Following on from teabelly's thread about best motoring moments, what's everyones favourite motoring moment(s)?
Mine?
a) Realising that the car hire firm had screwed up the booking for a Laguna and I'd be driving a 3.0V6 Avantime around the amazing roads of Corsica for a week, and driving that week
b) Cruising around Newcastle in a brand new Merc E-class when my own car was a Maestro, listening to Nat King Cole "There may be trouble ahead"
Probably many more but that'll do to start with.
Lee.
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Driving up and over the enourmous sand dunes in a Toyota Landcruiser 4x4 near the border between Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia - never been so scared in a car!
Driving (far too fast!) though what appeared to be an ideal (partially flooded) rally course in a remote part of Northern Tunisia - great fun :-)
Sorry - not too much motoring fun to report in good old UK :-(
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volvoman wrote:
Sorry - not too much motoring fun to report in good old UK :-(
Agreed.
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Being handed the keys to a Cossie escort for the weekend..... then handing them back half an hour later, ashen faced, with the words "I think you'd better let someone else have it. I want to live for a few more years yet".
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Watching Medallion Man swagger up to his brand new Z3 [they'd only been out a few weeks], jewelery a-clanking, tanned arms swinging under his vest, get in, turn the CD up loud, rev the car, reverse out, and straight into a bollard.
The laughter from the assembled mob at the seaside pub almost drowned out the sound of the exhauset as he flung it into 1st, and squealed out of the carpark, without even getting out to inspect the damage ...
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Would love to have seen medallion man after he pulled over as soon as he was out of sight of the laughing crowd. Bet he didn't look so macho wiping the tears from his eyes.
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a) Fitting a new thermostat to my vitesse with just the aid of a haynes and a socket set having never done any real car maintenance before :-)
b) Hearing the whoosh of the turbo on my integrale for the first time and having to hang onto the steering wheel for dear life. Luckily I have got used to it now, but I occasionally have to say 'wwweeeeee' and 'wooooooo' when accelerating and going round corners.....
c) Warm sunny days driving about with the roof down on the vitesse.
teabelly
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a) Sinking back into my driving seat after a day at Uni. :)
b) Smiling inanely at the bloke in the Renault Scenic (who had earlier cut me up badly in order to gain one car length) as he had to give way to me at the roundabout after his "shortcut" was held up by other drivers. I could see he was gutted, I may also have mouthed something at him but I think the big grin wound him up the most. :)
Blue
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Blasting past a string of cars on an uphill section of the Heads of the Valleys road (A465) in an borrowed Saab 900 Turbo in 1986. Only found out later that the 50-80mph time was same as a Ferrari.
In convoy with my 15 year old Sprint and 3 other Alfas from Le Mans to Dieppe in three and a half hours last year.
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Getting completely lost in the Lake District in my (old) Impreza Turbo., This was in 1994 when no-one knew what they were - neither did I for that matter.
Only had the car a few weeks and had a trip to the Lakes. We parked up in Kendal town centre and an assorted group of people all wearing anoraks starting pointing at us. Seemed strange thought I. Anyway, just done some shopping and decided to go for a nice round-the-lakes Saturday drive with my lovely wife.....
More people in anoraks and bobblehats pointing - what IS going on ?
Then we started going up a mountain pass and noticed lots and lots of cars parked on the verge. Oh, look, there's another Impreza, and another ! and another !. Readers may know where this is heading but believe me, we were naive about rallying !
The road was getting so busy I thought, quick, let's nip up this side track to get out of the way. The track went up, round a bend and there was a guy with a flag, whistle and stop-watch waving us up to him.
My wife, a bit smarter than we, said, I think we are in the wrong place ......
A quick 3-point turn followed and then we were confronted with 4 fire-breathing, crackling Rally cars haring up to the start-line we were on !
They gave us a casual wave thinking that, I suppose, an Impreza in that position must be something to do with the Rally.
We sat there ashen faced, shopping on the back seat, seconds away from being sent hurlting down a forest rally track - still with our coats on ........
Needless to say we hot-footed out of there and then I realised I had purchased something of a cult car and a soon-to-be icon.
A wonderful moment that we still laugh about now.
JD
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You should have joined in! Mrs JD could have improvised her pace notes..
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Joe,
I'd like to say I was all ready for going down that track but my wife bottled out ........ but I can't.
Mrs.JD only had receipts in her hand.
Pace notes would have made interesting reading :
Coffee 1.50
Bread 0.50
Book 2.50
........ !
JD
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What a great story, JD.
I'm still chuckling.
Dave
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arriving at john o groats 16 1/2 hours after leaving lands end in my £100(racing brown) austin wedge princcess!that includes the hour brekky stop at inverness!anyway i won the £5 bet.......
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My best moment:-)
Must be the time I was being tailgated and flashed by a BMW as I was aproaching an over/underpass to the motorway, he got past me at the roundabout which split the traffic into north or south direction.
To my delight he was going north because I knew a shortcut north by driving across the flyover instead of taking the long circular underpass.
Result, I managed to get ahead of him in the outside lane again with him stuck behind me.
I will never forget the look on his face and could nearly read lis lips saying to his partner "how the .... did he get in front of me"
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Choice of 2:
1. A long drive across the middle of Wales, one summer evening in my Alfasud Ti. Deserted roads (it was 15 years ago), perfect weather conditions, and I had just serviced the car, spent ages setting up the Weber carb, and it was running perfectly.
2. Driving a Herald convertible from Camberley to north Lincolnshire at night, the same summer. Hood down, heater keeping my feet warm, stars above me and (again) almost no other traffic.
Happiness, in motoring terms, is an absence of other vehicles. It's getting harder to find.
Richard Hall
bangernomics.tripod.com
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Driving between Melbourne and Sydney in a 3.6 litre Supercharged Holden Commodore (Australian for Omega). The direct drive is about 700 miles and can be done in a day. We took 2500 and a week and enjoyed every minute of it.
No idea why the hire car company (forget who, but one of the biggies) had these machines on the fleet, but the guy at the office in Sydney gave me a knowing look and said, "they're pretty nippy these ones aren't they?" I had chickened out of going any faster on a deserted straight road once the accelleration didn't seem to slow significantly up to about 120 mph (more than double the speed limit, smacked wrists etc)
Good thread idea!
Andy
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First Message - Hello All.
(and this story doesn't necessarily reflect well on me, but I do still chuckle a little)
A few years ago I was fortunate to own a F335 for a few months (always wanted to own one, saved up a lot and borrowed a lot). My g/friend and I decided to drive up to the Lakes from London for the weekend on a Friday night. As you do, we got stuck on the M6 in Birmingham and all three lanes were very stop start. In the month I had owned the car we had got used to people staring at the car and I used to like looking at people's reactions, which usually included a smile. The guy next to me, in the middle lane, was in a Sierra and he was staring at the front of the car, his wife (I assume) was sat next to him looking at the car in front. Our lane started to move forward but theirs stayed still, but as we moved forward the guy just started moving forward with us, not realising his hadn't moved. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his wife shout and bang her hands on the dashboard as they inevitably ran into the back of the unsuspecting car in front. I can imagine the conversation between the man and his wife. And there were reports of futher disruption on the M6 as we drove on up towards Cheshire and beyond.
If you were that man, I apologise.
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Andy,
The supercharged holden commodore is rather larger than an Omega and is a 3.8 litre V6 (there is also a V8).....Sold under the HSV (holden special vehicles) brand....Yes they go quite quickly, very easy to spin the back end around when pulling out spmartly from a junction on a wet road. I used to drive one of these from work, Coonabarabran NSW to Sydney, 500km in 4.5 hours in time for a meeting at 10am and I only passed 5 cars before joining the Sydney highway. Talk about open road driving!
Ian L.
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Ah, I had guessed, evidently wrongly that the Commodore was the same basic shell as the Omega as they are both GM vehicles and they look very similar. I stand corrected.
I suppose you'l tell me the direct mileage between Melbourne and Sydney is completely wrong as well!! ;-)
Don't remember any wet roads when we were there, just a little snow in the mountains. Probably for the best, as fancy poofters electronic junk like ABS and traction control doesn't seem to have reached Oz yet!
Cheers
Andy
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Hi Andy,
Ah, I had guessed, evidently wrongly that the Commodore was the same basic shell as the Omega as they are both GM vehicles and they look very similar. I stand corrected. I suppose you'l tell me the direct mileage between Melbourne and Sydney is completely wrong as well!! ;-)
Sorry, I never did that drive....Coonabarabran (my home) is 1000km from Melbourne and 1000km from Brisbane on a direct road (the Newell Highway) Sydney was 500km perpendicular to the line of the Newell.
Don't remember any wet roads when we were there, just a little snow in the mountains. Probably for the best, as fancy poofters electronic junk like ABS and traction control doesn't seem to have reached Oz yet!
Quite agree, ABS was just beginning to come in (in 2000) on the big Oz V6s (Falcon, Commodore, Magna, Camry) traction control only on the fwd vectra afaik. Mind you I have been grateful for the ABS on many many occasions (living in roo country and doing a lot of night driving).
Snow brings most aussie drivers to a standstill (moreso than here!) and in the Snowy mountains in season it is a requirement to carry snow chains.
Cheers
Ian
Cheers Andy
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Ian:
Having apologised for my error on the Commodore Vs Omega size, I thought I'd try to find out how much difference there was. Results below (all in mm from manufacturers websites)
Omega Commodore
Length 4898 4891
Width 1786/2083[1] 1842[2]
Height 1456 1450
[1] With/without mirrors
[2] Don't know whether with or without
Not trying to drag this thread into a tedious argument about car dimensions, honestly!
Andy
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Hi Andy,
My recollections are probably the 1999 or 2000 version of the Commodore when this was still an exclusively Oz designed car before this platform was adopted for other cars, also I only ever drove the wagon (estate) version. I agree with the figures you state
but would comment that there is also an extra 50+mm on the length of the commodore estate compared to the omega estate, also the wheelbase of the commodore is 2938mm compared to 2730mm for the omega...clearly not the same vehicle platform.
The track of the commodore is also slightly bigger 1569/1587 compared to 1514/1525mm
But....
Luggage capacity: commodore 475/2682 compared to 540/1800
I think this and the wheelbase tells the story that the APPARENT extra size of the commodore is in the passenger compartment....the commodore will seat 5 adults with room to spare. with the seats down the estate load area is huge!
cheers
Ian
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2 come to mind:
On my first trip to the USA driving into San Francisco from the airport in a brand new hire car with Jefferson Starship's 'We built this city' on the radio and coming round a bend in the Freeway and seeing the whole of San Francisco bay in front of me. Wonderful
The first and only time I have driven a car at its maximum speed was in Turkey when my son decided he wanted to be born 6 weeks early. Our hospital was in Istanbul but we lived about 130Km away so when the doctor told us to get there as soon as we could we went kind of fast - 195Km/h at times. Fortunately it was 1am so the motorways were deserted. Anyway, we arrived at the toll booth at the end of the motorway in a frightful hurry and tried to make a quick getaway. Out wanders PC Plod and puts up his hand, eagerly anticipating a bit of extra cash from this foreigner (my car had a number plate which identified me as a foreign resident). I told him in my best Turkish (ie very poor) that my wife was having a baby and we had to get to the hospital. One look in the back and he was waving us on frantically. I'd always wanted to do that and even in the stressful circumstances it felt great. Son was fine by the way.
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I'd had the P6 for all of three weeks and I'd been um-ming and ah-ing about replacing the Radiomobile radio (MW and LW only) out of the car for something less 1970s. Anyway, I'd taken to listening to Capital Gold as it was either that or Radio 4 or a lot of stuff in French !!??
It was a glorious June day and fancied a drive so I took the P6 into London for the sheer hell of it, if I knew then what I know about the dreaded vapour lock I'd never have done it.
So I had the webasto fully back and getting a few smiles from the more mature members of the public as I was driving down Marylebone but it jams quite badly so I turned left into Baker Street and less stressful traffic of that, Grosvenor Square and Park Lane.
Sure enough just as I was 50 yards into Baker Street, I heard that familiar saxophone start up on the radio courtesy of Gerry Raffety and Capital Gold, yep, Baker Street.
Perfect, and if ever there was a perfect soundtrack to the five minutes spent on the moderate pace of Baker Street that had to be it.
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Old scirrocco, old girlfriend, heading to the south of France.
Its near the end of the day, and after a long climb we come through a pass into the Auvergne. It could have been a scene from 1 million years B.C. Dozens of extinct volcanoes backlit with the dying rays of the sun. We almost came off the road gawping.
We were staying in her friends house for a month, and having visitors, all with fantastic weather. When it was time to leave we had to wash and dry all the sheets and towels etc. Of course it started to pour with with rain so we couldn't dry anything and we ended up with a boot full of wet washing and a mad drive through the night to reach the ferry, a journey that took two days on the way there!
Last on the boat and the drawbridge pulled up behind us.
Halcyon days
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