Lookalike Cars....

Early Scorpio and NSU Ro80 - especially from the rear three-quarter.

Geoff MacK

No they're not. They look similar as they were penned by the same person, at a time when all their cars looked the same......

The 164 shares a floorpan and other bits with the Fiat Croma, Lancia Thema and Saab 9000. None of them share parts with the 605.

HTH.

Jon Tilson ( snipped-for-privacy@nsblueyonder.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Panther Rio?

Or a filing cabinet.

Geoff Mackenzie ( snipped-for-privacy@acsysindia.freeserve.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

That's one you can add the CX to.

The CX and SD1 came from the same Pininfarina design study on the LandCrab

The resemblance between the CX and Gamma berline is very slight, visually, but quite strong under the skin - Cit and Fiat Group were looking to tie up at the time, and there's rumours that the two were developed in parallel, with some shared pressings.

Ah, for a version of the unutterably gorgeous Gamma coupe with hydropneumatics....

What a pity BriLeyMoCo never took on that LandCrab study. Looked superb.

Incidentally, I think the CX was one of the most beautiful cars ever, especially in its earliest uncluttered form. Would still look good if introduced today. Just one of the reasons I was so disappointed with the XM - just looked ordinary, could have been anything.

Just a slight aside (bending the topic a bit) there have been just a few cars that to me looked absolutely right. They include the Speed Six Bentley, low-chassis Invicta, Morgan MX4, MG TA, Silver Ghost with Roi des Belges coachwork, original fixed head E-Type (with the very slight reservation that the chrome headlamp cover surrounds are a bit too thick - the DB5 did that bit better but the rest is perfect) and 275 GTB/4. Oh, and on bikes, Moto Guzzi Monza (anyone selling one?). And if you put wings on it, Hawker Hunter and Concorde.

As ever, just my opinion....

Geoff MacK

Ford GT40 - gearchange sprouts out of the sill!

Yup, forgot about that. I knew this NG would come up with the answer!

Thanks,

Geoff MacK

From late 1956 the Morris Isis also used a right hand gearchange-maybe the same as on the Riley as both were B.M.C.products

Can't help feeling the Ford GT40 is cheating a bit though, its really a sports/racer and just about all racing and sports/racing cars of that era had right hand change.

Anyway, right hand change isn't the genuine article unless it's outside the car.

Ron Robinson

I'd be surprised if there were any common major parts - the Pathfinder was still pure Riley, while the Isis shared most mechanical bits with Austin - except the torsion bar front suspension.

Peter Walker's fabulous mid-engined Kamala Cosworth for DAX had a right-hand gearchange when introduced in the latter part of the '90s. A proper car which was raved about on Top Gear and of which 30 or 40 were sold by DAX over the next few years. Still in production, I believe, with Kamala Cars in Norfolk. I understand they've re-engineered it for new Ford mechanicals and they had one on display at the Autosport Show last month.

Funnily enough, the display car had a central gearchange, but they assured me that was done at the request of the individual customer for whom the car had been built and that a right-hand change was still the norm. Must confess to being a little nervous about the right-hand change before I first drove Kamala 001, but forgot about it after the first few minutes. An absolutely sensible and natural place to put the gear lever and it's the left-hand change which seems odd when you switch back.

David Betts ( snipped-for-privacy@motorsport.org.uk) The Classic Car Gallery:

Ok this is one of my favourites, that most stylish of off roaders, the Austin Maestro and BMW's blandest of family cars from the eighties:

There were some road-going versions, though. I remember seeing one go past me in Kingston in about 1969/70. In a sense it was a real road racer, i.e. you could drive it to the circuit, race, then drive it home (assuming nothing went wrong in the middle bit).

Ah, now you're talking! Although the RR20 I campaigned for a while had the lever inside. However, it was a large Hooper limousine so there was plenty of room. My first experience of an outside RH change was an Aero Morgan, although I'm not sure it really qualified - it was basically a sort of hook which picked up the chain and dropped it on to a different cog (only two of them, I think), bicycle style. Well, it was certainly a gear change if not a gearbox.

Geoff MacK

The one I was thinking of wasn't connected to a gearbox as such either. It was on a chain drive Frazer Nash that I had many years ago and the set up was that the propshaft came straight out of the clutch and went to a bevel box and countershaft ahead of the solid rear axle which had 4 sprockets of varying sizes keyed to it (one for each gear - don't ask about reverse, that gets complicated). The sprockets (which incorporated half of a dog clutch) on the other end of the chains ran free on the countershaft until the gearchange mechanism locked one to it by sliding over the other half of the dog clutch, which was keyed to the countershaft. There was a strange device known to some as 'the wriggling monkey' that was supposed to stop two gears being engaged at the same time.

The front mudguards on my 'Nash when I got it were not very effective and on country roads I soon learnt to watch for what the front wheels were passing through before changing gear. Another memory is having to bang the snow off the lever before using it.

Ron Robinson

In article , R.N. Robinson There was a strange device

Given you said 'supposed to' I guess it didn't always succeed - must have been fun ;-)

(cue memories of an Alfasud that managed to engage 2 gears at the same time when a grub screw came loose - ouch!)

I never managed it, but I knew some that did, probably because the nut that held it together had become loose. I am told it was either very interesting, or it tended to use up all your spare chain links all in one go. If you were unlucky, both.

The other 'Nash trick was the exploding clutch., where the clutch toggles became detached and escape through perforations they make in the scuttle. I've seen that done and it was quite spectacular.

Ron Robinson

Picked up the chain ?... No Way....! The Aero Morgan had a system almost identical to the system described by R N Robinson for the Frazer Nash. Except there were only two chains, one on each side of the single rear wheel. And when the trunion bearings on the rear forks got sloppy, ( which before MOT tests were invented, was most of the time ) You could steer the car with the gear lever, low gear pulled it to one side, high gear pulled it t'other.

Cheers Oily John

A friend of mine managed to engage 2 gears at once in a Landcrab, half way round a roundabout. When we got it back and stripped it, we found that a circlip had come off in the gearbox.

You should have seen how quickly the traffic jam built up :-)

Jim

From memory, some Landcrabs also had a problem with the crankshaft thrust-washers which could fall out of the centre main-bearing and plummet into the meshing gearbox-teeth conveniently placed below.

At least the 1800 "B"-series engine didn't seem as prone to shed thrust-washers as the Triumph 2000/2500 was. Nothing good has ever been written about having a quarter of an inch of crankshaft end-float.