Boy Racers Dream Car??

Cant say that Ive ever been a boy racer... but..

1st car from passing my test was a Fiat Panda 1.0L.(D reg) with a market stall roof. awesome car for a 6ft chap... It had 2 big halogen lamps (from a rally car seat on the front bumper. which helped night vision tremendously, however when i put full beam on, all the other lights went off, including the rears ) It did top 100 mph on the M1 between Leicester and Nottingham.and can still be seen driving around Leicester Insurance - £215 fully comp at 17.

2nd car - Pug 205 1.4 XS. Lowered 70 mm at the front on PI springs - 1/4 turn on the rear to drop it 40 mm, 15" TSW Stealths, Yoko tyres 215x 45 all round. Uprated card, with large jetting, single straight through exhaust, High lift rally spec piper cross cam, flowed and ported head. All door locks removed. Quicker than most GTI 1.6 and 1.9's, and used to leave my bro's Renault 5 GT turbo standing, till about 80 mph, where it pulled up and away.

For the next 5 years, I had an assortment, Masserati Merrick, Golf GTI mk3, trimuph stag, Merc 500 CL, all very nice cars, but not a patch on my memories of my panda.

Ohhhh the memories
CoolS

Boy racer car? - term had not even been coined when I started driving - My first car, a 1941 Plymouth, was only 11 years old when I bought it for $85!

Car (s) I would like to have back - in order of vintage:

1951 Chrysler Imperial Convertible - as I recall, only 500 made - black with a red leather interior - first Chrysler Hemi V-8, about half a furlong long and 2600 kg!

1953 Sunbeam Talbot Mk II - beautiful body - lovely road manners, adequate engine and among the world's worst gearboxes (rebuilt 3 times which involved removing the interior to extract the box through the interior of the car!

1960 Healey 3000 - how can I ever forgive myself for selling it?

Car I definitely do not want to see again:

1955 or 56 Humber Hawk - no redeeming features and so overgeared that it was faster in 3rd than it top!

EM

QUOTE i havent had a car, im not old enough so dunno why im here but you talk about 105bhp in an escort or salloon well i found an american site where the build engines for the mini cooper (classic) with a supercharger - they reckon the whole engine is putting out 140bhp+ now id love one of them in a car that small.... which compared to a stock of 72bhp max (1.3i)

Mate of mine has a 1380 which last saw 138BHP naturally aspirated last year and has been modified since, standing quarter in 15secs I think.

V-Max do the supercharger conversion, but I am going to make my own kit using a BMW supercharger. Should manage 140BHP easy enough oh and it will be on 10" wheels, any one run a tyre shop????

QUOTE is putting out 140bhp+ now id love one of them in a car that small....

Yeah, really great fun until you need to apply the brakes......


Aaron

The only one I would have back was my old MkII XR2 (Rosso Red of course) the model before Ford loused it all up by fitting fuel injection and botching it up. Purchased off a mate for £500 after he 'recovered' her from an ex he had sort of 'given stroke lent' her to, ran for 18months of abuse and hard treatment needing only a £38 battery and then got £400 at trade in time.

Of course having F992 RRY 'Fat Girl' back would depend upon her having a new engine fitted since my girlf of the time pretty much killed her off by commuting daily from Dudley to Warwick Uni in the outside lane at 85 in 4th having failed to notice that she had a 5 speed box...

Like all fast Fords she was excellent fun and had entertainingly lethal design flaws - as I recall torque steer meant that booting her out to turn right at a junction meant that you had to lean forwards onto the wheel to straighten the bloody thing out. It also had the front-hinged bonnet that I was told recently is a design cue dropped from all modern cars in the interests of not cutting the driver and passengers head when the front crumple zone does it's job (can anybody confirm this?)

I once lent the car to my younger sister (her usual transport of the time being a 1.1L) to drop me off at the pub for a works Xmas do, little sis sort of forgot about the Sierra engine in the Fiesta size car, set fire to the front tyres at the roundabout outside the pub, went tyre-squealing back around the roundabout, found herself going far too fast to exit on the road she had entered from so carried on right foot flat down for another go and evantually exitted sideways before catching it and screaming off over the horizon, by the sound of things still in first gear. I have no idea if she ever plucked up the courage to change up a cog.

Evantually out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to small, quick Fords I traded Fat Girl in for 'Hello Kitty', a 1.7 Ford Puma, Top Gear Car of the Year and all that. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. The single worst car I have ever owned It was a happy happy joy joy day when I finally got shot of "it" (I could never bring myself to dignify it with the female pronoun that all my other cars earned)

The one that broke my heart to go was 'Bluey', Triumph TR7 chassis number 1989. I know a lot of people sneer at the wedge but sub-£1000 for 2.0l RWD that will ,like most Triumphs, run for ever even in a state of total disrepair with the best laid out and most comfortable cockpit of any car I have driven means you can keep on sneering boys if it keeps the cost down! I evantually realised that I lacked the finances and mechanical aptitude to keep her and she was broken by a 7 specialist. I later bought a much better one (for a wallet-busting £1300 including a flick over respray - used it nearly every day for 6 years so she was my longest serving bit of iron) but the early 4 speed Marina box was far more fun that the later 5 speed SDI box. I mean to say you actually had to change gear occasionally in the later car....

Coop

QUOTE (McLaren @ 20 Sep 2004, 17:50)Mmmmm, drums all round... Safe...
Yep, my first experience with drums all round was in my Dad's 1960 Healey Sprite Mk1 was when I got chopped up badly by a **** (insert your favourite rude word of choice here) in an Astra. It suddenly dawned on me that having no seatbelts and doors that were latched by something that would be regarded as inadequate even for an IKEA wardrobe was actually something of a bonus rather than the deathtrap I had always thought... ABANDON SHIP!!!!!!!!!!!!

Having to flick a toggle switch on the dashboard to turn the indicators on and then again to turn them off (and don't be silly of course it's nowhere near the steering wheel) is another wonderful BMC contribution to road safety!

Still love her though. Great to see pedestrians faces when they hear what sounds like Great Cthulhu in a TVR screaming banshee-like down the road and turn around only to see this charming little Noddy car burbling happily along with it's frogeyes and smiley grille grinning at them.

Coop

I got my first dream car back a few years ago, by restoring another one I found in not too bad shape. I took it back to a similar condition mine was in, when I had to sell it to go into the Army in 1960. It was a great drag car in the stop light drags rampant in the Chicago Ill. area back then.

My first one was all black, new in 1956, though This one I decided, would would be Porsche 1990 Murano green. Still a fun car to drive around and show at the car shows locally.

Original 265 CID engine now bored out .100 over, to about 275 cubes now with Holley electronic fuel injection, And I have added disk brakes. With 3 speed overdrive Tranny.

awww.... wicked.... Chevy Belair.....

Coolest car I ever owned on Motor City Online.... and the first I bought at auction....

Now thats a motor car.....
CoolS

LS - I have seen you post pics of the Belair before.. I am seriously in love with that car and I normally hate American autos!

QUOTE Yeah, really great fun until you need to apply the brakes......

Aaron? shut up already with the all too sensible sarcasm, who wants sensible until its time to get responsibility anyway? Your making yourself sound middle aged