Gripped and sorted, comrade.

[hirez]

It's easy to take the piss out of (ex) Soviet Bloc cars. Clarkson, for instance, has made a series of lucrative videos doing little else. It's also a bit off when you consider such splendid motoring achievements as the Allegro (horrible, slow, rusted, had a unique smell of toasted top-end), Allegro2 (much the same), Marina (based on the Morris Minor, it says here), Ital (A Marina with a hat on. Did they really think we wouldn't twig?) and a host of other horrible cars.

Not that the US is/was any better. You'd think, wouldn't you, that if US cars were any use, they'd be selling like, I dunno, Toyotas. Or even bloody Saabs. But no, the only things you ever see over here are the odd Neon, the quite stunningly ugly new Cherokee (though the old square ones were ok. Pity about the woodex trim. Fake plastic trees indeed.) or the odd sad bastard with a late-model Camaro. Though I have to admit that the sound of a lumpy and poorly-silenced V8 does terrible things to me. Actually, just show me a '69 Charger. (or Challenger, 'Cuda, GTX...)

Bugger. I'm off to watch Bullitt again.

So anyway. This site being full of mad, less mad, horrible and severely not horrible (Tatras!) vehicles is a Fine Thing. Especially the 4wd GAZ saloon, various ZAZes and quite odd UAZ off-roaders.

Comments

[miss-soap.livejournal.com]

Grrr, one Dodge Charger and a Hemi Cuda to go, please.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

A Challenger might be made to go around corners in a marginally less-worse manner...

Ah, bollocks. You want the 'cuda in green, orange or purple metalflake?

Or a leadsled Rover P5.

[miss-soap.livejournal.com]

Purple please. And if it could have an extruded smallbore too, that would be smashing...

[aeia.livejournal.com]

My dad had a Marina and then an Ital as a company car.. awful things from what I remember. :)

As for the sound.. Ducati 996.. Simon didnt understand when I heard one going past us the other day.. yummmmeee

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Ooh, when I was spending time in Slovakia and the Czech Republic I saw some lovelly old Tatras and the like - even the odd Zil or three. Mostly it was Skoda though (incidentally the literal translation of Skoda is 'damage' but then they did used to make tanks). There was one beautiful old thing that I would have loved to have bought and driven back, but I never found out what it was. Oh, and Ferdinand Porche pinched his ideas from one of the Eastern European manufacturers - I think that was Tatra.

I've never been much for the big Yanks. Some of the early Corvettes were very nice ... but only in a straight line. If I wanted an American engine it'd be in either a Sunbeam Tiger or an AC Cobra. (Both of which have been owned by my brother-in-law, the jammy git, along with early TRs, Jensen Interceptor (oooh), and now an E-type).

[cutietrol.livejournal.com]

My associate JP has a sky blue Camaro, 90's I think. It sounds nice enough, but it's pretty basic.

Also somewhat disconcerting being on the wrong side as he swings half the car out for overtaking manouveres and asks me if it's clear...

[liz-lowlife.livejournal.com]

We had an Allegro Sport when I was a kid.
The sport part was finding the garage that charged the least to mend it when it CONSTANTLY broke down.
That car cost me Sindy dolls, it did...

[redcountess]

They showed that series on the ABC here last year. I was sharing with a car nut at the time (who had an Aussie Morris, the poor relation) so got to see quite a bit of it. And you didn't mention the Leyland P76! :-)

[hirez.livejournal.com]

That's because the P76 was Aus-only. Hell, I didn't know about Holden Commodores and Bogans until I chanced upon alt.gothic.

[jackketch.livejournal.com]

I have a recurring fantasy about a road around my rememberance of Humblebee and a 1949 Roadster.

Tell me it wouldn't work.

My '65 Pontiac Hearse (blue, not black) wouldn't fit on any road in Engerland.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't work.

The only customised vehicles that work on those roads are Landie or Range Rover based.

Ooo... Rangies with Small-blocks and Detroit Lockers and 'well it was probably legal until the silencer fell off...'

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Actually, forget the Detroit kit - it turns out that the French were right all along as regards tolerably useful suspension design. Damned odd, but there we are - A whole bunch of this automotive stuff is remarkably counter-intuitive. (as if there were any point in measuring the angle of "I didn't think it worked like that" once it goes over-centre) On the other hand, didn't that Tucker geezer design front or 4wd vehicles in about mumbly-spigot?

I think I shall be somewhat stoked that a set of people have stories about their parents' vehicles. Mine own revolve around the Ford Corsair, which until I saw what size they really were, took on this Ballardian size and significance because the last time I'd seen one I was four and the interior appeared to be the size of some minor county surfaced in the skin of some mythical beast shot and cured by the industrial chemists at ICI. Then there were the succession of Renaults, which began as these French intra-orbital vehicles that could travel to miraculously far-away places like... Milford Haven, but required meticulous rebuilds at unfortunate intervals. On the other hand, there were the Landies that always smelled of warm transfer box, which is (oddly enough) one of the smells that will always make me feel safe. No other gearbox I've encountered smells like that, and it will come as no surprise that piloting a Land Rover is something I find entirely instinctive: Four differently-coloured gear levers with a headful of fine LSD? No problem at all... '74 Rangie that falls out of top on the over-run? Prop your knee against the gear-lever and don't expect the handbrake to work...

(If anyone else sees this, would they please say so.)

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Who was it who was telling me the tale of the LWB series II landrover that some daft bugger had transplanted a Fire Engine motor into?

Anyway... my favourite Boxy Motor has to be the Volvo 340. They're incredibly cheap, since they're frequently shunned in favour of their 800-series estate cousins, exceptionally comfortable for the front seat passengers (sod back seat passengers, they should always be either [A] children or [B] grateful) and they cruise along the motorway at a sufficient 85mph in that vague-steering-feels-almost-like-a-boat kind of way. You get the feeling of driving a Chrysler Neon for the price of a few packets of chips. Shame the carb & head gasket always lets you down after 80,000 miles, but I still have nice memories of my 340.

[panzerbjrn.livejournal.com]

Heh, this post brought back sweet memories of an ex from the former East-Germany who had some dodgy Lada.
It was rock solid though and nothing ever broke until it got nicked one day.