Historical or useless car facts.
Discussion
absolutely said:
mat205125 said:
Are we really classing the 300SL and DeLorean as "mass" production cars?
They were! They came out of the factory on a production line, like a Rolls Royce is nowadays, they weren't like bespoke suits. groomi said:
absolutely said:
mat205125 said:
Are we really classing the 300SL and DeLorean as "mass" production cars?
They were! They came out of the factory on a production line, like a Rolls Royce is nowadays, they weren't like bespoke suits. absolutely said:
mat205125 said:
Are we really classing the 300SL and DeLorean as "mass" production cars?
They were! They came out of the factory on a production line, like a Rolls Royce is nowadays, they weren't like bespoke suits. I'd just accept that the statement that "there have only been 3 production gullwing cars" isn't accurate instead of tweaking and redefining the statement to suit
red_rover said:
Now for the big one - the Rover V8 story.
For a start it wasn't the chairman of 'BL' who discovered the engine. It was Martin-Hurst of the Rover Car Company back in 1962. BL wouldn't be formed for well over a decade. Secondly the engine wasn't just dumped in the corner of a warehouse. Martin-Hurst discovered the engine when visiting the 'Mercury' boat factory where the engine was being made to fit one of Mercury's boats. Buick had stopped production three years prior to this. When acquiring the license from GM to build the engine, Rover hired the engineer who had developed and designed the engine, Joe Turley, who had been in retirement for two years. Rover paid for him to move to the UK where he helped Rover re-engineer it for the UK market. The main differences between the US and UK Vee-8 was that the Buick versions had cylinder blocks made using gravity die castings where as Rover was able to sand cast this. The Rover engine was also lighter as a result and much much stronger. It was first used in 1967 in the P5.
It also took two years
There was also a sister version of this engine built for Oldsmobile, the main difference was it had an extra stud boss cast into the block and used a different design of cylinder head that utilised this extra stud location for better head gasket/head stability. It had a far superior head design to the Buick lump Rover utilised. For a start it wasn't the chairman of 'BL' who discovered the engine. It was Martin-Hurst of the Rover Car Company back in 1962. BL wouldn't be formed for well over a decade. Secondly the engine wasn't just dumped in the corner of a warehouse. Martin-Hurst discovered the engine when visiting the 'Mercury' boat factory where the engine was being made to fit one of Mercury's boats. Buick had stopped production three years prior to this. When acquiring the license from GM to build the engine, Rover hired the engineer who had developed and designed the engine, Joe Turley, who had been in retirement for two years. Rover paid for him to move to the UK where he helped Rover re-engineer it for the UK market. The main differences between the US and UK Vee-8 was that the Buick versions had cylinder blocks made using gravity die castings where as Rover was able to sand cast this. The Rover engine was also lighter as a result and much much stronger. It was first used in 1967 in the P5.
It also took two years
This Oldsmobile version of the block became the basis of the Repco-Brabham F1 engine that powered Sir Jack Brabham to his F1 championship in the first season of the new 3.0 litre formula. It was firstly built in twin overhead cam guise and then quad overhead cam chain driven guise.
It was also the basis for the Traco Oldsmobile engine used in Can Am racing by Bruce McLaren. The ultimate version of this Oldsmobile based version of the engine was the F85X, F85X became the design code for the next major development of the engine when Ian Richardson designed his cylinder heads to replace the asthmatic heads Rover came up with for the Buick blocked engine. The combustion chamber design in these new heads is based on that used in the Gurney Weslake engine fitted to the JWA Gulf sponsored Ford GT40's that took the first success at Le Mans.
I hand ported the first pair of production castings and helped build the first engine to use these new heads, a 5.0 litre version that went into Simon Allaway's Lotus Esprit Silhouette racecar. The next pair of these heads went into an FIA GT car, knocking 10 seconds off it's Silverstone laptime.
MG Rover then decided to build an MGF based car to attempt a land speed record at Bonneville to be driven by Andy Green, it was called the MG EX255, this was a 4.8 litre version of the engine with stage 2 heads and was originally twin supercharged, using scroll style chargers, they were proving restrictive so the engine was converted to twin turbo at short notice. The engine produced 950BHP, not bad for a Rover V8.
Everyone is wrong about the Mini engine being turned round.
http://austin-rover.co.uk/index.htm?ado15storyf.ht...
http://austin-rover.co.uk/index.htm?ado15storyf.ht...
webpage said:
From the airing of the first prototype, to the car's launch in August 1959, only a few major mechanical changes were made; a reduction in engine size from 948cc to 848cc was ordered as a direct result of the fact that early prototypes had been clocked at over 92 mph, which was considered far too fast for the market the Mini was aimed at. The new capacity was arrived at by reducing the stroke from 73mm in the 948cc version to 68mm in the final 848cc incarnation.
At this time, the engine was rotated through 180 degrees to face the bulkhead, so that the carburettor was now to the rear of the engine, instead of at the front, where it tended to ice up in cold conditions. According to John Cooper, the real reason why the engine was reversed, however, was that Mini prototypes kept destroying their synchromeshes after about 100 miles. Issigonis was reportedly very upset that this change was required because the car was faster in its original form. Why the engine was rotated, rather than Austin designing a more durable synchomesh can be put down to two factors: time and money - or more correctly, the lack of it. So, carburettor icing was cited as the reason for this reversal of the position of the engine, but the response of John Cooper to this suggestion was that it, "was a load of bull!"
Interestingly, the whole point of the re-orientation and the resultant introduction of the transfer gears was to allow for much smaller gears, which produced much less inertia, meaning that there would be less stress on the gearbox's synchromesh. Testing had shown that even with this fundamental alteration, the Austin A35 synchromesh would not be up to the job, but because the development of the Porsche baulk ring Synchro would not be complete by the planned launch date, they went ahead with the A35 system, anyway!
At this time, the engine was rotated through 180 degrees to face the bulkhead, so that the carburettor was now to the rear of the engine, instead of at the front, where it tended to ice up in cold conditions. According to John Cooper, the real reason why the engine was reversed, however, was that Mini prototypes kept destroying their synchromeshes after about 100 miles. Issigonis was reportedly very upset that this change was required because the car was faster in its original form. Why the engine was rotated, rather than Austin designing a more durable synchomesh can be put down to two factors: time and money - or more correctly, the lack of it. So, carburettor icing was cited as the reason for this reversal of the position of the engine, but the response of John Cooper to this suggestion was that it, "was a load of bull!"
Interestingly, the whole point of the re-orientation and the resultant introduction of the transfer gears was to allow for much smaller gears, which produced much less inertia, meaning that there would be less stress on the gearbox's synchromesh. Testing had shown that even with this fundamental alteration, the Austin A35 synchromesh would not be up to the job, but because the development of the Porsche baulk ring Synchro would not be complete by the planned launch date, they went ahead with the A35 system, anyway!
absolutely said:
1400 Coupe Gullwings made! Make up your own mind about it being mass produced, there were more roadsters made.
It was the first production car with fuel injection.
First petrol production car with fuel injection Shirley?It was the first production car with fuel injection.
Edited by sniff petrol on Wednesday 20th August 08:05
I don't recall the term "mass produced" being used for any FIA championship, they just listed the number of "production" cars of that type that needed to be homologated and gave each type of racing/rallying homologation it's own group with it's own minimum quantity requirements, such as Group B, Group 4, Group 5, some groups were for "production" cars, some for "prototypes", the numbers of cars needed for each group varied, sometimes year on year. For example one of the latest to come from the FIA was.
"A new category will take part in the FIA Regional Rally Championships from January 1st, 2004 which will group together the following 4-wheel drive cars:
- production vehicles homologated with a minimum of 1000 units with a 2-litre turbo engine (32 mm restrictor)
- production vehicles homologated in a quantity of 2500 units, with a 2-litre normally aspirated engine
"A new category will take part in the FIA Regional Rally Championships from January 1st, 2004 which will group together the following 4-wheel drive cars:
- production vehicles homologated with a minimum of 1000 units with a 2-litre turbo engine (32 mm restrictor)
- production vehicles homologated in a quantity of 2500 units, with a 2-litre normally aspirated engine
Historical useless facts:
1) Bristol Motors ordered thousands of torque arms in error decades ago. They really needed about three. They hung around so long, that they were eventually used as posts for the fence that surrounded the works in Bristol.
2) Useless fact unless you own an Aston Martin Virage. The wiper motor originally came from a small car (Ford?). With typical attention to detail, Aston hung a massive wiper off it. As a temporary get you home measure when the spline stripped, Aston garages used to recommend you packed it with the foil from a cigarette packet and jam the wiper on.
3) In the period surrounding the 1st World War, it was a commonly held belief that cars held the road better the heavier they were.....cue pedant debate about this point.
1) Bristol Motors ordered thousands of torque arms in error decades ago. They really needed about three. They hung around so long, that they were eventually used as posts for the fence that surrounded the works in Bristol.
2) Useless fact unless you own an Aston Martin Virage. The wiper motor originally came from a small car (Ford?). With typical attention to detail, Aston hung a massive wiper off it. As a temporary get you home measure when the spline stripped, Aston garages used to recommend you packed it with the foil from a cigarette packet and jam the wiper on.
3) In the period surrounding the 1st World War, it was a commonly held belief that cars held the road better the heavier they were.....cue pedant debate about this point.
johnfelstead said:
I don't recall the term "mass produced" being used for any FIA championship, they just listed the number of "production" cars of that type that needed to be homologated and gave each type of racing/rallying homologation it's own group with it's own minimum quantity requirements, such as Group B, Group 4, Group 5, some groups were for "production" cars, some for "prototypes", the numbers of cars needed for each group varied, sometimes year on year. For example one of the latest to come from the FIA was.
"A new category will take part in the FIA Regional Rally Championships from January 1st, 2004 which will group together the following 4-wheel drive cars:
- production vehicles homologated with a minimum of 1000 units with a 2-litre turbo engine (32 mm restrictor)
- production vehicles homologated in a quantity of 2500 units, with a 2-litre normally aspirated engine
Not sure about other formulae but the Gp.A rules specified 5000 units but only to define "Mass Produced". During formation of the rules it was discussed that only mass produced cars would be allowed to compete where mass produced meant 5000 roadgoing examples. Stuart Turner, head of Ford Motorsport Europe in the 80's describes it in an interview I have on one of my Ford DVDs."A new category will take part in the FIA Regional Rally Championships from January 1st, 2004 which will group together the following 4-wheel drive cars:
- production vehicles homologated with a minimum of 1000 units with a 2-litre turbo engine (32 mm restrictor)
- production vehicles homologated in a quantity of 2500 units, with a 2-litre normally aspirated engine
ie: RACMSA & BRSCC or whoever said "We only want mass produced road cars". It was then decided 5000 units = mass produced.
They probably don't even use the term mass produced anymore in the regs as it's clearly indeterminate and open to interpretation - they just state number of units required instead.
LuS1fer said:
My Austin A40 Farina always used to rust from the middle of the side of the wing. This was also caused by using a piece of sponge behind the panel which could eventually be pulled out through the hole it rusted.
Actually, I think you will find it was not sponge but a sponge like substance. Fact.GTIR said:
LuS1fer said:
My Austin A40 Farina always used to rust from the middle of the side of the wing. This was also caused by using a piece of sponge behind the panel which could eventually be pulled out through the hole it rusted.
Actually, I think you will find it was not sponge but a sponge like substance. Fact.The Corvette C5 Z06 used a titanium exhaust system.
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