The Best ///M/Barge/General Rant/Look at this/O/T (Vol XVII)

[Leins]

Yes, it seems an awful lot of them fell into disrepair in later life. The European ones did garner some excellent reviews when new from what I remember

[ATM]

Leins said:

I've always quite liked the look of those Sunny GTi-Rs too, even with the standard 14"s. There's just something about that bonnet scoop!

Anyone know how they compare to an Escort Cossie?

I seem to remember these had some serious trickery going on to make them competitive under homologation rules.

[braddo]

Crook said:

Re 190, friends in the E30 M3 cicles of the day were dismissive of its lack of tunability and not as friendly handling. Moot points if you're leaving it standard and like a frisky chassis.
However having never had the pleasure I couldn't tell you about the 2nd point. 1st is accurate to my understanding.

On the Celica, I remember a great super sharp turn in and slick gearbox.

When I had my little 190 1.8 I used to read about them a bit and I think the Cossies responded well to throttle bodies (or a supercharger), but that's some pretty expensive tuning. The rear suspension was supposed to be better for high speed cornering than the M3, but who knows. I get the impression that far fewer people tweaked the Mercs so it doesn't seem to be well known whether they can be made into match for the BMW.

For the standard road cars, maybe s m can find a comparison article.


Celica GT4 - when these came out I thought they were just the most awesome looking and desirable thing.

[s m]

Leins said:

Yes, it seems an awful lot of them fell into disrepair in later life. The European ones did garner some excellent reviews when new from what I remember

My friend worked for NME in Milton Keynes when these were first brought into rallying. He used to work on Makinen's car - they also used a slightly stripped out one as a 'chase car' ( if anyone remembers those ) .
They did used to drive it quite hard but as I recall there were 2 big problems, the brakes as standard weren't really up to the performance ( disc diameter was limited by the small wheel size ) and the power used to drop off markedly because of heat soak into the intercooler on an extended blat
Fast when going well though

[Diesel Meister]

Top threading gents.

The 190 chat reminded me that I do find those desirable too (even if traditionally more a bimmer man, I love certain mercs - W124s and R129s in particular but also some of the classics).

Is a 190 a bad shout for some less than dull but with four seats? They seem to be less gougy / rusty than E30s, if rarer. Quick is not a prequisite.

Trying to work out a better configuration for my fleet and have been leaning toward a cayster and something like an E90 330.

Alternatively it'll probably just be a hatch of some kind (Clio etc.) plus spawtscah

[s m]

braddo said:

Crook said:

Re 190, friends in the E30 M3 cicles of the day were dismissive of its lack of tunability and not as friendly handling. Moot points if you're leaving it standard and like a frisky chassis.
However having never had the pleasure I couldn't tell you about the 2nd point. 1st is accurate to my understanding.

On the Celica, I remember a great super sharp turn in and slick gearbox.

When I had my little 190 1.8 I used to read about them a bit and I think the Cossies responded well to throttle bodies (or a supercharger), but that's some pretty expensive tuning. The rear suspension was supposed to be better for high speed cornering than the M3, but who knows. I get the impression that far fewer people tweaked the Mercs so it doesn't seem to be well known whether they can be made into match for the BMW.

For the standard road cars, maybe s m can find a comparison article.


Celica GT4 - when these came out I thought they were just the most awesome looking and desirable thing.

Can't say I've danced both the E30 and 190 2.5-16 on the edge of adhesion round the Nurburgring but I have driven them both reasonably fast on nice Welsh roads ( old 80s saloons are my big favourites in cars ). An old friend still has his Almandine 2.5-16 - I'm quite surprised people might say the handling isn't as 'friendly' although they might mean friendly to mean 'very adjustable' or something else. I would say the Merc is very benign and feels really 'planted' at the rear, certainly harder to get the rear end breaking away than an E30. The rear suspension is more advanced than the E30 I'd say. The steering is actually a quicker response than the E30 but not as 'feelsome'. What I have noticed on old stuff though, is that tyres can make a BIG difference to the feel of the car ....all else being equal. I still have a set of Toyo T1Rs virtually unused in the garage ( I should have sold them on ) which really cocked up the feel/handling of one old car I had. They were the only 205 sized tyre I could get a full set of at the time....but even after the releasing fluids wore off they didn't suit me. Expensive couple of months buying 2 sets of tyres in 3 months

[Diesel Meister]

s_m - great insights, also loving 80s metal generally. Not driven the 190 Merc and only briefly an E30 M3. Gutted I missed my chance on the latter. Anyone remember Nervy's E30? I was sorely tempted at the time (I think he wanted £10k for a tidy but de-contented E30, no back seats if I recall). Very tidy M3s could be had for less than £20k in 2005-2008.

Anyway, Saturday morning obsession session for me is this:

[Leins]

Nice posting as usual s_m

Am I correct in thinking that the AMG power pack on the 190 Evo1 also found its way onto the standard 2.5s on occasion?

[braddo]

Diesel Meister said:

Top threading gents.

Is a 190 a bad shout for some less than dull but with four seats? They seem to be less gougy / rusty than E30s, if rarer. Quick is not a prequisite.

If you want something sedate (and you need to want it ) the 190 is fantastic - if you have a look in my garage there's a brief description.

[Scho]

Very tempted with some of this guys stuff for my studio

https://instagram.com/p/BFc96JnK4St/
https://instagram.com/p/BFvDBKmK4aw/
https://instagram.com/p/BBOY8QQK4Rt/

[Diesel Meister]

braddo - cheers bud Very impressive garage there too!

Scho - ! I'm decorating atm and need some nice prints to go with my photos. As a bachelor pad I can go nuts (theme wise if not in cash terms). Looking at some Tim Layzell stuff as well (I think Loon and couple of others have previously posted).

ETA:

[L100NYY]

Tim Layzell does some great stuff yes, I am also a big fan and good customer of this chap;

http://www.ulis-racing-legends.de/



Most of my 'artwork' in the flatartment is black & white period motorsport photography, much of it from here;



I also have a beautiful Gilles Villeneuve painting but alas no picture to post.

[Diesel Meister]

Loon - superb! 917s for the win. I'd love special print / photo for my hallway / stairwell. Could fit a scale plan view of a small car there. Perhaps the only benefit of the baby duplex bachelor special layout

/heads off to browse pintrest

[L100NYY]

Diesel Meister said:

Loon - superb! 917s for the win. I'd love special print / photo for my hallway / stairwell. Could fit a scale plan view of a small car there. Perhaps the only benefit of the baby duplex bachelor special layout

/heads off to browse pintrest

Uli will do a one off commission if need be.

[Diesel Meister]

Loon - Cool, thanks. Browsing his stuff now.

On the topic of 190s, this is the only one I could see on PH - a bit spendy due to ridiculously low miles:




I think a fully run-in one would be slightly better for smoking about in.

[W00DY]

Today I'm thinking that this would make for a nice way to spend £10k that I don't have.


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-328i-Coupe-1996-E36-...


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VOLKSWAGEN-T25-T3-WESTFA...

[Diesel Meister]

Lots of 190s on AT. Some bananas prices on the Cossie version though - £9k for 200k+ miles examples in RHD, not all of them unmolested.

This one is nice though, despite being a southpaw:



£11k pre-haggle.

ETA: Sweet E36 Woody!

[Scho]

W00DY said:

Today I'm thinking that this would make for a nice way to spend £10k that I don't have.



http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VOLKSWAGEN-T25-T3-WESTFA...

That's ace. I'm im the process of looking for a decent t5 kombi to convert but this might have just thrown a spanner in the works.

Only thing that puts me off these is the ones I have experienced have been super slow.

Subaru lump maybe?

[0a]

Diesel Meister said:

Loon - Cool, thanks. Browsing his stuff now.

On the topic of 190s, this is the only one I could see on PH - a bit spendy due to ridiculously low miles:




I think a fully run-in one would be slightly better for smoking about in.

I absolutely love my little 190, though it's the 2.6 version. For a small car they have so many nice design features. You get the feeling that a lot of time and thinking was put into them. It's a perfect city car, or for pootling about country lanes at pleasant speeds.

[0a]

76k miles, green veleur interior, really nice and tight to drive, former SL shop car, massive history back to the bill of sale. I had to have it