Automotive bull5hit facts thread

[inconsistant]

Chris Rea's 70's classic 'Lady in Red' was written, predictably, about Princess Anne. The red dress he repeatedly refers to in the song is, predictably, a red Scimitar, but he changed the word to 'dress' because nothing rhymes with Scimitar.

[DSdriver]

What about a Scimitar with a rev limitar? Ah forgot about the thread title.

[RichardK]

Chris Rea's 70's classic 'Lady in Red' was written, predictably, about Princess Anne. The red dress he repeatedly refers to in the song is, predictably, a red Scimitar, but he changed the word to 'dress' because nothing rhymes with Scimitar.

 

Ironically, the car was Balmoral green, and he's colourblind.

[John F]

When he was a prisoner in Colditz Castle, Douglas Bader got his wife to dismantle his Riley Nine Brooklands & smuggle it out to him in Red Cross parcels. The war ended before all the components arived, and the partially-reassembled car is probably still in the main sewer underneath the prisoners' courtyard.

[Felly Magic]

The Perkins Prima engine won awards for the most silent diesel engine in history, and it set a new land speed record for a van when fitted to a Post Office Sherpa 200, where a top speed of 234.1 mph was reached on the A64 near Tadcaster

[AndyW201]

Owners of early Allegros often found that their spectacle lenses would pop out under acceleration, or when jacking the car up.

[inconsistant]

Joking aside, I was really surprised to note on Wikipedia that Reliant Scimitars are mentioned on the 'Princess Anne' page, but Princess Anne isn't mentioned on the 'Reliant Scimitar' page. Odd.

[vulgalour]

That's simply because Princess Anne wrote the Reliant Scimitar page and since everyone knows her association with the vehicle she saw no reason to put her name there.  She didn't write the page about herself, if she had then she would likely not have seen need to mention Reliant.

[sheffcortinacentre]

the mini coopers where famously disqualified from the monte-carlo rally for the wrong headlights by the frogs so their citreon could win.

the real problem was that they couldn't figure out what was making them so quick????????so they had to find some thing to justify the act.

the phakt was that the bmc competition dept had fitted the eng fan on backwards & pointed the airfilter nozzle towards it to give the eng cooler air to breathe & thus give them a slight power increase.

the mod was later rediscovered in the early 80's when designers where looking for a way to keep up in the hot hatch wars when the mg metro was losing sales & led to the creation of the mg metro turbo.

there was an aftermarket kit sold briefly in the 00's when an ex employee started to sell electric turbo's.

[RichardK]

The Sinclair C5 was licensed and sold in Uruguay as the Loki Bandersnatch. Instrumental in marketing the diminutive vehicle was Horace Gøskëng, who saw new Horizons and the opportunity to establish a solid Beach Head of exports to capitalise on US Gold values. His partner, William, handled transatlantic deals, and as part of the Jet Set Willy had to make multiple trips weekly. He longed to relax on a Desert Island, Dizzy with all the timezone changes.

 

All of this history was lost until Horace's house had a problem with vermin; upon entering the Atic, Attack on their minds, the exterminators uncovered microdrives with all the plans and accounts.

[Novanick1]

Originally, Rover wanted to update their model range, so Honda sat down at the coffee table with the designers of Rover and together the completely redesigned the hole range of Honda and Rover cars, from Metro to 800, effectively Hondas were badged engineered versions of Rovers. However when BMW bought Rover, Honda was forced to completely redesign all their models otherwise BMW would file a lawsuit against them. This meaning the likes of the Civic and the Accord were rushed. Thus meaning they didn't sell as well as Rovers at the time.

 

If only this were true.

[RichardK]

BMW are no strangers to plagiarism. Their exclusive 328 roadster was almost entirely cribbed from the Bristol 400, except with an inferior engine.

[Taff]

The MGF was the first production car to feature Smart technology as standard, a fact that is largely unknown outside MGF circles. As any owner will testify, the F has the sufficient AI to “learn†from the driver and to reconfigure a number of its controls and functions accordingly.

 

For example, the F features an engine immobiliser. This learns via Artificial Intelligence exactly how long it takes the owner to unlock the car and drop the roof, and then reconfigures the immobiliser delay to exactly one second shorter than the time it takes the owner to open the car and fold down the roof, thereby necessitating the owner to lock and unlock the car a second time.

[RichardK]

The MGF was the first production car to feature Smart technology as standard, a fact that is largely unknown outside MGF circles. As any owner will testify, the F has the sufficient AI to “learn†from the driver and to reconfigure a number of its controls and functions accordingly.

 

For example, the F features an engine immobiliser. This learns via Artificial Intelligence exactly how long it takes the owner to unlock the car and drop the roof, and then reconfigures the immobiliser delay to exactly one second shorter than the time it takes the owner to open the car and fold down the roof, thereby necessitating the owner to lock and unlock the car a second time.

 

Red card. This is in fact true.

 

(apart from having to lock/unlock. You can just press the unlock button).

[RichardK]

Mercedes-Benz understand PR well. When the range moved onto the new generation 5-speed automatics, they planned a serious event, with driving tests and economy runs to show how much better the 722.6 was over the four-speed slushbox.

 

As a gift to all the delegates, Mercedes PR commissioned beautiful scale models of the gearbox in finest chocolate.

 

At the event, the delegates dutifully sat through the presentations, then eagerly tore open the wrappers and bit into the technical treat. Within seconds, ambulances and emergency dentists had to be called. On investigation it turned out that the chocolate shells contained scale model metal gears, clutches and torque convertors. This was never reported, as Mercedes paid significant settlements and dental bills to cover up the error.

 

An internal investigation found that the supplier specifications got swapped over when the order was placed. The rest is history. Like my Mercedes' gearbox (probably).

[fred]

Back in the day Red Robbo and Mary Whitehouse had a dirty one night stand in an old Austin Heavy 12- resulting in a vile offspring which neither would admit to. When said babby popped out.

They dumped the babby on Blackpool North Pier, and a guy in a Morgan cruising looking at the illuminations heard the thing cry, he stopped and picked up said crying thing and took it to a local orphanage

Said thing was named after the place and car it was rescued with ....................Piers Morgan ..........

[Sloth in a bowl]

Back in the day Red Robbo and Mary Whitehouse had a dirty one night stand in an old Austin Heavy 12- resulting in a vile offspring which neither would admit to. When said babby popped out.

They dumped the babby on Blackpool North Pier, and a guy in a Morgan cruising looking at the illuminations heard the thing cry, he stopped and picked up said crying thing and took it to a local orphanage

Said thing was named after the place and car it was rescued with ....................Piers Morgan ..........

I'd always wondered why his middle name was Gumdrop. Now I understand.

[fred]

Folk who drive Beemers Aldis etc... are actually very nice and contribute to church jumble sales and wear knitted cardi's

Folk in Olde Austin 7's are cunts and cut you up at a moments notice and are prone to jumping out and giving you a good fisting

[inconsistant]

'Roadside Fisting' means the same everywhere.

[oldcars]

Reliant Rialto's are made of plastic, because the leak so much they would have rotted in 2 weeks if made from metal.

[vulgalour]

The popular opinion that the MX-5 is a lot like a 'modern day MGB' isn't so far fetched as you might imagine because MG sold all of the designs to Mazda for a very tidy sum before BMW got involved.  Where exactly all the money from the sale of the MX-5 designs went nobody has yet found out.  Additionally, the moniker MX-5 was the code name MG used for the car and Mazda saw it as an excellent cost-cutting idea to keep it into production.

[Hertz]

"Renault Alpine GTA's don't rust cause they are made from fibreglass."

 

Hmmm

 

[Junkman]

The popular opinion that the MX-5 is a lot like a 'modern day MGB' isn't so far fetched as you might imagine because MG sold all of the designs to Mazda for a very tidy sum before BMW got involved.  Where exactly all the money from the sale of the MX-5 designs went nobody has yet found out.  Additionally, the moniker MX-5 was the code name MG used for the car and Mazda saw it as an excellent cost-cutting idea to keep it into production.

 

That's definitely wrong, since it's a known fact that BMW snatched the blueprints of the planned MGB successor after the hostile takeover and launched it as the Z1 under their own brand.

The only mods they did to the design was replacing the planned M-Series with their own engine and adding the 'kidneys' to the front bumper.

[vulgalour]

I was led to believe that the Z1 was the Midget replacement but since BMW can't do small cars it ended up somewhat larger than MG envisioned.

[Taff]

Before successfully turning his hand to motor racing, BBC F1 pundit David Coulthard trained as a pipeline welder in his native Scotland

[Justin Case]

Before successfully turning his hand to motor racing, BBC F1 pundit David Coulthard trained as a pipeline welder in his native Scotland

Having another career before entering the world of Formula 1 is by no means unusual. Nigel Mansell was a hairdresser before he took up motor sport professionally; in fact he still drives a Mazda MX5 to this day

[bub2006]

Folk who drive Beemers Aldis etc... are actually very nice and contribute to church jumble sales and wear knitted cardi's

Folk in Olde Austin 7's are cunts and cut you up at a moments notice and are prone to jumping out and giving you a good fisting

The end of that paragraph sounded quiet wrong. I would be rather fearful if someone asked me to get out the car so they could give me a fisting

[plasticvandan]

Reliant Rialto's are made of plastic, because the leak so much they would have rotted in 2 weeks if made from metal.

If they were made of metal the body wouldnt flex and they wouldnt leak

[plasticvandan]

The Morris Ital was actually meant to have been launched before the Marina

[I_am_Diesel]

Not strictly automotive but...........

 

Cyclists are exempt from obeying the rules of Highway Code only if they are wearing Lycra.