Vista

Erm... have you ever actually driven a Mk2 Escort?

Even the 1.3 I had was bloody good fun to get sideways.

Of course they are Steve....

Yes, but your point is?

They may be fun, but they're not worthy of the knuckle-dragging cult following that sees people paying the kind of money that'll get you a

968 for one.

I've been to shows and seen them grunting at each other whilst wearing their 1970s rally jackets.

Can see why a lorry driver feels at home in such environments.

Oh they did.

I was commenting more on the way they drove / how they were screwed together.

I had a C plate one in the early 90s.

Should have ended up scrapped really, it had that much rot.

That they're a classic of sorts, and I can see why they're sought after.

They're not particularly singled out as a knuckle draggers vehicle of choice though.

If you honestly believe that, then I suggest you pop along to events like the 'Race Retro' show Timo and I went to the other week.

And with regards to what they cost... they're not exactly depreciating any more, are they.

Just to get this clear - what do you call a Mk4? Because technically speaking (I'm fairly sure) a Mk4 is the one that started on an H plate, and the 1986 onwards ones (late C reg, mostly D reg onwards) were a Mk3 facelift.

But IME, most people refer to the 1986 facelift as a Mk4, and the 1992 model as a Mk5.

If you're saying that the 1986 facelift drove better (and was better put together) than the Mk3, then that surprises me, as they were largely the same car - though I can't say I've ever actually driven a Mk4(1986) or Mk5(1992) model, but SteveH says the 1986 onwards ones were shit, so they must be.

'kinell.

I had one. It was OK. But that was all.

The steering was heavy and not particularly precise, it had the usual valve guide issues, meaning blue smoke in the morning, and the usual Ford (of that era) issue of really not liking cold starts.

Equipment and fit was pretty good, but it was a long way from being a class leader.

The 1986 one was always known as the Mk4, IIRC.

That's what I've always viewed as 'the Mk4', anyway.

If you're suggesting I've said that, then that surprises me also. ;-)

They were an alright drive for the time, IME.

I bought a mint 87 Onion Ghia in 1995.

No rot anywhere, and drove lovely really. :-)

Seriously.

It rotted in places like where the boot lock latch was bolted onto the back slam panel... the sills were proper shot, it needed welding on the inner wings.

Terrible really for a mainstream car that must have been 7 years old if that when I got my hands on it.

Of course they do Steve....

When you pull up in the petrol station, more people will be interested in the RS2000. Most people will just think the person in the 968 is a knob.

You're letting popularity cloud your views again.

Bit of a recurring theme, that.

That's what counts....

Because it's what counts. That's why a car that cost a dozen times what the RS2000 did is worth no more now.

And I don't recall the 968 enjoying the same motorsport success and how many are still involved in motorsport today?

USB device not recognized can be down to Power supply, if the usb port is not getting the proper voltage from the +5v rail, try swapping out the PSU.

Now to the other million posts in this newsgroup.... The age old windows vs. Linux vs. Apple ha-ha My take on it is this, having installed thousands of windows based machines and being a MSCE I am your typical MS Fanboy in the eyes of an Apple die hard fan, I know a few people who use Mac's and all seem to want to "convert" people to it, you can compare it to a religion

I look at it from a company perspective, and that is, everything is written for MS products, all the help on the net is for MS products and everything "just works". I want to build a network with a server, maybe 20-50 pc's on a domain, integrate mail, customer software, office, calendars etc and I want to be done in a few days. Can Apple offer this...No I don't want to research how to connect a MAC to an exchange server unless I really have too, "everyone knows windows" and I mean everyone, its been in the public domain for years and most companies use it as their primary business tool for data management. I don't care what people say about windows, it's not rocket science to know the reasons why most companies in the UK\WORLD uses MS products.

Apple have created a windows PC too, it's called the Iphone/iPod, they have developed a product that works very well, good advertising and industrial standards means everyone wants/needs one "ohh look my new car comes with a iPod connector" So off he goes to buy IPod, it's the same with Windows.

Everyone knows the Iphone.IPod is built amazingly and is smooth as silk to use, but they don't realize its crippled to f*ck in everyday use by using apples own proprietary technology, the Apple Mac is the same, it's shiny and leading edge but crippled to f*ck in everyday use compared to a Windows machine, the difference is MS had the insight to get in first with volume sales and make PC's the "norm"

All you Mac dudes will try and convert the masses to your software, and good luck to you, maybe it does work better and maybe it is smoother but it's not a PC, it never will be big and as long as there are more Microsoft engineers in the world it will stay that way.

Gaming is a big thing on the PC, forget your Xbox's and PS2's. if it wasn't for gamers you would all be sitting on a shitty 486, gamers want the best hardware and software, now Windows was always the norm but I am seeing more and more people playing games like WOW on the MAC, if Apple were to concentrate it's efforts in the gaming market, it will by default take a big leap into bringing the masses to the MAC experience.

Windows Vista is as reliable as any other OS, it's pretty much rock solid, and you can't say omg the latest OSX is 10x more reliable etc, you cannot even begin to compare the amount of MAC's being used at the moment to the amount of pc's, in my experience if you don't f*ck about with pc's downloading pr0n or installing weird apps it is as reliable as the next, I have dental Surgeries running Windows 2003 SBS that have over 400 days uptime they never skip a beat and before you say "a dental surgery server gets no use" they are running 50GB shitty text based databases, so none of this slick SQL stuff.

I prefer windows because I know it, you prefer Mac's because you know them, more people know Windows then Mac so the obvious equation is.... Windows is better, ha ha only joking.........

Must Call Someone Else / Must Consult Someone Experienced

No, he said MSCE. He must mean this:

And they must obviously use MS stuff. PCs for Scientists. Macs for arty types. Those are the rules. And if we didn't have rules, where would we be?

That's all complete shit.

Microsoft did not sells PCs. IBM sold PCs.

Microsoft had no insight. Gates et al were lucky at least twice over. One was that Gates was home, instead of flying, when IBM came calling; the other was that IBM didn't see software, in particular an OS, as something important.

And the crap you write about Apples technology is beyond belief. They have come to a significant presence in mobile phone sales from nothing. Something that all the players, including Microsoft, claimed was impossible. That's not "crippled" in any sense of the term. And calling Macs proprietary is downright laughable. If they were proprietary I wouldn't be able to run Linux or Windows on them.

In fact Apple conform more to Open Standards than the vast majority of PC manufacturers.

Umm well, actually Scientists use Macs and (in the past) HP/UX. PCs were always for dullards and remain so to this day.

When i say PC I mean a Personal Computer, 90% of all personal computers in the world run MS Windows, linux and OSX both run on Personal Computers. in my book that would make a PC Windows based if 90% is the norm, see it how you like.

Insight, you don't have a clue, hence why MS decided to keep the dos license, they knew it was going to be big.

People like you buy their mobile phones, and if Apple have a 3% or whatever market share in the computer world, it stands to reason that percentage is going to buy an Iphone. They even released a mobile with no Bluetooth, it had no advanced features at all, except for a shiny touch screen. As a mobile phone it was pretty shit, and the reviews showed that to be the case. Apple users are alot like women, if it's shiny you want it, no matter how crap it is at the end of the day.

don't even get me started on iTunes.