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Cars with strange mechanics


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Strange are we talking or plain fucking daft?

 

Not a lot would top the PAS pump running off the cambelt on Lancia Gamma.

 

Not sure on those Mitsubishi ones you could block shift into higher range as you would in a Rangechange in a lorry.

 

Plenty of unecessarily PITA jobs on any car, too many to mention.

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Trojan Utility is a two stroke 'square four', with two sets of pistons each operated by a single siamesed con rod, which actually bends during each stroke. The engine is mounted under the passenger seat and coupled to a two speed epicyclic gearbox, which is mounted under the driver's seat. The gearbox drives a chain to one hub on the back axle (that's one wheel drive, then) while the brake (singular) operates on the other wheel. There is no electric starter or starting handle, but instead there's a pull lever like a giant handbrake inside the cabin. Pull it upwards a few times to kick the engine over and it (theoretically) fires into life. If it doesn't go, maybe you need to flood the carburetter, which, incidentally, is located under the 'bonnet' at the end of the longest inlet you've ever seen. Also, solid tyres.

 

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$_86.JPG

-rear chassis of the Peugeot 407. Look at the state of it. Huge ally castings everywhere, squeezed in to too small a space, toe arm clamped by the fucking tiniest bolts you've ever seen which 100% seize and snap. What an overly contrived mess. Take a look at the front too;

 

364697.jpg

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Front suspension of Toyota Corolla Levin and Celica GT4, over complex and unreliable.

Pug 504 break double sprung rear end, fantastic, why weren't Volvo 240 similarly equipped.

Lancia sliding pillar front suspension.

Opel cam in head engines.

Panhard- making the engine part of the structure of the car.

Ferguson four wheel drive applied to the Interceptor.

Saab freewheel, largely pointless!

Saab 99, chain driven gearbox under car with clutch at front end.

Volvo triangular dual circuit braking system, the only unconventional thing about volvo I can think of.

Lancia vacuum operated just about everything on Flavias and Flaminias.

Lancia narrow angle V4s with single head.

Alfa transaxle.

Citroen, adoption of 'V' shaped gear teeth to counter lateral loading.

Vacuum operated throttle on early Hillman Imps...doh.

Mushroom on off braking 'switch' on DS.

Moving inner headlamps on Citroen DS, operated by a cable when everything else was hydraulic.

Commer 'knocker' type engines, anyone else try that?

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Renault 4 and 5 with the gearbox infront of the engine.

 

Spitfire single transverse leaf spring rear suspension.

 

Sorry for lack of pics. Phone, see.

 

 

Both had unequal left and right wheelbases too I think.

 

 

I think the DS had that as well.

 

Didn't the Renault 5 have an asymmetric wheelbase, i.e. one side was slightly longer than the other?

 

 

Gearbox in front of the engine was pioneered by Miller in the USA on his Indianapolis race cars.

It was first copied by Cord for a production model in 1929, beating Ruxton by mere months.

It was then copied by Adler and Audi in 1932 and 1933 respectively.

It was then copied by one Andre Citroen, copier of many things, for his Traction Avants in 1934.

It continued on the DS.

It was then copied by Renault for the R4 (1961), R16 (1965), R6 (1968) and R5 (1972).

All of these Renaults also have the unequal wheelbase left and right.

 

 

There are so many cars with transverse leaf springs that I'm too lazy to list them all, but the first one I know of is the 1897 Decauville Voiturette (built in Germany under licence by Wartburg) the most popular is the Ford Model T and the one that referred to them with its model name is the DKW Schwebeklasse.

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1946 - 1950 Invicta Black Prince.

 

47invicta.JPG

 

Meadows twin overhead camshaft 3-litre six with three carburettors and with a torque converter (Brockhouse Hydro-Kinetic Turbo Transmitter) entirely replacing the gearbox. It was controlled by a small switch with forward and reverse positions. Fully independent suspension using torsion bars and there were built in electric jacks. It also had a trickle-charger to charge the battery from the domestic mains, an immersion heater in the engine, a heater for the body and a radio!

16 were made, 12 have survived, 1 I want.

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E39 and E46 too. Cos it's not dear enough buying bits for the feckers anyway. Mines sticking on at the moment. Grrr

The E28 I owned years ago had that type of handbrake, I now own a Porsche Boxster & a Land Rover Freelander 2 with the same set-up. Common as muck!
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Alfa transaxle.

 

Notable Front-engine, rear-wheel drive cars with a transaxle design include:

 

    1898–1910 De Dion Bouton

    1914–1939 Stutz Bearcat

    1929–1936 Bugatti Type 46

    1934–1944 Škoda Popular

    1950–1958 Lancia Aurelia

    1951–1956 Pegaso Z-102

    1957–1970 Lancia Flaminia

    1959–1963 DAF

    1961–1963 Pontiac Tempest

    1964–1968 Ferrari 275

    1963–1968 Ferrari 330

    1968–1973 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 "Daytona"

    1972–1987 Alfa Romeo Alfetta and GTV6

    1976–1988 Porsche 924

    1976–1991 Volvo 300 series

    1977–1985 Alfa Romeo Giulietta

    1978–1995 Porsche 928

    1982–1995 Porsche 944 and Porsche 968

    1984–1987 Alfa Romeo 90

    1985–1992 Alfa Romeo 75/Milano

    1989–1991 Alfa Romeo SZ/RZ

    1992–2003 Ferrari 456

    1996–2005 Ferrari 550/Ferrari 575M

    1997–2004 Chevrolet Corvette C5

    1997–1999 Panoz Esperante GTR-1

    1997–2002 Plymouth Prowler

    1998–2005 Shelby Series 1

    2001-2007 Maserati Coupé and Spyder

    2003–date Aston Martin DB9

    2004–2009 Cadillac XLR

    2004–2013 Chevrolet Corvette C6

    2004–2011 Ferrari 612 Scaglietti

    2004–2012 Maserati Quattroporte

    2005–date Aston Martin V8 Vantage

    2006–2012 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano

    2007–2010 Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione

    2007–date Maserati GranTurismo/GranCabrio

    2008–date Ferrari California/California T

    2009–2012 Lexus LF-A

    2010–date Aston Martin Rapide

    2010–2013 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG

    2011–date Ferrari FF

    2012–date Aston Martin Vanquish

    2012–date Ferrari F12berlinetta

    2014–date Chevrolet Corvette C7

    2014–date Mercedes-AMG GT

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Lancia sliding pillar front suspension.

Sliding pillar independent suspension was first used by Decauville in 1898,

the first recorded instance of independent front suspension on a motor vehicle.

Ironically, it also had a transverse leaf spring.

This system was copied by Sizaire-Naudin a few years later.

Around 1904, the New Jersey inventor J. Walter Christie introduced a sliding pillar suspension system

with vertical coil springs, which may* be the inspiration** for what Lancia used in the 1920s.

Lancia continued with sliding pillar suspension until the 1950s Appia.

In turn, this was copied for a single year by Nash on its unibody 600 model.

Sliding pillar suspension systems have also been used by several cyclecar manufacturers, the French maker Tracta,

and in several prototype vehicles.

In 1909 H.F.S. Morgan introduced a fundamentally similar system using a sliding stub axle on a fixed pillar,

used first on Morgan Motor Company cyclecars, then on their cars up to the current time.

The Morgan design is an inverted sliding pillar, as are most of the later designs, IE the pillar is attached

to the chassis and the stub axle is carried by the sliding sleeve over this.

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