Automotive bull5hit facts thread

[RichardK]

INCORRECT. In 1996 the Bundlespleen was renamed the Taurus because it needed a selling point of some sort.

 

 

"And the award for 'car that looks most like a fish' goes to..."

 

*Mitsuoka Orochi is seen leaving, crying, later*

[rml2345]

Speaking of Mitsuoka, they are at the cutting edge of an avant garde styling trend. It's just that no one has worked out what it is yet.

[vulgalour]

RED CARD - Avant Garde by its very nature cannot be understood.  As soon as anyone does understand it then it stops being Avant Garde and becomes Passé.

[LC Torana]

That reminds me.

 

"Passat" is the German cognate of Passé; the name was chosen to appeal to conservative car buyers.

[warren t claim]

A Zetec head will bolt straight on an A series engine in a Morris 1000, and can then run on diesel

I heard that the Zetec will run on diesel if you swap the spark plugs for glow plugs and run an Austin Maxi diesel injection pump off the alternator drive belt.

[Justin Case]

The Austin Maxi was discontinued because Donald Stokes resented paying Mr Bygraves a royalty of £10 on every car produced.

[warren t claim]

After the Scorpio and Taurus Ford will be calling their upcoming Fiesta based crossover the Ford Cancer.

[John F]

vulgalour, on 22 Feb 2016 - 11:26 PM, said:

INCORRECT. In 1996 the Bundlespleen was renamed the Taurus because it needed a selling point of some sort.

 

 

Fucking hell.

 

What did they take as inspiration for designing THAT?

 

A goldfish that had swallowed a rugby ball?

[Station]

 As soon as anyone does understand it then it stops being Avant Garde and becomes Passé.

That explains the electronics of my Mercedes e320 (Avant Garde)

[Parky]

Gordini are best known for tuning Renaults, but few people know that Amadee Gordini originally started in the car business when his engineering firm won the contract to build the Horsey Horseless under licence. For the French market the car was renamed the Cheval Nechaval Pas

[inconsistant]

It was originally going to be called the 0cv.

[Sloth in a bowl]

Gordini are best known for tuning Renaults, but few people know that Amadee Gordini originally started in the car business when his engineering firm won the contract to build the Horsey Horseless under licence. For the French market the car was renamed the Cheval Nechaval Pas

 

 

Then who was it making the Cheval sans Cheval? Is that an early Andre Citroen model?

[Parky]

That was the Morris Horse Companies French division, aka Maurice Chevallier

 

(Yeah yeah, I'll get me coat)

[rml2345]

Incidentally, Maurice Chevalier owned Citroën for 23 minutes during August 1942.

[Pillock]

Learning from his original mistake with the Morris Minor being too narrow, when Andrew Issigonis designed the Austin Allegro he deliberately made it 4" wider than any competitor on the market for unbeatable interior space.

However early market research suggested that this would be unable to fit in a standard garage and would hurt sales, so the design was reduced in width - but not before the first 800 cars had left the production line ready for press use and photo shoots on launch. These cars had the engines removed and were cut down the middle, having the 4" removed by an elaborate band saw, before being welded back together the engines and glass were refitted.

 

Unfortunately this centre 4" of the dashboard contained the buttons for the cruise control, heated seats and electric mirrors, so many of the technical innovations that had gone into the Allegro were missed out, the initial run of 250,000 brochures being corrected with Tipp-ex by a work experience girl called Laura. It also meant that the standard fit radio missed out 90-200KHz on the LW band, and the heating had the choice of "cold" or "hot" with no "warm" available.

[dangerousdave]

murican tyres are made from a special harmonic rubber compound which makes a squeeling noise when cornering at more than 25.4 mph

yes and it also makes them squeal on gravel and grass

[warren t claim]

The 'TR' in TR7 stands for Totally Reliable.

[anonymous user]

The 'TR' in TR7 stands for Totally Reliable.

Yellow card - this is for made up facts, mine has been totally reliable for the last four years

 

mainly because i haven't actually driven it.

 

Sorry, as you were

[inconsistant]

Recently new cars have had bluetooth connectivity and are now wifi enabled and all that teccy stuff, and this has undoubtedly made it easier for everyone to keep in touch and communicate across vast distances, effectively making the world smaller.

Thats why parking spaces have shrunk.

[Formula Autos]

The Allegro estate was originally designed by Coleman Milne as a small hearse for pet funerals.

 

VW later copied the idea for the hatchback version of the Polo Mk 2.

[John F]

It takes less time to drive somewhere than to fly there because the driver is taking the racing line with respect to the earth's curvature.

[LC Torana]

When a car's wheels move clockwise, the earth moves (infinitesimally) anti-clockwise.

 

In peak hour traffic, when many cars are doing this together, the unwanted rotation of the earth is cumulative.

 

This has gradually led to a drifting of the earth's orientation w.r.t. the sun, and is thus the true cause of climate change.

[xtriple]

When a car's wheels move clockwise, the earth moves (infinitesimally) anti-clockwise.

 

In peak hour traffic, when many cars are doing this together, the unwanted rotation of the earth is cumulative.

 

This has gradually led to a drifting of the earth's orientation w.r.t. the sun, and is thus the true cause of climate change.

At a quantum level, you are probably right so .... WRONG THREAD

[John F]

^ Nope - this is balanced out by people driving home in the evening.

[xtriple]

Oh yeah, forgot that

[inconsistant]

The real problem is when people bridge old cars and walk home.

[rml2345]

Until he passed on, whenever an Austin 3 litre was scrapped James Brown would appear personally to take it to the bridge.

[Tamworthbay]

The nickname 'bridge' for scrapping a car came from when the Forth rail bridge was made entirely out of old cars melted down on site and 'spun' into girders. A by product was a filthy orange liquid consisting entirely of rust in suspension. The canny scots who don't like to waste anything sold this on as an appetising drink for children, hence irn bru, made in Scotland from girders was born.

[Station]

When new Mini chief designer Ron Stuartson noticed that his new clay concept design vehicle was missing an exhaust pipe, he snatched a can of pop out of one of his assistant's hands, guzzled it in two seconds, crudely hacked the bottom open with a fork, and had himself embedded in the rear of the car, while holding the can in the correct position.

Ron's lank, emaciated frame is still embedded in the concept car today (which is on display in the British Museum of Cars, in Birmingham) and can be heard occasionally murmuring 'did we win?'

[Station]

According to Jim Boring's book 'The British Car Manufacturing Industry', all 645 workers in the Halewood factory (of all age ranges) were 'sexually assaulted' by a wide-eyed and rabidly sexually unsatisfied Jimmy Saville on 21st July 1972.