Top 5 project cars

innit

------------------------------------------------ "We are all individuals" "I'm not!"

There is one that turns up at York regular. Martini colours. Nice.

------------------------------------------------ "We are all individuals" "I'm not!"

Revolting things, I still say that's the ugliest car ever made.

I sat in the back of a 911 at the motorshow. I hurt myself.

I sat in the back of one of them to, might have been a 7, but that was ok :)

Intergrale's ROCK.

My mate has an M3 Cabriolet, luggage space in the 'boot' is amusing :)

I was about to say, the standard interior in my friends RX7 Twin Turbo is nice :)

They are admired but less so by those who owned them. I often think it's the rallye pedigree along with the sheer brutallity of the front that are admired. A bit like Graham Hill claiming Lotus was the best car in the world not mentioning that his car was taking care of by his Lotus F1- mechanics...

I've got a few friends who had Integrales EVO 2/3 and drove it like it was supposed to be driven.

The first switched rather quickly to Porsche and still can't believe how cheap Porsche maintenance is compared to Lancia.

The second (has his bureau in Brussels but factory is in the Ardennes) now drives a 450 HP Supra twin-Turbo which sees twice a day *every day* a high speed run of about 160 km (one way). The car has over 380.000 km, it refuses to die, it refuses to break down, the only thing apart from normal maintenance it receives is new oil every 2500 km. The only big invoices to this car are those at 100.000 km-intervals: new turbo's, new distribution and clutch. The orginal cams are still on the car.

With his Lancia(s) (Integrale , Thema 8.32 and similar) he was every 2 tot 3 weeks in for major repairs, often having to miss the car for a week. I have seen the bills: his cars were maintained with disregard of money. Everything went: engine (several), turbo's, clutches, gearbox, rear LSD (1 month waiting for such one).

The 1992 Intergrale EV03 had spent (in the first year of ownership) more than the new-value of the car on it. In fact I still receive a box of 12 bottles champagne every year for recommanding the Supra TT.

Tom De Moor

Just remembered I saw a TR7 in a scrappy 2 months ago and it had a slant engine in it like half a V8. I thought they used a BL engine but those slant ones are Triumph and were the basis for SAAB's too. So why didn't they use the 16V engine?

In news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Peter Hill decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

Gutless BL POS? The "V8" means nothing to you? Rover V8. Not that s**te Triumph thing

Dunno, it's a popular conversion, but as far as I'm concerned, if you're going to convert something that was designed for a V8, put a V8 in it. After all, the TR7 was originally meant to use the Rover V8, used the Rover V8 in the TR8, and if it hadn't been for the "oil crisis" of the early 70's I shouldn't imagine it would have ever had that nasty little four pot in the first place.

Ooh, sacrilege... Triumph actually had a 3 litre v8 engine that was used in the Stag, was more powerful and torquey than the rover 3.5 v8 used in the TR8.

Wasn't very reliable, though.

By the time the TR8 was being produced, BL had axed the Triumph v8 and so the TR8 got the rover block instead. Course, I doubt the Triumph v8 would have had all the upgrades and performance kit added by aftermarket suppliers so it's probably just as well.

I don't reckon the 4 pot was all that bad an engine, given the options, budget, etc. They're surprisingly grunty, rev well, etc. Not in modern league, sure.

American legislation did for the original design, there was going to be a ban on convertibles, the bumpers had to take 5 mph impacts, emission laws, etc.

For my money, they wouldn't have been such a success with the triumph v8 engine, because they'd have had reliability issues. The four pot was pretty solid. As would the straight six from the TR6 have been, if it had fitted.

It really comes together with the SD1 engine though, no error there.