garethj

Bought it, about £60 from Amazon It’s definitely made a huge difference as I found out last night when I opened the glovebox and the stink came charging out. I’ll run the machine again tonight, open all the cubby holes and also set the heater to recirculate to get all the ducts treated.

I don’t think the autos are much good but that’s only what I’ve heard, perhaps from people who’ve mostly never tried one

In an effort to get rid of the stale cigarettes smell, I got serious with this. First stage was to get the inside deep cleaned so I stumped up £25 at the local car wash for the gold-platinum-diamanté valet. There were 4 blokes all over it and in 15 minutes they did a better job than I would do in a morning. Then I got some carpet shampoo and did the seats and carpets, finishing off with some Dettol disposable wipes on all the hard surfaces and the headliner. The car wash place gave me an air freshener that would surely set off a Geiger counter but the smell of fags was still there. Time to up my game and get all ozone on yo ass This thing that looks like Doc Brown would put it on the DeLorean is an ozone generator. It does something to the stinky chemicals by either attaching or removing an atom. Anyway, you’re supposed to run it for half an hour with the windows shut, leave it for 40 minutes and then air out the car. Due to my inadequacy with the timer knob I let it run for just under an hour. Like a fine piece of meat I let it rest as directed and then opened the door to give it a sniff. You know how sometimes a smell can instantly take you back somewhere? As soon as I opened the door I was transported to every hotel in China that I’ve ever stayed in! It must be that they don’t just use air fresheners in these hotels but ozone generators. This one is fairly powerful and you can’t be in the room while it’s running but there are also smaller ones. Anyway, the car now smells like I’ve got terrible jet lag and am about to negotiate a Chinese breakfast buffet. However the stale fags smell has gone. According to The Internet it needs a few days for the ozone to fade and after that it might need a second shot of 30 minutes. So far it’s fucking impressive though!

The lack of aux input is terrible, however it’s rectified with a £30 adapter and less than an hour’s work. As the rest of the car is something that would normally be rejected for a concept, never mind production, I’ve decided to be benevolent.

Can you solder some flying leads to it and use a generic, waterproof connector instead? Or is there somewhere else on the car that uses the same connector but hasn’t had such a hard life under the bonnet? If the seat belt connector is the same it’s easier to pick up a good one from a scrapper

Yes, the accelerator has the hinge at the bottom, like the foot hinges at the ankle😉 To be honest it’s not something I’ve noticed when driving, it’s just the upper part of your sole that actually presses the pedal. This car is on 17 inch wheels rather than the optional 18s so the ride seems ok. I’m not sure about grip and handling on the remoulds made in a Thailand sweat shop but it turns in nice and direct. Things that amaze people who only drive old cars: It’s got adjustable cup holders in the front, 2 cup holders in the rear plus another two in the front door pockets. Who the fuck is that thirsty? Demisting the screen is fucking excellent, aircon seems to work but this car isn’t suitable for Dollywobbler as there’s no rear wiper. First time I’ve seen that on a hatchback since the ‘70s. Perhaps with that spoiler halfway up the glass there wasn’t room and the rear screen is very curved too. The clutch pedal bites almost on the floor but that can be adjusted, trip computer says 43.5mpg now and I’ve ordered an aux input so I can Bluetooth podcasts from my phone

I’ve ordered an owner’s handbook so I can figure out how the seats fold, how the radio works, where the fuse box is etc

Not after a while. Instead of in the Dukes of Hazzard where they jumped a car, broke it and got another one, the studio built a special jump truck for The Fall Guy. It’s so impressive to see it jump, land and keep going in one take. They moved the engine and gearbox backwards into the cabin to put less load on the front axle. They stripped the axle out too so it was just 2wd. Because the truck was going to land more on 4 wheels they needed to help the stunt driver’s spine survive (nose down landing is harder on vehicles but the car bending absorbs some of the shock for the driver). The driver was suspended from the roll cage by bungee straps into his harness which I think they still do for stunt drivers now. http://topclassiccarsforsale.com/gmc/206280-the-fall-guy-gmc-screen-used-stunt-truck.html The truck was lightened where possible and the springs and shock absorbers were reinforced. This meant it could take off from an air ramp at 40mph, fly and land where they wanted it to and if there was a problem they could do take 2 as soon as they’d turned around.

Top Gear review For the first time in probably 20+ years, I don’t have the oldest car in the company car park. There aren’t too many older, but there’s a couple. Strange experience!

Yes, this has got triangular exhausts, door handles that look like rockets and a dashboard that looks like I made it from cardboard when I was 6 and just randomly drew buttons on it. It’s got sharp steering which is nice and according to the trip computer it does about 42mpg which is the same as the Toyota. 6 gears are probably a help here.

Compared to the Celica the ride and rear visibility is fine. I read a review that said the rear spoiler halfway up the rear screen is bad, but actually it does a fair job of blocking some blinding headlights from the car behind

On Friday night I was peacefully asleep, my 17 year old son was driving back from a party. At 3:30am after clipping the kerb and driving into a huge ditch he phoned and woke me up. The emotions of “thank goodness he’s alright” and “what an utter twat” ran side by side for a while, one nudging the other out the way then back again. The result is that the 2003 Toyota Celica that we shared (I drove during the week and put petrol in, he drove during the weekend) is written off. I’d barely had it 2 months. I don’t know about you, but I generally keep a mental list of cars I’d like to own which updates when I see something on here or a car in the street. The trouble is that after getting an MX5 in February which lasted until August and then a Celica which survived 2 months I was burning through cars faster than my mental list was topping them up. One car that’s been bumping around in my head for a while is the 2006-2010 Honda Civic. I like the look of them and it should be reliable, but obviously it’s too new for me, right? They’ll be well expensive? Errr... no. Because new=good and old=crap you can pick these up for under a grand. I needed wheels by Monday (today) so had Saturday and Sunday to find one and buy it. The first one was 10 miles away and an eBay auction start for £600 that ended on Saturday evening. We went to have a look at it, the pictures looked quite good! We went to see it and it looked ok from the outside but inside was like a tramp had slept in it. For weeks. All the plastics were scuffed and filthy, even the chrome Honda badge on the steering wheel FFS. The rear door held a good litre of water in it, there was a curious riveted plate in the footwell and every single front suspension joint was loose. There was another one about 15 miles from home so we went to see it on Sunday morning. This was a Type S which is a 3 door although the engine is still the 1.8 vtec (Yo) petrol of the 5 door models. The outside was ok other than cheapy tyres, the colour suits it and because the inside stinks of cigarettes I haggled him down from £995 to £800 I got it washed and this is how it looks. I’ll keep you posted

I had a Ginetta G26 too. Here’s what my files come up with

Here are a few handy links to the Stevens Cipher. Stevens-Cipher This delicious coupe version was up for sale a few months ago, I think it's even prettier than the open top Sportscars by Stevens Did the Cipher help inspire the MX5? Sporting Reliants site