Random Thoughts... [Automotive Edition]

I just spotted a 1992 323F automatic with 99 000 km, for sale for a thousand euro more than mine cost.
I'm so going to go check it out. :lol:
 
Just for fun I went and had an insurance quote from Progressive on my Mustang. $406.59 a month or $4879.08 a year. :lol: Current insurance is something like $700 a year.
 
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^ I was interested how much it would cost to get my own 3rd party quote on the Kangoo... I used the same site that James used on TG - The cheapest came out at ?3,190pa :lol:. Most of them wouldn't give quotes due to my age :p
 
My insurance was redonkulously expensive (quoted for around $4000/yr) if I was not on the plan with my parents.
 
Asked this already in the motorbike thread, but seeing how you guys are already on the proper subject, is it possible to get rid of light scratches in plastic, like this:
?

Very easy, jsut go to an auto parts store and buy some 1500 &2000 grit sandpaper, sand the plastic down, then use a polishing compound to make the surface smooth :)

Thanks for the tips on the wheel straightness check, Nabster. As finalgear's resident "rim expert", do you see anything on these rims that shouts out: "Don't buy!"

http://kukka.net/~ipi/myynti/rial/

They're only 60? for 4 so hardly a bad deal? :)
 
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As finalgear's resident "rim expert",

Hahahaha, ha. No.

Anyway, the checks/dents around the lip of the rim in the first and fifth pictures... you won't be able to polish those out. It would cost you quite a lot to have them fixed to where you wouldn't be able to tell they were there (much more than the cost for the set of them at least). Otherwise, the small wheel weights used seem to mean they're fairly well balanced wheels on their own, which is good. All the discoloration and minor corrosion can be polished out with some elbow grease or a polisher and the right compounds.

So really the only problems I see with them are those dents I mentioned, the fifth picture shows the worst, but if you're fine with imperfect wheels you could take a file and smooth them out and nobody would notice them until they got to looking closely at the wheels. If you want show quality though, you should pass.
 
Hahahaha, ha. No.

Anyway, the checks/dents around the lip of the rim in the first and fifth pictures... you won't be able to polish those out. It would cost you quite a lot to have them fixed to where you wouldn't be able to tell they were there (much more than the cost for the set of them at least). Otherwise, the small wheel weights used seem to mean they're fairly well balanced wheels on their own, which is good. All the discoloration and minor corrosion can be polished out with some elbow grease or a polisher and the right compounds.

So really the only problems I see with them are those dents I mentioned, the fifth picture shows the worst, but if you're fine with imperfect wheels you could take a file and smooth them out and nobody would notice them until they got to looking closely at the wheels. If you want show quality though, you should pass.

With 60? wheels for a 1986 Ford Sierra with faded paint, a worn cam and 283000km's on the clock. Show quality is what I'm after! :D

Thanks for the tips, I'll go pick up the rims (with a sheet of glass to check for straightness) next week, providing I get an MOT tomorrow :)
 
The saddest thing you'll see all day:

Jaguar_E-Type_Fire_01.jpg

:cry:
 
I was wondering, are there any FinalGear stickers available? I'd definitely like one on my car.
 
^ Good point! :blink:

Got an APS blow off valve for free, and installed it today. It is so juvenile to listen just to hear some air go "PSHH!!!!" but I love it.
 
It was a replica, right? RIGHT? :cry:

Ever seen the original Italian Job? They crushed a few of those old E-Types and an old Aston with a bulldozer. :( And then they pushed them off a cliff.
 
I would like to think so, but I really doubt it. The Miura I could understand. It crashed into the bulldozer and exploded, iirc, so using a shell would be easier and cheaper. But the Jags and Aston you got to see get mangled by the bulldozer and then lifted up and over the guard rail. If they were just shells, they were extremely well built copies.

But I may be wrong. I only watched the movie once, last year, and I don't have any copies to watch right now.
 
I can see them getting a fat envelope from a courier full of cash and a note reading "Please get the car fixed - FinalGear" if we knew whom the owner was.

Don't be silly, We are buying it from them, THEN fixing.
 

What's pissing me off is WHY IS THAT ASSHAT FIREMAN NOT HOSING IT DOWN???? WHY IS HE STANDING THERE WATCHING IT BURN?????????? IT CAN STILL BE SAVED!!!!!

It was a replica, right? RIGHT? :cry:

No. :( :cry:

All of the replicas I know about copy the Series I. That's a Series III V12 coup?. Body parts do not interchange.


Ever seen the original Italian Job? They crushed a few of those old E-Types and an old Aston with a bulldozer. :( And then they pushed them off a cliff.

It's typical of the Brits. Remember, they just had to reconstruct a classic steam locomotive because they'd scrapped all the originals since nobody'd thought of them as anything but 'old crap'. Same thing with Jags at the time and the film industries.

It is only later that they realize just what it was they threw away - then they have to go buy it back from the Americans who disbelievingly snagged the Brit discards for next to nothing. That's happened again recently in Iraq and Afghanistan - the Brits needed some of their old L1A1 rifles back for greater punch than their L85s - and discovered that they'd sold them all off to the American civilian market. Ooops.


Don't be silly, We are buying it from them, THEN fixing.

Fortunately, even if that thing burns out completely, there are reproduction and original parts available to rebuild it. Everything but the body tub is still available, and even the tub is available to special order.

It'd be expensive but at least it can still be done.


There were at least 50,000 E-types built, losing one isn't really that bad at all.

....

:| :( :mad:

Leaving aside the heresy of that statement for now, losing *that* one is bad. Less than a third of E-types were V-12s, few of the V-12s were coup?s. And that one's a Series III E-Type V12, the last of the line.

E-Type production numbers:

Series I: 15,490 3.8s, 17,320 4.2s and 10,930 2+2s, all I6s.
Series II: 13,490, all I6s.
Series III: 15,290 + 1 (the one recently assembled from leftover parts) - 99% of which were V12s.

Total production, 72520 + 1.

Only one fifth of the cars were V12 powered to start with. Using the standard 50% attritional factor everyone guesstimates for the cars, you're looking at one of 7252 remaining examples burning down at best. I don't have the production breakdown handy, but even generously assuming that it was 1:1 convertibles to coup?s (it wasn't anywhere near that), that's still one of only 3626.

Put it to you this way. They made 20,000 Ferrari 308/328s. They made 15,290 V12 E-Types, and far less than 10,000 V12 E-Type coup?s. Which is the greater loss when one burns down? If you cried or were saddened by a Ferrari burning down, you should be saddened by this, which is quite honestly a much more serious loss. Now, if that were a 2+2 Series I or II, nobody would care as few people like them and they're really awkward looking. I'd even be out there with marshmellows, personally.
 
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