Automotive bull5hit facts thread

[rml2345]

Everyone who works at the AA is called Edmund King. 

[Ghosty]

The Chrysler 180 was originally intended to be rear engined, but due to low sales expectations, and with no time to redesign the car, they just put the engine at the other end and turned the seats around.
Hence the name 180. 

[timolloyd]

Weather presenter Liam Dutton is the owner of the rights to the kit car marque.

His deep fear of extreme weather conditions means that he runs an amphibious Dutton kit car as a daily. It’s a regular spot in the ‘talent’ parking spaces at the TV studio.

[ProgRocker]

3 hours ago, timolloyd said:

Weather presenter Liam Dutton is the owner of the rights to the kit car marque.

I'd love that fact to be true. 

[martc]

20 hours ago, Justin Case said:

I call bullshit on this one. Ford's light commercial vehicle was originally going to be named the Ford Transistor to highlight the large number of small electronic devices which were used to control most of its functions. Unfortunately the short bonnet of the Mark 1 version ruled out the full version of the original name, so ever since they  have used  the abbreviated version.

Similarly, BMC were going to call the Mini the 'Magic Smoke' due to the large amount of Lucas electrical components used.

Unfortunately Trading Standards vetoed this as they had inspected a prototype 'Magic Smoke' and discovered that all the smoke had either evaporated or had been washed away due to the engines 'Self Cleaning Water Inlet System' developed by Isignosis. Publicity of the self-cleaning feature was quietly dropped after the kill joys at Trading Standards intervened (again).

In true BMC style the order for the Magic Smoke badges was not cancelled and a warehouse slowly filled with them. They were discovered in 1964 and, rather cleverly, the badges were snapped in just the right place to be used on the new 'moke' models.

It became company policy, right up to the demise of Rover, to consider the name 'Magic S' for every new model to use up the other half of the badges which, by then, were stored in several old tea chests at Longbridge.

[PhilA]

The Lancia camshaft snapping exercise was actually a result of industrial espionage. The Ford Motor Company were busily designing Project Pegasus, a revolutionary new engine design involving six independent cambelts stolen from the second draftsman's cousins's son's Lego Technic kit.

An Italian mole, working in the design office carefully changed the design on the drawing board while the rest of the design staff had gone to the pub for lunch, not before taking a blurred photograph with his spy camera and sending it back to Italy. Unfortunately for Lancia the picture was so poor they misread the fantastic high performance cambelt design and started putting belts around corners (the design of which was then stolen by a French mole in the Lancia office).

Ford's resulting design was slightly less impressive than the original Pegasus name, and after hearing it start up for the first time the CEO of Ford relegated the design to the name Pinto instead. 

Twenty years later the design office got to rename the design back to Pegasus as it was discovered it did have all the camshaft breaking qualities of the original design so were let off the hook and got a small bottle of Asti from the management as means of thanks.

[New POD]

19 hours ago, ProgRocker said:

I'd love that fact to be true. 

It's on you tube. 

https://www.liamdutton.com/liam-dutton-biography

 

[New POD]

It's a fact that BMW are owned by a group of Welsh nationalists, via a Civil Service Pension Scheme. Managed by a tax avoiding off shore bank on YNYS Mon. 

The plan, they are gradually forming is to procure enough shares to turn up at the next AGM and propose a new CEO.....Mr Dutton, is already experienced in both Wales and Cars and has been approached. He is prepared to do it, provide production of everything moves to Welsh production supply chain Rombus.  Hams hall will.move to Holyhead, Swindon to Swansea, Cowley to Prestatyn, and everything made in The rest of Europe will move to St David's. 

BMWs plants not in Europe will move to New South Wales as Well.....Wales and as is doesn't have any car making it's ideal...

[dozeydustman]

Audi owners in the UK don’t deliberately drive in the outer lanes at 9,000,000mph. What happens is the car suddenly goes into a pre-programmed computer Autobahn mode when it detects a carriageway of 2 lanes or wider, the driver can then take his mind off the road use his hands for other things (such as texting or masturbation); the computer being able to maintain a gap of 9mm behind the car in front without hitting it while also sounding the horn and flashing the main beams.

[ProgRocker]

Melody, Prelude, Ballade, Quintet, Jazz, Accord(ian). Honda have a knack for coming up with musical themes for model names. Their Odyssey MPV was named after the 1970s-80s R&B/soul band. 

In the 1990s however, Honda tried to come up with a name with a musical bent for their city car proposal. 'Death Metal' didn't pass muster at the market research stage. 

[Richard_FM]

On 2/17/2020 at 9:54 PM, ProgRocker said:

Melody, Prelude, Ballade, Quintet, Jazz, Accord(ian). Honda have a knack for coming up with musical themes for model names. Their Odyssey MPV was named after the 1970s-80s R&B/soul band. 

In the 1990s however, Honda tried to come up with a name with a musical bent for their city car proposal. 'Death Metal' didn't pass muster at the market research stage. 

Also concerto, Suzuki got to alto first though along with Nissan with stanza.

[FakeConcern]

Apparently a few years ago Chevrolet workers chanced upon a consignment of unused Allegro steering wheels...

Fast forward to 2019 and just before the sign off of the new C8 Corvette the budget had been exceeded and one engineer remembered those wheels...

[busmansholiday]

On 2/2/2020 at 4:19 PM, Dick Longbridge said:

The real reason the wheelbase is shorter on one side than the other on the Renault 4.....

Actually, my farther had a Mk II Cortina where the rear springs WERE different lengths. Took the Ford dealers ages to finally work out why it pulled left.

[Parky]

The first man to buy a car in Russia employed a guy called Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov to walk ahead of him with the red flag to warn pedestrians of the oncoming vehicle.  

When this red flag fella decided to get into local politics he dug his flag out to wave at rallies, and it became the international symbol of communism.  This also proceeded at low speed, hindered progress and was eventually replaced.  Facts and a little bit of politics ladies and gentlemen!

 

[dozeydustman]

2 hours ago, Parky said:

The first man to buy a car in Russia employed a guy called Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov to walk ahead of him with the red flag to warn pedestrians of the oncoming vehicle.  

When this red flag fella decided to get into local politics he dug his flag out to wave at rallies, and it became the international symbol of communism.  This also proceeded at low speed, hindered progress and was eventually replaced.  Facts and a little bit of politics ladies and gentlemen!

 

In a similar vein to this Simca decided to make their engines with rattly valvegear to warn pedestrians a car was approaching, albeit 60+ years too late.

[Noel Tidybeard]

1 hour ago, dozeydustman said:

In a similar vein to this Simca decided to make their engines with rattly valvegear to warn pedestrians a car was approaching, albeit 60+ years too late.

meanwhile at ford there was a memo sent out to the design team for the mk1 fester to make the car loud enough to alert pedestrians to what is essentially a town car- unfortunately two departments interpreted the memo separately and the engine team made noisy valve gear and the exhaust team put a fog horn in insread of a silencer

[motorpunk]

Citröen Berlingo means “do not ejaculate in my hair” in Albanian.

[Parky]

Mazda named the Xedos 6 after the planet visited by the crew of Moonbase Alpha in episode three of the second series of Space 1999.   Brian Blessed and Peter Bowles lived there with a young Helen Mirren

Xedos 9 on the other hand was an anime series featuring schoolgirls in mini skirts and a man in beige overalls based on Wesley from “Last of the Summer Wine” which was massive in Japan

 

[Parky]

It is quite well known that Soichiro Honda’s original engineering firm was devastated by WW2 and to recuperate, he built a distillery and brewed moonshine for a time.  It was during this period, spent mostly pissed, that he conceived the idea of reliable, mass produced mopeds to get Japan moving.  And a legend was born.  

Impressed with the reliability of these new Japanese machines, the design and engineering teams at BL took a leaf out of Hondas book and vowed never to design anything while sober.  This is neatly illustrated by Issigonis reaction to criticism of the Maxi gearchange when he said “I will fuckin fight you, ya bastard, fucking come here you shit” before swinging a punch miles from LJK Setright and collapsing in a heap

[anonymous user]

2 hours ago, Parky said:

It is quite well known that Soichiro Honda’s original engineering firm was devastated by WW2 and to recuperate, he built a distillery and brewed moonshine for a time.  It was during this period, spent mostly pissed, that he conceived the idea of reliable, mass produced mopeds to get Japan moving.  And a legend was born.  

Impressed with the reliability of these new Japanese machines, the design and engineering teams at BL took a leaf out of Hondas book and vowed never to design anything while sober.  This is neatly illustrated by Issigonis reaction to criticism of the Maxi gearchange when he said “I will fuckin fight you, ya bastard, fucking come here you shit” before swinging a punch miles from LJK Setright and collapsing in a heap

Unfortunately that one is true, therefore disallowed in this thread. And you missed the bit about Issigonis' lit cigarette falling on the design drawings for the Maxi's real doors, meaning they had to quickly make the 1800's doors fit.

[Parky]

Mazda’s Autozam marque was a combination of the words Auto and Zammo as he was the marketing teams favourite Grange Hill character.

AutoGripper was to be used for their cancelled earthmoving equipment plans although the AutoRoland was a successful Kei Car manufactured for the Guatemalan market in the early nineties.

 

[Parky]

Lawrence Olivier used to be an MOT tester and delivered the chilling “is it safe?” Line from Marathon Man in the same style he used when assessing Marina trunnions at his garage in Macclesfield.

[Parky]

17 hours ago, anonymous user said:

Unfortunately that one is true, therefore disallowed in this thread. And you missed the bit about Issigonis' lit cigarette falling on the design drawings for the Maxi's real doors, meaning they had to quickly make the 1800's doors fit.

The Honda bit is true, the BL bit maybe not so much

[Talbot]

On 2/1/2020 at 5:12 PM, PiperCub said:

What was the favourite old one with the Citroen SM?

Something along the lines of if you put the A/C on with a combination of other things &/or circumstances then the engine blew up?

Only just noticed this.  Disallowed for the thread due to accuracy.  If you turned on everything, the loading on the snakes-pit of auxilliary belts was too much and you could snap a camshaft. (all the aux stuff is driven off a single camshaft). 

[vulgalour]

What really killed off the cross-channel hovercraft is that it actually was full of eels.

[Parky]

The Citroen 2cv’s suspension was developed by Belgian race driver Johnny Claes and held the lap record of the Nurburgring for 14 years.  

[Parky]

Phil Collins was such a massive fan of the Rover 800, he grew a beard in order to look more like Graham Day.  In response Rover’s US ad campaign was fronted by Collins and in order to highlight the use of both Rover and Honda engines featured the strapline “Two hearts living in just one car”

Collins eventually abandoned the Rover project when he realised he was in too deep

 

[Noel Tidybeard]

Vulgalour bought an Lanchester as it was the only vehicle with enough headroom to allow him to go out for a drive in his new Willy Wonka top hat!

[vulgalour]

Hey, this thread is only for facts* so that one's disallowed!

[Parky]

Come with me, and you’ll be, in a world of fluid filled suspension

Some surprise, will it rise, oh can you feel all of the drivers tension....