TVR changes hands

[Andy Zarse]

Hey PM, was wondering where you'd been!

You got the new block in? Looks wicked! How does she go now or are you still running her in?

PS Note to Matt. Hasselhoff is in the UK at the mo, caught him on brekky telly this week. You'll be pleased to learn he's making a new Nightrider film. Didn't mention what car he's gonna use but it will still be called Kit. Also did you know the bloke who originally did the voiceover for Kit was actually the actor who played the pathology assistant to Quincy? You live and learn.

[Matt Harper]

Hi Andy, not sure how I got this far through my life not knowing the identity of the talking Trans Am's voice. Thank you for answering that burning question. It has always tormented me.
Good work PM - looks the bollox - those seats are the sh*t too - awesome job!
A Subaru WRX would piss all over you on a wet, winding road though - yoa are aware of that aren't you? (Assuming you hadn't blown him into the ditch at the off, of course)
Consider a re-name to Hi-Powermite.

[Steve Pyro]

saying nothing!!How can i defend myself Matt?

Excellent PM.
Is it time we all owned up now?

My turn

1976 Pontiac 400

[Andy Zarse]

A Subaru WRX would piss all over you on a wet, winding road though - yoa are aware of that aren't you? (Assuming you hadn't blown him into the ditch at the off, of course)

Matt, you're not alone on this one. My industry spies tell me that no less a company than Ford agree with you!

One of the guys who comes to LM with us is a senior engineer at Ford. I have it on very good authourity from him that the boffins in the RS division have come to the conclusion that Audi and it's Quattro concept were way, way off the mark when they blitzed the rally world 25 years ago. No, they were shocked to discover that what you need for the absolute best traction on snow, gravel, wet, slippery tarmac etc is not 4x4, my goodness me no. Front engine rear/drive is apparently the way ahead.

So they are canning the Focus WRC car and bringing out a whole new jitney thing. I'm very lucky to be able to post a scoop picture of the new concept car under developement. I understand that Subaru and Mitsubishi are carefully considering their positions too.

[Andy Zarse]

PS Matt you really shouldn't mention wet roads to PM. Ask him about the legendary "Brown Trouser Incident" at PQ two years ago. For some inexplicable reason, the car spun on this wet road....

[BigH]

An entertaining thread lads, I only wish I'd picked it up earlier.
Realistically though, I doubt whether I'm in the market for a TVR/vette. But if I was..............I think I'm on Matts side on this one. 30K might look like good value for a car that looks and goes as good as a TVR, but that 30K would start to look more and more expensive each time a piece fell off. I have this mental image of me starting out from home on a nice long drive in my shiny new TVR and arriving at my destination looking like a character from a Buster Keaton movie, sitting on the back axle, with no bodywork left and clinging on to the unattached steering wheel, face blackened and hair standing on end. Besides, the vette looks pretty good to me, and to prove God is on my side (for it was indeed a message) as I drove down the high street last night there was a vette, seemingly identical to the one in Mr Harpers avatar, parked up and looking very mean. They're not as big as you think you know.
As a slight aside, when I was returning from an early nineties LM I bumped into (and I stand to be corrected on the spelling) John Marigoldelettsi, or maybe Magnetosphere. Without checking, I think he had been in charge of the ill-fated BRM entry. He was driving a beautiful C5 (or at least whatever it was in the early nineties, C4?) and it was RHD! I suppose the conversion could have been a Saturday morning job for the boys in the workshop.
I'm in and out of Florida next month, and nothing would give me greater pleasure (well actually, there are quite a few things, but the batteries seem to have died again) than taking Matt up on his offer, but work is work I suppose.
PM she's a brute! Do you have an unofficial arrangement with the local speed enforcement cameras?
H

[Matt Harper]

I'm in and out of Florida next month

Now then Harry,
Let me know where you're going to be.
Petit Le Mans is on September 25th
I'll be leaving Orlando on Friday 24th mid-morning and blazing up I-75.
Meeting Dave and Fax in Atlanta (they're driving down from Indiana) on Friday evening. We'll book a HoJo or similar in the environs of Buford/Lawrenceville GA and partake of a few sherbets.
I'd rather hotel it on the Sat night too, but we're taking tents, on the off-chance that we're too banjaxed to drive, after ther race. Would also afford the opportunity to enjoy Canada Phil's hospitality.
Thump-it back down to O'town on Sunday 26th - should be home in time for tea. You're welcome, if you can wangle it.
It's a great race, awesome circuit and quite an amusing weekend.

[Matt Harper]

Matt, you're not alone on this one. My industry spies tell me that no less a company than Ford agree with you!

Andy! An absolute belter of a car! before I got bitten by yank iron and after I'd got fed-up of getting piss-wet through and falling off motorcycles, I had an RS1600 Escort Mk 2. It was wonderful. I'd wanted an RS2000 (droop-snoot), but the OHC 1600, complete with 4 branch and twin-choke was boss in my neighborhood. Mine was white with a black vinyl roof, tennis racquet head restraints - the lot. I thought I was Stig Blomqvist!

[Andy Zarse]

Matt, you're not alone on this one. My industry spies tell me that no less a company than Ford agree with you!

I thought I was Stig Blomqvist!

So did thousands of other callow youths too! I was more a Paddy Hopkirk myself. Though I had my hot Mins well after the Cooper S glory days, I used to reckon I could give a hottish Escort a good go on anything other than a dead straight road. Then when I rally preped an Alfasud 1.5Ti, I became a bit of a Louise Aitken-Walker (who won the Coup des Dames on the Monte in 1983). I had trouble fitting into the overalls.

Most of the muppets round by us (Welsh borders) had Escort 1300 GL's with about two dozen spot lights bolted on the front; it looked like they'd crashed into Halfords front window. And the Escort Kids (local parlance; they all looked and talked exactly like Gwydaff Evans) were no match for my mum's Citroen GSX...

But no messin', the RS's were iconic cars of the time and I still stop to look if I see one today. My old mate Bill Donaldson, God rest his soul, had perhaps the finest example it's ever been my pleasure to go in, and boy could he drive it too. I sometimes get a mad urge to buy one even now, there's something to do with a surfeit of power over grip that is irresistable.