[Guest]

Here is my latest review, written in cooperation with Doug, who put it together, supplied the photos and a lot of the information. Thank you Doug.

Corvette Article

 

[Doug]

A pleasure. Any excuse to dig up some info on Corvettes.

Thanks for the article.

 

[Scott B]

QUOTE (a little like the Toyota that turned up years ago for the filming of a Top Gear program for a standard car saloon shoot-out that could have given a GP car a run for it's money in a straight line. Toyota wasn't the only manufacturer on this program to pull the same stunt either).

Elaborate, please?

Scott

 

[Tropi]

Another great article from Rail racer!

I was tickled by the lateral thinking here QUOTE Finally, in exasperation, the paint crew hauled the shark out of it's tank and painted it with the same paint mix they had used upon the car, then showed the pair to the delighted senior executives who declared they had finally got it right!

 

[Fergy]

Tropi, the shark painting had me in stitches too! Reminded me of SEVERAL "build stories" of 60s and 70s-era US muscle cars, where the designers had to "pull the wool" over the eyes of top management to get their cars approved.

PS to Nuro: Does this mean you like Corvettes?

Thanks to Rail Racer and Nuro for the review!

 

[Guest]

Hi Scott, this isn't a slur in any way on Toyota as for this particular programme, which was filmed years ago, several manufacturers were invited to one of Britain's racing circuits (I think it was Silverstone but I can't really remember) for a standard production car shootout. Everyone turned up with highly modified cars and I think the particular quote about Toyota, which is the reason Toyota stuck in my mind, was "the Toyota was faster than an nuclear missile down the straights" and all the presenters fell about laughing at the speed of the cars.

RR

 

[Scott B]

Sadly, it is a slur and since you can't remember where, when etc I think it best removed from the article. Back it up and I'll happily see it remain.

I have worked in the PR office for Rover, Peugeot, BMW and Toyota and I can tell you the Toyotas are by a long way the most standard test cars I have ever seen. Rover practically rebuilt every car, including paint, Peugeot used to get a race shop to build the engines of the GTis, BMW have a code that means cars destined to be given to the press are made with parts matched with top 10% tolerance and Ford sent cars for the Car of the year Jury in France with special labels on the dampers.

Toyota, we get them of the boat, clean 'em, put a few hundred miles on to loosen them up if we're lucky and hand them out. The Corolla that won What Car?'s car of the year came off the line less than 24 hours before they had it to meet the print deadline.

Scott

 

[Guest]

It's a true story, which I stand by. However, in the interests of harmony on the forum I will ask Doug to reword the statement so as not to name Toyota specifically. However, your post did back up the point I was making - cars for review are often 'improved'!

RR

 

[Intergrali]

autocar were doing a shoot out between the new 911 Rs and the 360 stradale whatever, the cars were to be customer bought cars, then at the last minute, the ferrari guy didnt show because he had been the ferrari garage and mentioned it and they strongly didnt recommend it so he didnt show.

funny eh? probably the best performance cars in the world are covering something up!

Rob.

p.s turboinletonwrccelica

 

[Guest]

Speaking of tuned up review models, there was a pair of neon Vipers we received from FLY to review which were tuned all to heck and back with modified motors. Made very nice race cars for a while...

Rich

 

[Guest]

Thank you Russell, for your help. as Russell provided imformation too.

It was a real team effort which is why I find writing article like this such a pleasure.

RR

 

[Russell Sheldon]

Pleasure, Jeff. I didn't write the bit about Toyota though...

Larry Shephard did this great "Spirit of Le Mans '76" Greenwood 'Vette vac body for me about three years ago, working with a 1/43rd scale model to make the mould!

Top Slot brought a nice resin version out earlier this year and it is almost a replica of Larry's body. I'm looking forward to seeing Revell/Monogram's Sebring and Le Mans versions when they are released.

This car was a monster -- all of 82" in width across the rear wheelarches! That translates to a scale width of 2.56 inches!

Kind regards

Russell

 

[Guest]

Hi Russell,
No didn't, I did true story, and they should have been proud of their efforts. I would have been.

RR