito / Giluietta type thing, it would be the Seat Leon, the one with the droopy back lights!



Then i find out virtually all the Leon line up was actually designed by Giugiaro anyway! ha ha!


Its nice to be kinda right sometimes, even the miss's let me have this one! ha ha!

[Nige005]

Wondered why I quite liked the Seats, perhaps I now know why.

Most modern cars don't do a lot for me these days, all seem to be much of a sameness, probably 'cos of all the safety features that now have to be built in.

A true story now about how things can go wrong with car assembly. At the same time as I I bought my new 'sud in Cyprus a friend bought a new Fiat 127 ? Fiat something anyway, It was a Month before he realised it had a Fiat Badge on the back and a Seat badge at the front, or t'other way round ! Obviously Quality Control was working well back in the 1970's !

[PETROLHEAD]

Ha Ha!

that carried on for a while didn't it as i recall, right up to the Seat Merbella etc, all just rebadged (if you were lucky enough to get two!) fiats etc


they are largely all a bit faceless these days, everyone pi55es in the same pot, and as we know our own thoroughbred brand has now been diluted with gm fiat parts bin stuff for years.



it used to happen for the better, like the saab using the 164 platform, it was a great car, but the next model, a vectra!

i also recall how a mate of mine took enormous delight in boasting the good fortunes and graces of his FSO's and Lada's, just to wind folk up, but mainly to try and get a pub to pub race on the go.

those who knew of him also knew he had a large twin cam in there and was 9/10ths a lada mirafiori!




now that works for me!

[Johnboy]

God that takes me back. Years ago there was a lada estate with a 2litre fiat twin can in it! Went like a rocket ! There party trick on leaving pub, lighting the tires up

[Nige005]

The Polonez !!!!

Once was driven around Coningsby airfield in a fairly new one of these, I'm being generous in saying that it was truly dreadful.

Funny you should mention Saabs. Managed to insult a friend very recently ( I find that very easy.... ) when he told me that his son in law had just bought a Saab. I told him that he had just bought a Vauxhall in a posh frock......


Went down well !


As for Ladas...... Had one as a loan car once. All was relatively OK until a bit of gentle braking caused it to leap a yard to the right, very disconcerting on a car less than a year old. Mind you the Tool Kit and Jack were very good, wonder why ! ? and I seem to recall that they, er, ended up in my long term care.

[PETROLHEAD]

Like a turd in the deep end!


i feel real sorry for saab, i know they tried their hardest to make a cheap platform a quality car and a more typical swedish architect choice!

ive got a soft spot for the earlier stuff like the 900 turbo, and i like what they did with the later gm forced stuff, they were certainly 100% better than a vectra, but whether they drove like a vectra, ive no idea?


i suppose if you bought a 1.9 Tid version, at least it has a JTd engine in there! ha ha!

[Nige005]

I also confess that I had a soft spot for the Saabs, different enough to be interesting. I also liked the idea of a four seater convertible, much easier to throw the kids out of when they were getting fractious in the back seat.......

[KevJTD]

i actually thought about the 9-3 or 9-5 recently, the JTD engine was a strong point. they are nice inside too, but the vauxhall in a frock thing put me off. tom is of the same opinion i gather

a 900 turbo, that'd be a nice thing though.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Saab-900-turb ... 19e9097cb9

[PETROLHEAD]

Hmmm interesting!


They are by all accounts, a bloody good car.
2-300hp readily achieved, reliable, and different.



I wonder what wheels I could screw in there........

[Johnboy]

We really need to talk about your wheel fetish

[Nige005]

We really need to talk about your wheel fetish

Thanks but I'd sooner not......

[PETROLHEAD]

sorry, poor choice of words didn't help there,

i love them, but don't literally screw them, as in the American Pie sense!

i should have wrote "bolted on" instead, and save you from the imagination of me mounting a tasty wheel


DOH!


there i go again!

[Johnboy]

Can the owner be suspended from his own forum?

[PETROLHEAD]

NO!