OT? : New car suggestions

Pah :)

I'm prolly gonna sell mine later this year. I'm bored of it now :/

Why not buy this? Much more interesting than a TI and instead of girly turbos its just got an enormous V8 at the front. ~300bhp and >500nm

Douglas

I heart the Interceptor shape. There's one near-ish me that's been parked 6 feet from the A4304 for at least the last three years without moving. To say it's covered in road grime and s*it is an understatement to rival, say, Jordan[1] isn't talented.

Everytime I drive past, can't help mentally shouting "Sort it out! At least put a cover over it FFS...."

That mirrors my only observation of a Rover vs another car crash. It was a Rover 400 in a head on collision with an Astra. The Rover driver was killed instantly, the front of the car collapsed slicing the driver almost in half. The Astra driver suffered a broken ankle.

In news:c07uu8$13ebip$ snipped-for-privacy@ID-176913.news.uni-berlin.de, Douglas Payne decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

You just cheered me right up, someone with a car more thirsty than mine :-D

Glad to have been of service. (c:

However, I should point out that its not mine (TFFT). A mate of mine is selling it. Its even thirstier than his last automotive purchase, despite the previous one being much heavier, having a similarly large displacement engine and a turbocharger Its for sale too if anyone's interested.

Douglas

Yep - all old cars are spectacularly unsafe in comparison with their modern counterparts. It's only the last few years that schemes like NCAP have been taken seriously.

One more reason to discount old cars then ;)

snip

;-)

My weekend project - 1975 Toyota 1000 with Corolla 1.6 Twincam engine fitted - was originally supplied with the fuel tank in the boot, just behind the rear seat. From inside the car, if you pull the top of the rear seat forwards a little you can touch the tank! (it's a saloon without fold-down seats) The theory was that it was far enough away from any potential damage in an accident. Not sure I'd want to test that theory out.

Aaron.

What about some of the old Saabs with built in roll cages? They were incredibly strong.

...so you totally die in any impact !

Crumple-zones are what save your life - if the car is totally rigid, you're screwed :)

I think you'd find it pretty hard to build a rollcage that didnt deform to some extent in a crash.

F1 cars are mega strong, but rediculously safe compared to road cars because head on, they deform at a rate where the human body can still survive, its something like 30g over a fraction of a second (I'm not exactly sure). Pretty impressive when they can easily be travelling at over 150mph. I'll bet good money it beats the s*it out of a 600Ti (c:, or indeed pretty much anything on the public road.

Daresay you'd need a proper harness and some sort of neck protection like the F1 dudes use to have much chance of surviving that kind of impact though.

Douglas

The next part of your post sums up nicely :

Spot on. WRC cars are very rigid (compared to a road car at least), but the drivers are stuck in with a four point harness, and wearing a helment and stuff. If you tried the same with a normal car seatbelt, you'd, er, die.

:)

What I think I was saying was, I'd rather have a fairly solid car than a soft one if I was going to have a high speed impact. Well, a nice long soft car at least. My Carlton probably fits the bill here, although I hope I never find out.

Douglas

Anyone remember the documentary about the Americans experimenting with rocket sleds in the 50s / 60s? A bloke worked out you can survive absolutely massive G forces as long as you're strapped in tightly and they don't go on for very long. With a 3 point seatbelt you've got plenty of room to flap about and die, and the car isn't rigid enough to slow you down that quickly.

That's not really relevent though, cos you have to be strapped in 100% tightly :)

How would you turn the steering wheel, or press the pedals ?

Trained hamsters and a whistle.