Paging Meatball Turbo

The only thing with doing things that way is when you find out that you found and sold the best example you're likely to find of the car you choose to keep, wihch would be a bugger.

Peter

There's no such thing as a free shag.

HTH.

No, but cheaper than buying a car, unless you go for really S**TE cars.....oh right ;)

Says the man with a SO Pug 405.... with a crappy little 1.6 engine ;-)

Indeed - when even I can mock your motors, you know you have problems ;)

In news:pIIBc.202$cT4.83@newsfe1-win, AstraVanMan decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

Indeed. There is an easier way of dealing with all this hassle and aggravation though.

Simple.

Don't buy a Honda Prelude.

They're not /that/ good to drive. Nice steering, decent engines, but otherwise they're not all that. Totally uninteresting, irritating when not right up in the vtec zone because they're pretty gutless when "off cam", highly average interiors and shoddy ride quality. Get a road test in one, first 5 minutes they feel ok, after that they're just like driving a Micra or something. NO fun at all.

The 75, on the other hand is a bit more involving. Better steering than the Prelude, but a much worse gearchange. Driving position isn't ideal and the interior build quality isn't superb either. But it is interesting. The handbrake will infuriate you on a regular basis, flicking ash into your cd player will piss you off, and you'll always have one eye on the temp / pressure gauges. They're nice and quiet and comfy on the motorway, relaxed cruisers, but they have a big alter ego when you go onto more interesting roads. Then they become huge fun. Snorty engines in seriously good handling cars,understeer, neutral or oversteer are yours in pretty much any corner, all you do is choose with the right pedal.

Personally though, I'd still go for 164 over a 75, but the 3.0 75 I drive quite often always makes me smile. Hondas make me snore.

In news: snipped-for-privacy@uni-berlin.de, Dan405 decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

Ooof, that's seriously harsh man. 2.0 75 vs 405 1.6... I think Steve has the advantage here.

(but the narrow body 155 hands the ball straight back to Dan)

;-)

But your car's so unfashionable even rust doesn't want to associate with it!

Peter

souls

Obviously thats the one i was referring to ;)

I'm still not convinced this is necessarily a bad thing you know :)

That sounds like a challenge....... Pug 405 1.6 vs Alfa 155 / 75 2.0 TS...... bwahahahahah

I dunno, I've had 6 Mk3 Escorts (well, one was a Mk4, but that was just for bits), a Mk2 Astra van and 7 Carlton Estates, and now I've got the Audi I kinda miss me ole' mate Mr Ferrous Oxide. Still, the Inca's got some very slight bubbling on the edge of the sills (2001 model), f*ck knows why, but it brings me back to the good old days :-)

Peter

I disagree: sometimes -and they are more common than you might think- you find a car that has hardly been driven and they go for silly money as it is 15 years of age.

If I happen to bump into a stored, rustfree, black 75 TS with 40000 km on the clock , it's mine.

Secondly after the first car one knows the weaknesses of a certain model, so even buying a bugger can be done only to obtain a certain piece. I bought at auction a hiddeous BX 16V but I was interested only in engine, gearbox and drive axles. I came out half of the price of a Peugeot MI16-engine, sold the gearbox and had basicly a free engine for the racecar (and it proved a good one too)

Third: 1990-cars still are "simple" , low weight (my 75 put 1180 kg on the balance) and even the Italian solved rustproblems by then: fuel injection yes, but no ABS, catalysators. By experiance: what is not on a car, most often doesn't break. What is not on an older car, will certainly not break.

Tom De Moor

They're not as bad as the reputation would have you believe, actually.

Yea, but if you drive like UKRM would have me beleive you ride, i should have no problems ;) But don't worry, i'll wait for you :D

Ooooh, harsh.

A bit of a flaw in that plan, though:

1. I'm not as slow as they suggest - it's just some very quick people making comparisons. I overtake more bikes than overtake me on an average weekend ride.

1. I'm much quicker down twisty roads in a car than I am on a bike.

Unfortunately you're in Wales, so we can't prove this, but i would've won ;)

Pah! You're just not man enough to take on the mountains.

Actually, driven in Wales once and loved it :) Drove down to Lampeter Uni, some seriously cool mountain roads, Italian Job style on the side of a mountain, wending round, and could see what was coming :D And then into some very uppy downy twisty bits (the B4343 was AWESOME) that were immense fun :) I bet, on that road, in the wet, the 405 would have the measure of the 75, as it'd be a low gear, slidy ass job ;)