Cars - for those who love them

So true about the sound. I don't know what I'll do when we're all-electric. I hope at least some of them have a nice mechanical gear whine or something. Piping in some artificial engine noise into the cabin would be too - something.

When my E46 330i daily driver went away in a divorce I replaced it with an E90 version and it was rubbish, I couldn't hear the engine at all. Had to have them install an optional exhaust system that sounded like the old one. Silly to spend that much money to make a car noisier but I swear it drives better too.

Like most of life, it's all in our heads.

Our next door neighbor has a 911. I'm jealous of the exhaust and briefly looked into the available modifications for my car to make it rather more dangerous sounding. After about 15 minutes, I began to feel the shame that attends a 69 year old man pretending he was 16 again. So I shut down that page and went to view some pornography.

There are exhaust notes I don't find agreeable. Lots of them. Not just Chevy Malibus. I once made the mistake of standing behind two dragsters that were burning the same sort of compounds that can push a Titan rocket vertically to seven miles a second. **** me. An exploding nightmare.

Another anecdote re brother - I can distinctly recall coming home one day from little league or whatever and my brother and his friends were in the living room having a contest where each sought to most perfectly duplicate, with voice, the sound of an Offenhauser engine.

Thanks! A coffee outa my nose moment!

One of my present garage loads is a Hybrid Ford Escape. When it takes off, its in hybrid electric mode. SOUNDS like a window fan, but it can bet your Z for about 100 feet, then a 4 cylinder de-tuned POS engine takes over and its as fast as a canal boat.

Only if I don't turn on the NOX arming switch :-)
Just kdn. I took the nitrous bottle out years ago. It gave me the same feeling blatham described.

The car in CO is a Mazda re-branded Ford Escape (03, V6). Wonderful, drives like a car and lighter than most any midsized car today.

I think some mixture of electric and IC is going to be the best formula for performance cars, at least in our lifetime.

the torque from electric motors is really astounding. the escape is an 11KW motor (started out as a 7 KW in 2003).
Itd be a pretty serious drag racer if one would take out the gas engine.

NITROUS?? why so radical? the functional limit without resorting to rocket fuels (as of todays tech) is about 325 HP PER LITRE of
displacement.

I do love the little Escape. (I keep it next to a tractor for company). Our Family car is a new Explorer Sport TEL. Its got all the cameras and radars , and our farm sits on a hill so when our lane enters the road, we cannot see over to the left (unless were driving a 250 0r 350 truck)
So the rdar lets you know if theres approaching Amish buggies or Beemers (weve had an influx of millenial yupsters whove bought farmettes as investment weekend properties)

You boys are such mechanical nerds. I'm an untutored and chickenshit doofus by contrast.

Re electricals, it's gotta happen. Sigh. One day in Portland I was standing outside our store looking at the then new Nissan Leaf. The owner came up and I asked him a few questions (he loved the thing). We said goodbye as he hopped in and I turned to look up the street, then realizing I had another question, I turned back to ask him. The car was gone. I had no heard a sound.

ps... was amazed at how many Teslas I saw down in Dallas. Was surprised the owners hadn't been dragged behind a Hummer.

I get Tesla **** on my puter too. Theres a couple of models that look kinda sexy but Im still waiting for the Extended Range models (350 miles PLUS including heater or air conditioning) Thats a dirty secret for the present hybrids, They get like 90 mpg except in the winter when, the resistance heater keeps the little 4 cyl engine stroking away.

Because all the low hanging fruit has already been picked on the Z3. To get an extra 150 hp out of the engine you can spend 8 - 15K and a butt load of time on internals or turbo or spend $5oo and a couple of hours for the nitrous install.

A full bottle will give you about 1.5 minutes of afterburner which is about all you really need in a year of real world driving. Those moments when a 911 or equivalent pulls up next to you at a stop light and gives you 'the look' are actually pretty rare.

The bottle valve is usually turned off to prevent any leakage in the solenoid valves from draining the bottle when not in use so it's a PITA to turn it on every drive. Very embarrassing when you get ready to trounce that 911 and find out you forgot the bottle valve and the system floods the motor with gasoline without the nitrous.

Now I ought to have thought of that.

I would like to sit in that Tesla that does 0 - 60 so quickly that the Uncle Bens chemist who created Minute Rice felt compelled to commit suicide.

dont you have to purge the manifolds after using NO? The result of complete combustion is Nitric acid and water (so you have a 1 N solution of something that eats brass or Al like a pizza, itlss eat Stainless a lot slower but still....

Nobody seems to worry about it so IDK. Can't be any worse than the H2SO4 from the cat.

I am a total sucker for art deco anywhere including in auto design

If thats a Delahaye, they went totally batshit crazy when I think Raymond Lowey's teachers did the 136 in 1938. viz,

It is. 145. This one won the Grand Prize at Pebble Beach last year.

The 135 - my god. I love these cars. And one can see the influence of these designs in the cars that cartoonists of the period and later commonly illustrated (usually with a wolf at the wheel cruising up to a long-legged creature).
Delahaye 135 images

ps... had forgotten Lowey and had to re-enter that information in my noggin. I had not known he was the designer of the Avanti. Figures.

Anyone can take me anywhere if they pull up in this.

That's a beauty, bethie. But I don't have one. Will have to pick you up in this modest little runabout

dayum, this here interweb is like a bigole Cyclerpedia. I can dig up fotos of all kindsa porn.

Apparently Delahaye continued until the early 50;s(Id seen the later English versions looking awfully much like a Jag 140). Here is an example of the "Delahaye USA" efforts of the early 50's. Still exhuberant, design a bit more finished (IMHO) and a steering wheel wehere it belongs. Seems these were all tricked out V[12's with full synchro, a huge bank of STrombergs and a couple of options that included ground fuel injection (Probably took a hell of a lot of space what with the mechanics at that time)

Here y'are

Remember Boyd Coddington? He was a hot rod designer (I think he died in the mid 2000's). He came up with a Delahaye designed version of a "C and C'd" and lowered design reminiscent of the type 145 . It was going up for auction and Wayne Remini bought it for a client.It was called "The French Connection" and there was another version I think it was called something like the "Red Zeppelin"