Be Excellent To Each Other

If the insurance company suggested it, take it.

Cool. I just like to have my choices validated by all you clever people

As long as you apply for a new tax disc online before your old one expires, you're covered for up to five days past the expiry date while you wait for it to arrive. You have to keep the old one displayed in the mean time. Obviously this doesn't apply to new discs, so is irrelevant to Gill, mind.

But yes, applying online is easiest for next time, Gill. It saves the hassle of digging out your MOT/Insurance certificates and nipping down to the post office.

Mine arrived in a couple of days, last week.

Really...

@CH10, I think we can choose any paint

I agree with white. It gives a good clean look on a car like that, plus not many people choose white any more.

I wonder if I can get a blue flashing light fixed to it, might help with rush hour traffic

All the coolest people have white cars.

Anyway, the last week I have been mostly driving a car in America. This has been a new and exciting experience. I was driving one of these:



A Dodge Journey SXT. And you know what? If it wasn't an automatic, I think I would really have liked it as a car. I've never driven a big beast like that before, and particularly up the roads we were driving, it was nice to have a big AWD thingy rather than a saloon.

Things I have learned:

1) US Freeways have a junction with various fast food and fuel places approximately every half a mile! Even in the fucking desert!
2) Automatics are just shit. Apply accelerator...nothing. Bit more accelerator...nothing. Bit more accelerator...kick down two gears, engine screams, car starts going a little bit faster. Trying to keep at a constant speed is a nightmare, especially going up hills. I hope to never again drive an automatic car.
3) American cars actually can go around corners! Here's one of the routes I had to do on the first day with the car, on snowy roads, with snow chains on (see point 4):



4) Whoever invented snow chains is a cunt.
5) I figured I had the hang of freeways. Two lanes, sometimes 3, and people mostly behave. Then I reached San Francisco, where suddenly it became 6 lanes, everyone totally refuses to move to the outside when not overtaking, and basically every lane becomes a total free-for-all. Fun and games!
6) Four-way stop junctions are fucking mental. What sort of road rule is "take it in turns?!"

Basically, that's a shit auto box on a shit car you've driven there.

Shit automatics are shit.

I've driven two automatics - a Volvo V70 and a Nissan Micra, and they were both fucking terrible.

I'm not sure what that proves, however.

Automatics are great in traffic.

I personally hate automatics too (especially shite American SUV ones, naturally, as I'm not P. Diddy esq.). That said though, I drove the latest Boxter S with PDK 'box the other weekend, and that was pretty awesome. I'd still choose the manual though, as I'm an old fashioned kinda guy and want to drive the car, but I can still see the appeal of a really well implemented paddle 'box with decent full automatic mode for wafting and traffic jams.

As for white cars, I reckon you can only get away with this on a really pretty car; modern Audis look pretty cool in white but Bangle BMWs look awful IMO (white non-M5 5 series anyone?), as do normal 'family cars' and big 4x4s. I saw a Cayman S in white which, whilst not an especially pretty car I will admit, did look amazing, thanks to its contrasting 19" black multispoke alloys, duly accentuated by all that white pearlescent paint.

Seems a bit wrong to buy a Porsche and the fit it with something good for traffic jams somehow. Surely being in a traffic jam in a Porche is never going to be fun, so you may as well get the gearbox that makes the proper driving more enjoyable?

Oh, I totally agree with you mate, but it's still a nice piece of engineering I reckon, that has its uses for some. Autos aren't for me, though.

I'm not sure if they are automatics in the traditional sense or electrically operated conventional gearboxes which work far quicker than you could ever hope to manually.

They're twin clutch DSG type affairs that don't bear any resemblence in engineering terms to the 'old style' torque converter slush 'boxes - no doubt Kalmar or Grim could give you the proper low down.

These DSG/PDK boxes can 'pretend' to be normal automatics though, if you can't be arsed changing gear, and you're right - these achieve gear changes faster than ever you could yourself with even the slickest manual 'box. Still don't like 'em though, but it's how everything's going... you can't even get a new manual Ferrari Italia now? Heresy!

At least the 911 GT2 is still only available as a manual.

My thinking on the auto vs manual debate is that a manual is better in a car you want to drive fast, and an auto is better in a car you want to drive every day.

And although it won't matter much to a lot of you, automatic gearboxes are far better for off-road use than manual ones.

Drive fast or just have fun, I couldn't imagine my MX-5 with an automatic gearbox. Well I can, it would be like the smart Roadster I used to have, frustrating.

Sure. But that's where your decent automatic gearboxes with a tiptronic addon come into things - have it in auto mode when you are driving around, and whack it into 'shift' mode when you want to dick about.

There's an interesting comparison road test video on Evo comparing the Porsche GT3RS against the Ferrari 458 Italia.

http://www.evo.co.uk/videos/supercarvid ... t3_rs.html

Two very different approaches to driving fast if ever there were.

Good stuff mate, I WILL be getting a GT3 next time around, even if I have to flog off one of my kidneys. The Porsche bug has well and truly bitten me.

Have to say though, this excerpt from the GT3-RS write up did raise an eyebrow:



... unquestionably...? Personally, I think not - I know the panache and cachet of the iconic Porsche RennSport badge is so appealing, but really, twenty grand over the near identical 'standard' GT3, which isn't exactly shit? I personally think that's getting a bit carried away, there, much as I love the RS, of course.

Which is fine when you have almost limitless power but you still can't beat a manual clutch for when you're ragging a wee 1.8

Also toe and heel downshifts are very satisfying (especially when you get it just right), I don't want my car doing that for me.

Heel and toeing a downshift is better for your car, too. Practice practice practice!

I've just looked up what the hell that is, and christ that looks awkward. So much easier to do on a bike.

It's a fuck of a lot easier if you have small feet and a floor mounted accelerator pedal.

It really is at first but I do it all the time now without thinking about it (but still don't always get the revs right). It used to be standard practice or so I believe because in the olden days cars had gearboxes that were properly shit and you pretty much had to do this.

As an aside I remember reading through some old book of my dad's on driving, just normal road driving not race techniques or anything, but it was from the 50s I think. Anyway it had a section on toe and heel downshifts and double de-clutching but also somewhat amusingly it detailed the handbrake turn as though it were a perfectly normal way for a gentleman to turn his car around. Do one in the wrong place now and you'd probably be shot as a terrorist or something.

No, I was able to do that without using any advanced techniques at all

Oh yeah it was the snows fault, sorry.

Had a nice weekend with the GT4OC at RAF Barkston Heath doing various car racing related shenanigans.

Managed a 13.7 second quarter mile with a terminal speed of 98.73mph. 14th fastest quarter mile sprint (out of 26) and seventh fastest terminal speed. Not a bad result

Shame that my times on the actual sprint track were so atrocious. 17th fastest clockwise, 24th (!) fastest anticlockwise.

Did you park up for lunch?

No. My time on the ACW sprint was 4 seconds faster than the CW sprint, I guess everyone else just got faster too

I only managed to get one timed run in on the CW sprint as well, compared to three for the ACW.

Car ordered.... woo hoo

Had to choose a metalic paint so ruled out white.

But did leave Red, Black, a nastly blue and 17000 shades of silver!!


I went Red..

Forgot to wear pants again?

Don't worry about your colour choice.

It'll be pink in no time

I never forget, I choose not too...

Yay pink....

I know all of you love a bit of lego and this is decidedly clever stuff..

that is awesome

I went to start the Corsa earlier as it hadn't been used for month. Started on the first turn but then made a horrible screech and a pile of white smoke came out from under the bonnet. Oops! Alternator had seized and shredded the drive belt slightly.

New alternator on eBay for 17 quid though.

Someone in my building has got a new BMW M6. Fuck meeeee - it looks so hard I thought it was going to beat me up for staring at it. It literally made me feel nervous. I wants one. A lot.

In other news, if anyone wants to come and laugh at me from the passenger seat as I bury my Tomcat in a hole and can get to here on Sunday 23rd May you'd be doing me a favour.

Can't make that, sorry.

Technology Fail. This was a Volvo demo of their new automated braking system which apparently will stop their cars crashing without driver aid. There was no driver in this car.

Oh. Dear.

There are two brand new M6's outside my building

I can possibly make this, if the offer is still open, trying to sort out that weekend now, as I'm in London Friday night for drinks and on Saturday for stuff, and negotiations are underway for Sunday.

If you're in London I can give you a lift.

Disclaimer: You might meet my parents

New Lada anyone?

http://www.1resimler.com/r-lada-resimle ... -1951.html

Saw an advert for the new Peugeot RCZ on the way home from work.



I'll be back with some vital statistics.