Dan_ZTT

The old forum bike Vel Satis HT53JNU was on 16 or 17 owners and 273,000 miles when I had it in 2021, and I think it managed 2 or 3 more owners before it spontaneously combusted Great car, shame it never hit the big 300k

Can't find a pic but Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter himself) famously came into £millions on his 18th birthday and bought a Fiat Punto as his first car

Caught my eye the other day Looking closer... Well, I guess there's plenty of room in a range rover for "activities"

2002 Merc ML55AMG Lots of buttons. Most of them work too.

Dash at night. Pretty.

Retrieved from garage this morning, very cold, driven it quite a bit today, confirmed heater works well so all good. Was reminded when going for an overtake on a country road just how quick it is from 30ish to 60ish, very fun. Still not really sure what the keep/sell plan is now I've got a bit more money into it, but that decision can wait until after Christmas.

Back in business

Thanks dude. I'm getting the garage to do the lot, bit beyond my ability on the driveway anyway to be honest, and it wouldn't be much fun in this weather... decided I want to get this thing properly mechanically sorted, won't be cheap of course but nothing is on a car like this. I'll enjoy it over Christmas then in the new year I'll tidy up some of the cosmetic bits, give it a good valet, list it for a wildly optimistic price on facebook in a vague hope of getting my costs back, suffer a few timewasters and then end up selling it on here for a loss anyway

Yeah I had a search myself and various options came up on autodoc and ebay so I'm sure it'll be fine. No idea what parts underneath are still original at 20 years old but fair point on the shock absorbers, might get them done anyway depending on cost.

Could be worse... maybe? It's all manageable stuff although the rear springs were a surprise, garage's regular supplier say they can only get them together with struts direct from Mercedes and they're expensive, but garage is going to look into that and get back to me, should be possible to get separate springs from somewhere I'm sure

I'm very bad at keeping threads updated I've still got this and have been using it once a week or so, not sure I've even been through 2 tanks yet but a nice thing to be in. It's going for MOT next week, place bets now on how much that'll cost... Known stuff is just the front suspension ball joints that were advised on the last test, and replacing the missing lap belt in the rear, friendly local garage is going to fit one I got on ebay for me, between work and small children I never seem to have time to properly do anything myself these days. There will be something else I've missed though, there always is. Once that's done it'll be up for sale I think, maybe not straight away but within a couple of months, fun as it is I don't think I can justify keeping it for too long.

The group is just called C2C Express, I think. It's a year ago or more I remember seeing him post about it. If there was indeed a driver swap that does make it less bad, although still unwise. There was a big fuss about a US solo run record from a guy called Fred Ashmore within the last year or two, cannonball in a rented mustang with an extra fuel tank shoved in, something mad like 25 hours, however that's recently been discredited by most of that community for lack of evidence, the guy is now considered something of an exaggerator unfortunately. I don't think any person has the capacity to do that run solo at speed without extreme levels of luck and amphetamines... The legit US stuff is still nuts but if anyone's curious then Ed Bolian's vinwiki youtube channel is the place to start, can be a bit of a rabbit hole...

Depending on where you are I could be quite tempted by that once he's done with it...

For anyone that doesn't have prime/sky/etc, it's on sky arts (Freeview ch 11) this Friday night at 10.10pm; https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-tdhhzi/who-killed-the-klf/

Just seen this. He's popped up before on a C2C/Cannonball facebook group I'm in, and talked about it a bit. I'm pretty sure he did do it but like you say the legal 'proof' is a very high threshold and I'm sure he knew that unless he was actually caught en route by police he was very unlikely to be successfully prosecuted afterwards. I agree it does make him a bellend. It's one thing doing these silly speed runs in the wide open bits of the USA with dead straight flat roads and 50 miles between tiny towns, I sort of understand the appeal of it over there, but trying to do it in the UK just doesn't make sense, the roads are totally different, it's way too dangerous for yourself and for the general public, all legalities aside. Doing it on your own makes it even more stupid, nobody can really keep the concentration up to the level it needs to be in that long a chunk. The guys that have set Cannonball records in the US in recent years always do it in teams of 2 or 3 and swap drivers at the fuel stops.