Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted December 22, 2024 Posted December 22, 2024 6 hours ago, ajwebb said: The car I always promised myself? I'll let the picture do the talking... TVR Tuscan, when I first saw one, I thought, I NEED IT!!! Preferably with Nebula or Chameleon paint. Of course, being that these cars will slowly be eligible for importing into the USA starting next year, I fear that the prices will only climb. Will it still be attainable? Sure, but not as soon as I hope to have it. If not, I'll be quite happy with a TVR Cerbera V8. It still looks (and sounds) like a beast. I also have a passion for 67-69 Thunderbirds, as it was one of the few lower priced big block muscle cars around. The Cerbera is a better drive to be honest. The Tuscan is usually quite a nervous feeling thing. I like fast steering racks but the Tuscan feels skittish with it. Cerbera has a keen front end and could only be described as direct but (at least if set up properly) is predictable and progressive. It's worth being aware that at least early on the 4.2 AJP8 Cerbera came with a plate type LSD whereas the 4.5 (and later the Speed Six) came with a Hydratrak unit. Competition users often disliked the Hydratrak but for road use I actually really liked it. It would give you a split second warning via a jump in engine RPM that you had broken traction on one wheel and would soon lose the other. The yaw rate at which the longer wheelbase Cerbera would step out the rear wheels upon loss of traction was manageable too, which is good as 50-55mph was generally where engine torque output exceeded available traction in 2nd gear if it were damp or even cold. You can do an aggressive/ clumsy gear change into 3rd and it'll spin both wheels no problem but the unwary tend to be caught out during what they thought was stable acceleration and suddenly the back end steps out 3/4qtrs the way through 2nd gear. It'll do it at around 70mph in 3rd gear in the wet too. You find the edges of the tarmac rather quickly if you get an unintended yaw at that speed. 1
keefr22 Posted December 22, 2024 Posted December 22, 2024 16 hours ago, Anteater said: Being a rally man @keefr22, I bet you wouldn't say no to a works 500 SLC, even with the missing pedal. I wouldn't, no. But if it's got door bars I might eventually be able to get into it, but I might never be able to get out again....!! Keith 1
TonyW Posted December 22, 2024 Posted December 22, 2024 ,Back on the Turbo 400 gearbox thing for a moment. Fitting a shift kit to the valve body is neither difficult or expensive. The result is a crisper gearchange and even less gearbox wear. De-slushboxing if you like. You loose the soft shift but gain a crisper, more sporty feel. I don't know if the Jaguar 400 boxes are identical to the GM ones but if they are similar enough for a swap over it might be worth a go. Full manual kits with much harder shifts are available but look out for your diff. 500 ft/lbs or so of torque is a bit hard on things at that point. 700R4 boxes can be fitted, gaining an overdrive ratio but the costs soon start to mount. These things can be dialed in but as usual there are compromises to be made.
Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted December 22, 2024 Posted December 22, 2024 34 minutes ago, TonyW said: ,Back on the Turbo 400 gearbox thing for a moment. Fitting a shift kit to the valve body is neither difficult or expensive. The result is a crisper gearchange and even less gearbox wear. De-slushboxing if you like. You loose the soft shift but gain a crisper, more sporty feel. I don't know if the Jaguar 400 boxes are identical to the GM ones but if they are similar enough for a swap over it might be worth a go. Full manual kits with much harder shifts are available but look out for your diff. 500 ft/lbs or so of torque is a bit hard on things at that point. 700R4 boxes can be fitted, gaining an overdrive ratio but the costs soon start to mount. These things can be dialed in but as usual there are compromises to be made. Yeah it can be done, but the problem isn't so much the soft shifts but rather than fact that it's hobbled in acceleration by bad ratios and even with the 2.88:1 final drive in the HE models it's still roaring away at 3000rpm at a 70mph cruise. Then there's the vast power loss across the TH400. It may have been tolerable in the USA when fuel was so cheap it was virtually free so you could compensate for appalling efficiency by just making your engine huge. A good manual conversion is the way to go, and not that hard either. 2
flyboy2610 Posted December 22, 2024 Posted December 22, 2024 Not so much the car I always promised myself, but the one car I owned that I wish I still had was my 1970 Ford Torino GT. 6 2
mdesaxe Posted December 22, 2024 Posted December 22, 2024 9 hours ago, Lord Riot said: my wife lived in America for twenty years and got used to owning big SUVs My wife is from New Mexico. During the decade we lived there we always had SUV's because a) there are more unpaved than paved roads in the state (including the 1.5km-long dirt road leading to our house), b) it's pretty mountainous, and c) we did a great deal of hiking, backpacking, and skiing, so we needed the load-carrying and four-wheel drive. When we moved to Provence we bought a RAV4 for most of the same reasons, although we do not use it for travelling all around Europe to visit family and friends; we used a V-10 Audi S8 for that until we replaced it last year with a Lucid Air Touring, which I'm sure will horrify everyone since it's an EV. However, it's fast (0-100kph in 3 seconds and 10 seconds more to 220 kph), great handling (probably even better than the Audi and very necessary around here), very comfortable, and it has a range of 650 km that can be recharged to 500 km in less than 20 minutes using a super-charger. Maurice 2
othertales Posted December 23, 2024 Posted December 23, 2024 22 hours ago, flyboy2610 said: Not so much the car I always promised myself, but the one car I owned that I wish I still had was my 1970 Ford Torino GT. Really beautiful colour and profile! Love the rear window and bonnet air intake. That was a good year for the Torino. Must have sounded a treat to drive.
flyboy2610 Posted December 23, 2024 Posted December 23, 2024 3 hours ago, othertales said: Really beautiful colour and profile! Love the rear window and bonnet air intake. That was a good year for the Torino. Must have sounded a treat to drive. Thanks, but that's a pic I found on the Interweb. Mine was more of a dark copper color. It must have been repainted as that was not a stock Ford color. But it was a lot of fun to drive! 1
othertales Posted December 23, 2024 Posted December 23, 2024 2 hours ago, flyboy2610 said: Thanks, but that's a pic I found on the Interweb. Mine was more of a dark copper color. It must have been repainted as that was not a stock Ford color. But it was a lot of fun to drive! Still sounds good from your description 😁
stringbag Posted December 24, 2024 Posted December 24, 2024 On 12/21/2024 at 10:43 PM, cmatthewbacon said: "I can't get into a regular car comfortably" M. It's the implants and Botox. Chris. 2
Neddy Posted December 24, 2024 Posted December 24, 2024 Re. the earlier discussion of the pros and cons of SUVs, automatic transmissions et al, my needs changed as I aged and after 100,000 miles in a beloved Jaguar X-Type 4WD automatic I finally accepted that change was needed. In 2013 I settled on an Audi Q3 2.0TFSI with 4WD and a DSG 'box which has been utterly brilliant for the last 68,000 miles. It's just the right height for me to step into and out of without either bending down or climbing up, holds the road like a leech, returns up to 40mpg if I keep my foot off the loud pedal and handles the toughest conditions (snow, mud, slush etc.) with aplomb. It's more of a cross-over than an SUV which means parking isn't an issue and there's even decent boot space for when I was working. Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks and this one definitely isn't a dream car but it's an ideal one in the real world for me, especially now Mrs N's having mobility issues and needs something easy to get in and out of as well. 2 1
JohnT Posted December 24, 2024 Posted December 24, 2024 My history teacher Peter Grainger had a lot to answer for. He had a very nice MGB GT in green. This was the late 60's remember. Inevitably the first car I bought myself was a black MGB roadster. Had it for donkeys years and no trouble with it at all. Anyway as we all know that old "B" series engine was a little - well a lot - asthmatic. You had to have a style of driving to allow for that. So I always fancied a B with poke and gravitated towards an MGB GT V8 that had been race tuned by a company that repaired, sold and raced cars. I cant recall the name exactly but it was Motobuild or something , two stops on the underground from Heathrow. That was a GTI eater and a lot of fun as all the upgrades and modifications were under the skin so apart from a large exhaust and the noise she just looked like your average MGB GT on a casual look. Ones that got away:- I do love the lines of an MGA roadster in red or ivory white but must have wire wheels to look the part. Special mention for my Mrs T - It has to be an E Type convertible every time. My missus has an eye for the lines. I've had lots of expensive love affairs with cars over the decades. Cost me silly money looking back but every one of them worth it (except a Jaguar F type - looks the part but not a car to be driven hard on public roads as had a very nasty tendency to depart from a strait line without provocation - apparently normal for an F-type being pressed on that's not the 4 wheel drive option according to Jaguar) "Cost me silly money looking back but every one of them worth it." Wish I could say the same about my history with the ladies that have cost me lots of money. Present one has been a keeper for twenty years now and the best ever. 1
RossFMJ Posted January 15 Posted January 15 Hmmm I've always wanted a Citroen Dyane Fourgonnette Double Sidewinder. This is the Dyane van with the GSX engine swopped into the front and another one stuck in the back a' la 2cv Safari. I got as far as sketching it out for a friend who works for Gordon Murray and suggesting he leave it on the Old Man's desk in the hope he'd get one built. He never did silly soul. It'll probably never happen. Oh and it would have to be black. I had a Dyane in black in the 80s, it was the dog's danglies. 1
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now