Automotive bull5hit facts thread

[Parky]

Halfords slogan is "Never knowingly fitted a headlight bulb upside down"

[rml2345]

Malcolm Bricklin is probably best remembered for his SV-1 disaster but it's less well known that he also designed the famous Marina doorhandle during a weekend in Clacton. Apparently he was inspired by watching deckchairs collapsing on the seafront.

[inconsistant]

Hey, 62 Austin - this thread is for MADE UP facts, not actual ones!

 

^^^That's not made up either.

[Tamworthbay]

Donald Trump considers all cars fitted with cruise control as communist and will ban any system that includes the word control. He also owns the world's largest collection of convertible cars.

[martc]

Donald Trump .... also owns the world's largest collection of convertible cars.

 

But doesn't drive them with the hoods down due to potential toupee malfunction.

[Justin Case]

I read in a motoring magazine decades ago that "The Austin America was so good that it was only allowed to be exported to the U.S. and none could be purchased by Britons."  Sounds like a load of crap to me. 

Wrong. The model in question  was originally  called the Austin ARMORICA , after the ancient name of Brittany, and was designed to spearhead an invasion of the European market in a similar manner to the Ford  Cortina and Granada and the Triumph Dolomite. Unfortunately the name  got distorted on the  shop floor at Longbridge due to the local accent  and  the car ended up in a market for which it was never intended

[Justin Case]

Donald Trump considers all cars fitted with cruise control as communist and will ban any system that includes the word control.

He also plans to ban any car fitted with  stability control, but for a different reason.

[richardthestag]

When GM marketed the new Nova model in Kazakhstan they were embarrassed to be told that Nova means "all vauxhalls are shit" in the local dialect.

[62 Austin]

Hey, 62 Austin - this thread is for MADE UP facts, not actual ones!

 

I made some corrections...now the car sounds like a real winner.

You can't believe reviews by people who drove them. They might be biased!

[inconsistant]

I heard someone at Brooklands telling his mate that in their high performance models BMW make the boot floors from cardboard.

[LC Torana]

I heard someone at Brooklands telling his mate that in their high performance models BMW make the boot floors from cardboard.

 

Well, that's plausible actually - my P3 Rover floors are made of plywood...

[martc]

 

All BL/Rover products have Honda engines.

[Arthur Foxhake]

Price of pez there!

[NorfolkNWeigh]

That 46.3 is not the price of petrol, rather it's the amount that Rover had agreed to pay Mr Soichiro Honda ( pictured) just before his death in 1991) for using his name on their engines. This licensing agreement actually runs out soon and all Minis will have 1275GT stamped into the rocker cover instead to save that 46.3p.

It is believed this will save Rover as a volume British manufacturer and John Towers who is brokering the deal will get the Freedom of Oxford,Longbridge and Coventry.

[Sloth in a bowl]

The Renault "Le Car" was marketed (and sold) in The States about 1980. Were the residents of Great Britain so lucky? What about France? You'd think the name would be wrong.

 

 

Actually in France "Le Car" was branded as "The Voiture"

[Tamworthbay]

The MR2 was accidently named by a french speaking toyota employee after he spilt coffee on the press release.

[Urko]

It is suspected he also received £37.25 from Jaguar for the Allegro VdP proposals which later became the X-Type.

 

BMW used some of the old Allegro drawings for the current Mini Countryman - but they were a bit too pretty so they hit 'em with an ugly stick.

[Urko]

Actually - said to me very proudly by a balshy woman owner - "my Mini (early one of the "new" shape - around 2001) is a BMW - German Engineering at it's best" (yeah, designed mostly in the UK with a engine made in Mexico by a US corporation).

[Urko]

I heard someone at Brooklands telling his mate that in their high performance models BMW make the boot floors from cardboard.

 Maybe he meant the rear subframe mounts of E46 3 series?

[Urko]

Oh and every twat who claims to have driven from Exeter to Abroath via London in 20 minutes using only B-roads.  FFS.

[conkerman]

I heard someone at Brooklands telling his mate that in their high performance models BMW make the boot floors from cardboard.

E46 M3 CSL.

 

Boot liner is cardboard.

[inconsistant]

<http://www.pistonheads.com/news/general-pistonheads/m3-csl-development-team-ph-meets-transcript/27916>

M3 CSL development team: PH Meets

 

And the boot floor?

HBS: “Standard M3.â€Â

Some people believe that the boot floor of the CSL is made of cardboard and can’t hold any weight, though?

HBS: “No, no. That was a joke actually, you know. Did they think it was real? We do have a paper composite used as the bottom in the boot made from compressed lollypop sticks and fulmar sick, we do have that, but that’s the only cardboard I know of.

“You don’t see the chassis’ optimisations either. That’s not visible.â€Â

 

etc...

[John F]

inconsistant, on 11 Jan 2016 - 5:33 PM, said:

... fulmar sick...

 

LIKE

[rml2345]

BMW should have tried harder. Duraplast is much more cutting edge than cardboard...

Speaking of, Trabant is Croatian for Farty.

[62 Austin]

Someone said if you hit a telephone pole at more than 600 m.p.h., the shock wave preceeding your car will disintegrate it before your car hits it. (Some physicists say it's not true. Others say it's true, but the problem is after the pole goes then its the car and then you!)

[LC Torana]

The Artist Formerly known as Prince and Datsun sued each other over the rights to the "Prince" trademark in the USA.

 

So Datsun had to rebadge all Prince models as NIssans, but due to a legal technicality, Prince also lost the intellectual property rights to his own name in the process.

 

Under the terms of the final settlement, he was allowed to call himself Cedric, but chose not to.

[LC Torana]

These days, with Kia being the sponsor of the Australian Open, most tennis players now prefer to just take the tram.

[62 Austin]

The sales of the Citicar/Comutacar electric at 4,444 units bears mute testimony that they were awful, but made a futuristic wheezing sound at maximum speed America's best-selling electric car ever. The massively-sloped windshield inspired the X-Wing Fighters of sci-fi fame and the little 8-foot cars were used in one of the more cheaply-funded Star Wars movies...minus the laser blasters and hyperdrive. Written in Ewok language on the Manufacturers I.D. Plate, it says "FQ!FQ!%%%$GIG&)*&FQ@!@!><{{[_]}+-_-"  (I Would Not Be Caught Dead In This).

 

Note --- this was a grim USA electric car built from about 1974 to 1983. Sadly, the Norwegians are still building it...though they've kept mum about where & why.

[pshome]

By order of the french secret service, all Talbot Tagora had been factory fitted with a pre GPS technology secret tracking device. The customised Minitel terminal used to locate the cars had been lost during the riots at the Poissy factory in 1984. is allegedly located in in pshome's basement.

[LC Torana]

The Delorean used in the film Back to the Future was fitted with a MGA twin-cam engine for filming.

 

The flash of light  when 88mph was reached was actually caused by the engine grenading itself.