Cars That Fascinate You
Discussion
Mercedes C111 for me.
Powered by a wankel engine, then a turbo diesel, and finally a V8 bi-turbo, producing anywhere from 200-700hp. Top speed was 400km/h in last prototype (that's not a typo). The car was created in 1968; it was also first car Mercedes tested their ABS system in, and was going to go into production were it not for the fuel crisis in the early 70's.
Bruno Sacco's take on it (the same designer of the 190E, W126 S-class, SEC models etc)
The rear tyres are ridiculously wide too.
Here's a video of it in action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5RD_qQPdpQ
There are more, but this one always stands out for me. Could you imagine a car that looks like this, with the build quality of a 1970's Mercedes?? Photo added of interior too as it looks great
Powered by a wankel engine, then a turbo diesel, and finally a V8 bi-turbo, producing anywhere from 200-700hp. Top speed was 400km/h in last prototype (that's not a typo). The car was created in 1968; it was also first car Mercedes tested their ABS system in, and was going to go into production were it not for the fuel crisis in the early 70's.
Bruno Sacco's take on it (the same designer of the 190E, W126 S-class, SEC models etc)
The rear tyres are ridiculously wide too.
Here's a video of it in action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5RD_qQPdpQ
There are more, but this one always stands out for me. Could you imagine a car that looks like this, with the build quality of a 1970's Mercedes?? Photo added of interior too as it looks great
Edited by daveco on Wednesday 27th June 12:47
Very cool.
The car I find fascinating is the Mercedes R129 SL.
It was a huge leap forward from the previous SL, and really modernised the large roadster for Mercedes. The design is stunning, and testament to it's timeless quality, stayed with the car over nearly 12 years of production with few alterations. The real joy of this car though is in the minutiae of the details. There is so much engineering packed into this car it is baffling. The seats alone have about 11 patents attached!
The car I find fascinating is the Mercedes R129 SL.
It was a huge leap forward from the previous SL, and really modernised the large roadster for Mercedes. The design is stunning, and testament to it's timeless quality, stayed with the car over nearly 12 years of production with few alterations. The real joy of this car though is in the minutiae of the details. There is so much engineering packed into this car it is baffling. The seats alone have about 11 patents attached!
The Porsche 917 for me. I was given Hans Mezger's book for christmas; the chapter on the 917 is fantastic, as is the engineering paper with all of the design details, especially the engine. That air cooled flat 12 with the central drive take off is masterful. And the overall shape of the car is beautiful
I always find 50's Ameerican cars in general fascinating.
The design excesses of each new model year variant and the costs involved stagger me.
And that so much equipment that we now only start to get as standard seemed to be finding its way onto cars back then, such as auto gearboxes, electric seats and windows, cruise control, A/C. OK, crude variants, but it was there. Go to a Cadillac, and auto lights, adaptive ride were typical features.
And compare that with what Dagenham and Luton were churning out. The difference was almost incomprehensible.
The design excesses of each new model year variant and the costs involved stagger me.
And that so much equipment that we now only start to get as standard seemed to be finding its way onto cars back then, such as auto gearboxes, electric seats and windows, cruise control, A/C. OK, crude variants, but it was there. Go to a Cadillac, and auto lights, adaptive ride were typical features.
And compare that with what Dagenham and Luton were churning out. The difference was almost incomprehensible.
I am genuinely fascinated by crap cars. It's not so much the cars themselves as the development story.
It's that point at which you look at a car and think, "how did every single person involved in every single sign-off stage of the process that lead to this vehicle somehow ignore what was staring them in the face?" Hidden beneath are stories of endless dithering about target market producing astronomical development costs for a very conventional car. Stories of hilariously inappropriate ideas for component sharing (what on Earth possessed BL to look at Harris Mann's original designs for the Allegro and mandate that it should receive their tallest engine and bulkiest ventilation system?). Stories of things like the Yugo that were only ever built to keep a nearby town in employment, with the cars merely an inconvenient side-effect.
Some of them you can even sense the effort, the feeling that the team behind the Morris Ital interior really tried when they added that rakish, BMW-like angle to the centre console, missing only the tiny detail that in a contemporary BMW the console points toward the driver and not the passenger.
Even better is that unlike a great car, which usually hits the market to applause and sales success, terrible cars feature years of attempts to remedy sluggish showroom appeal. Many being as ill-advised as the car, with limited budgets or political wrangling allowing room for nothing more than despairingly chintzy special editions, as if fog lights, a stripe and a four speaker radio are really going to make up for all the other obvious deficiencies while management argue themselves further into a hole.
It's that point at which you look at a car and think, "how did every single person involved in every single sign-off stage of the process that lead to this vehicle somehow ignore what was staring them in the face?" Hidden beneath are stories of endless dithering about target market producing astronomical development costs for a very conventional car. Stories of hilariously inappropriate ideas for component sharing (what on Earth possessed BL to look at Harris Mann's original designs for the Allegro and mandate that it should receive their tallest engine and bulkiest ventilation system?). Stories of things like the Yugo that were only ever built to keep a nearby town in employment, with the cars merely an inconvenient side-effect.
Some of them you can even sense the effort, the feeling that the team behind the Morris Ital interior really tried when they added that rakish, BMW-like angle to the centre console, missing only the tiny detail that in a contemporary BMW the console points toward the driver and not the passenger.
Even better is that unlike a great car, which usually hits the market to applause and sales success, terrible cars feature years of attempts to remedy sluggish showroom appeal. Many being as ill-advised as the car, with limited budgets or political wrangling allowing room for nothing more than despairingly chintzy special editions, as if fog lights, a stripe and a four speaker radio are really going to make up for all the other obvious deficiencies while management argue themselves further into a hole.
This every time...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQougVIpDSE&fea...
And this one...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCCxkk6BAYM&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQougVIpDSE&fea...
And this one...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCCxkk6BAYM&fea...
Timberwolf said:
I am genuinely fascinated by crap cars. It's not so much the cars themselves as the development story.
It's that point at which you look at a car and think, "how did every single person involved in every single sign-off stage of the process that lead to this vehicle somehow ignore what was staring them in the face?" Hidden beneath are stories of endless dithering about target market producing astronomical development costs for a very conventional car. Stories of hilariously inappropriate ideas for component sharing (what on Earth possessed BL to look at Harris Mann's original designs for the Allegro and mandate that it should receive their tallest engine and bulkiest ventilation system?). Stories of things like the Yugo that were only ever built to keep a nearby town in employment, with the cars merely an inconvenient side-effect.
Some of them you can even sense the effort, the feeling that the team behind the Morris Ital interior really tried when they added that rakish, BMW-like angle to the centre console, missing only the tiny detail that in a contemporary BMW the console points toward the driver and not the passenger.
Even better is that unlike a great car, which usually hits the market to applause and sales success, terrible cars feature years of attempts to remedy sluggish showroom appeal. Many being as ill-advised as the car, with limited budgets or political wrangling allowing room for nothing more than despairingly chintzy special editions, as if fog lights, a stripe and a four speaker radio are really going to make up for all the other obvious deficiencies while management argue themselves further into a hole.
It's that point at which you look at a car and think, "how did every single person involved in every single sign-off stage of the process that lead to this vehicle somehow ignore what was staring them in the face?" Hidden beneath are stories of endless dithering about target market producing astronomical development costs for a very conventional car. Stories of hilariously inappropriate ideas for component sharing (what on Earth possessed BL to look at Harris Mann's original designs for the Allegro and mandate that it should receive their tallest engine and bulkiest ventilation system?). Stories of things like the Yugo that were only ever built to keep a nearby town in employment, with the cars merely an inconvenient side-effect.
Some of them you can even sense the effort, the feeling that the team behind the Morris Ital interior really tried when they added that rakish, BMW-like angle to the centre console, missing only the tiny detail that in a contemporary BMW the console points toward the driver and not the passenger.
Even better is that unlike a great car, which usually hits the market to applause and sales success, terrible cars feature years of attempts to remedy sluggish showroom appeal. Many being as ill-advised as the car, with limited budgets or political wrangling allowing room for nothing more than despairingly chintzy special editions, as if fog lights, a stripe and a four speaker radio are really going to make up for all the other obvious deficiencies while management argue themselves further into a hole.
Great post
How many different types of C111 were there? Super impressive speed figures from them.
For Christmas 1986 I got a book called 'Dream cars' published by Marks and Spencer, of all places. It had a large chunk of pages dedicted to Franco Sbarro's cars, along with stuff from Strosek, Brabus, Rinspeed, B&B, Peugeot (their Quasar 2 seater sports car with exposed 205 T16 engine), Ferrari's 288GTO, Porsche's pre production 959 and some other mental 80's stuff in there. The pages my 8 year old self kept going back to though were about cars by Mr. Koenig, specifically his modification of a Ferrari 512BB. Already an old car by then, and when I look back at it now, so over the top in looks and spoils the purity of the original, but back then I wanted one more than a Countach, and that was saying something!
That book also had cars by Isdera. One of them was a C111 replica, not sure what powered it but I think it was something by M-B.
For Christmas 1986 I got a book called 'Dream cars' published by Marks and Spencer, of all places. It had a large chunk of pages dedicted to Franco Sbarro's cars, along with stuff from Strosek, Brabus, Rinspeed, B&B, Peugeot (their Quasar 2 seater sports car with exposed 205 T16 engine), Ferrari's 288GTO, Porsche's pre production 959 and some other mental 80's stuff in there. The pages my 8 year old self kept going back to though were about cars by Mr. Koenig, specifically his modification of a Ferrari 512BB. Already an old car by then, and when I look back at it now, so over the top in looks and spoils the purity of the original, but back then I wanted one more than a Countach, and that was saying something!
That book also had cars by Isdera. One of them was a C111 replica, not sure what powered it but I think it was something by M-B.
Edited by JBT on Wednesday 27th June 13:14
Facel Vega: Saw a picture of an HK500 in a classic car magazine in 1977 when I was 11 and asked my dad about them. Massively fast in the late '50s/early '60s, ultra rare, super expensive and just cooler than a cool thing.
The one I saw for sale was £1250 in '77.
Seen a few over the years at various shows and an HK500 actually on the road driving through Epping Forest a few years back.
Had an HK500 for our wedding 14 years ago too, albeit a slightly jaded one, but that didn't matter.
JBT said:
How many different types of C111 were there? I've got a vague recollection that the later ones were diesel powered as well.
For Christmas 1986 I got a book called 'Dream cars' published by Marks and Spencer, of all places. It had a large chunk of pages dedicted to Franco Sbarro's cars, along with stuff from Strosek, Brabus, Rinspeed, B&B, Peugeot (their Quasar 2 seater sports car with exposed 205 T16 engine), Ferrari's 288GTO, Porsche's pre production 959 and some other mental 80's stuff in there. The pages my 8 year old self kept going back to though were about cars by Mr. Koenig, specifically his modification of a Ferrari 512BB. Already an old car by then, and when I look back at it now, so over the top in looks and spoils the purity of the original, but back then I wanted one more than a Countach, and that was saying something!
That book also had cars by Isdera. One of them was a C111 replica, not sure what powered it but I think it was something by M-B.
Are you talking about the Imperator? That looked a bit like a C111, especially the nose. It had a 5.something Merc V8 in it, about 300bhp I think (quite a lot at the time)For Christmas 1986 I got a book called 'Dream cars' published by Marks and Spencer, of all places. It had a large chunk of pages dedicted to Franco Sbarro's cars, along with stuff from Strosek, Brabus, Rinspeed, B&B, Peugeot (their Quasar 2 seater sports car with exposed 205 T16 engine), Ferrari's 288GTO, Porsche's pre production 959 and some other mental 80's stuff in there. The pages my 8 year old self kept going back to though were about cars by Mr. Koenig, specifically his modification of a Ferrari 512BB. Already an old car by then, and when I look back at it now, so over the top in looks and spoils the purity of the original, but back then I wanted one more than a Countach, and that was saying something!
That book also had cars by Isdera. One of them was a C111 replica, not sure what powered it but I think it was something by M-B.
Sbarro's cars always fascinated me, and Luigi Colani's stuff was fabulously mental too. And I always had a soft spot for the Koenig Competition...
Quasar reminds me of the covered motorbike, that thing always fascinated me. Looks ancient and angular now.
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