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Post by angra on Jun 14, 2013 22:08:47 GMT 10
Maybe we should go back to tractors. My local park has a sad old grey Fergie on concrete blocks for the kids to play on.
It would be nice to see it running, but its better than nothing.
Starting the "Building The Tractor Revolution".
;D
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jun 15, 2013 10:13:57 GMT 10
Click here to find books on fixin' up fergies That's a blatant plug (but relevant). I'm on their mailing list, and I see lots of things I'd love to buy but know I'll never have time to watch/read (also there's a moratorium at chez matt on buying any more books until I read some of the ones I've already got) It's a good site if you're at all into noisy things. I found them when I was looking for the unlikely combination of the original italian job AND a copy of "coltrane's planes and automobiles". The latter is robbie coltrane getting greasy - it's a six-parter with an episode on each of the topics: steam, diesel, the jet, two-strokes, v8s, superchargers. It's quite entertaining - coltrane apparently loves noisy things.
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Post by angra on Jun 15, 2013 11:17:30 GMT 10
Robbie not John? But both are brilliant.
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Post by angra on Jun 15, 2013 11:44:26 GMT 10
Ooops - Robbie took his stage name Coltrane out of admiration for the famous jazz saxophonist. Well we learn something every day.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jun 15, 2013 12:39:16 GMT 10
I didn't know that.
I bet john never took the engine out of a trabant.
Turns out the vidz are on youtune - google it. You should still buy the DVD though.
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Post by angra on Jun 15, 2013 13:10:27 GMT 10
Another small pom sports-car manufacturer much underrated - TVR. Not sure what has happened to them now, bought by a Russian businessman but recently sold back to a pommy tycoon I believe. Check this out - A joy to behold. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TVR_No2.jpgAnd then there's Morgan!
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Post by angra on Jun 15, 2013 13:24:03 GMT 10
You can get 'em in Oz! www.morgancars.com.au/Enough to get the Dylan Thomas out. FOURTH WOMAN Men are brutes on the quiet THIRD WOMAN And how’s Organ Morgan, Mrs Morgan FIRST WOMAN you look dead beat SECOND WOMAN it’s organ organ all the time with him THIRD WOMAN up every night until midnight playing the organ MRS ORGAN MORGAN Oh, I’m a martyr to music!
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jun 15, 2013 13:41:30 GMT 10
"Not sure what has happened to them now, bought by a Russian businessman but recently sold back to a pommy tycoon I believe"
It has ceased to be. I think a couple of bits were broken off and sold, but the company no longer exists and its oligarch's-son-owner has allegedly announced that it will not manufacture cars again.
There's a company that makes body parts, another one (TVR speed?) is either manufacturing or restoring/reconditioning existing engines. Their recon donks are apparently a bit more reliable than the originals :-) I'm not sure if they have the tooling to make new ones, they might. I read an article about one of their upgrades in either EVO or CAR last year.
Their more recent cars were pretty radical. Their design was space-age gangster car glam, with maniacal 350-400bhp six-cylinder engines, wild paint and barely-silenced exhaust pipes pointing out sideways.
However ....
They were not renowned for their build quality. Clarkson ripped on one of their models once in a showdown against a BMW-engined alternative (don't recall what the car was) - at a certain speed the windscreen wipers lift off the TVR's windscreen. And they're a bit ... snappy. They apparently challenge very good drivers to keep them going in the right direction in the twisty bits.
The most famous owner (peter wheeler) also didn't believe in "driver aids" - things that we would consider basically mandatory now, like ABS, or traction control (allegedly, his idea of traction control was giving the accelerator pedal a lot of travel). Forget about stability control.
There was a famous one-off (or possibly two-off) 7 liter "speed twelve" they made by basically casting two of their straight sixes together. Even the famous non-driver-aid-liking owner (peter wheeler) decided that was too dangerous to ever put into production (well over 700HP, apparently). But somebody's still got one - it's on youtube, and I've read a review of it.
IMHO, the most gorgeous british car was a one-off - the jaguar XJ-13. It was designed for le-mans right before le-mans changed the rules to put an end to the ford-ferrari deathmatch, so it never raced. The one prototype was crashed in a demonstration and later rebuilt. There's a good video of it on youtube, with an actual test-drive.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jun 15, 2013 13:42:32 GMT 10
"You can get 'em in Oz!"
I'm astonished that those 3-weelers can be registered. If that, then why not a tuk-tuk?
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jun 15, 2013 14:23:35 GMT 10
We've kind of got off the "tractor" theme a bit here, but ... Review of tuscan vs that other thing (the weissmann - it's british!). This is the one where he points out the problem with the wiper www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSCWD9NyZ2MAnd a review of the sagaris, which is apparently a lot better, and less twitchy. But still no "driver aids" or working windows www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbO_CaGJXZ4"designed by a lunatic ... and then hit with an axe". Yep, and it works! :-) Gareth Jones on Speed had a bit of an impromptu review of an F-type a couple of eps ago - basically, richard porter turned up in one, so they went outside and ogled it and did a recording. They've made the exhaust on those sound rather nice ... (some of us do actually think that sixes can sound good) www.garethjones.tv/onspeed/onspeed199.html
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Post by angra on Jun 15, 2013 16:07:36 GMT 10
Yep - better get back to the good 'ole Massies (and the odd Lamborghini). But I can't resist a passing reference to the Bowler. That is one serious machine. Even Top Gear had an orgasm. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BQVtJB6IugSome poms still have what it takes.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jul 8, 2013 9:19:37 GMT 10
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Post by angra on Jul 8, 2013 21:21:59 GMT 10
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Post by angra on Jul 8, 2013 21:40:21 GMT 10
MoC - I had a friend with a Jag XK150 stashed in a storage container on the NSW central coast, the roadster version.
Not sure what happened to it , but it must be worth a fortune, languishing in it's container covered by bat poo and sung over by Magpies every morning.
I think the most beautiful car I have seen. He let me sit in it too!
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Post by angra on Jul 13, 2013 15:04:06 GMT 10
Funny true tractor story.
I worked on a farm when a student in the UK where the cows are kept inside a barn during winter - which leads to a 2 metre high pile of manure come spring.
Well the farmer said - today load up the muck spreader, hitch it up to the tractor and spread it on the first field (which was about 4 acres on the side of a hill). Being somewhat naive, never having used a muck spreader before I decided to get it over and done with as soon as possible. But there was a strong wind. I came barrelling down the hill with the wind behind me and got covered in the stuff. When I'd finished the farmer looked at me and said "you've really done a Frank Spencer of that job haven't you."
Took days to get the smell out.
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