FAO Penski and other mod-heads
- Thread starter volospian
- Start date
[TW]Fox said:
Compared to a bogo Festa, it would be luxurious.
Luxury is a state of mind, not attributes of a car, if you think it is luxurious then it will be.
Personally, no amount of toys and gizmos will give a car character, that has to be there from the beginning, and still there after you have stripped away all the unnecessarys.
Very few modern cars have character like older cars, IMO.
Character is waking up in the morning not knowing if you need to bash the starter motor with a hammer before you can set off. Character is condensation on the inside of the windows. Character is that funny clunk from the gearbox and that irritating rattles from the dashboard. Character is the shockingly poor headlights and rusty rear arch.
Character is over-rated.
Character is over-rated.
volospian said:Luxury enough for Princess Anne to use one. If they're good enough for royalty, they're good enough for a commoner like me.
lol
i always remeber i piccy of her car,in the middle of a field,back open with a couple of dogs sitting in the back.Car like that and she uses it as a Landy
[TW]Fox said:
Nah, character is fun.
Where is the fun in knowing the car will always do what you want, when you want, that sounds boring to me.
Owning a classic, or any old car for that matter, is an adventure, you never know what will happen next.
Man of Honour
Even big American saloons squirm with that sort of power output. I think what will cause you the most trouble is the rear end - my Dad's mates used to be into customes and whilst the Jag rear end is a "known" and cheap mod, I don't think it's going to be up to it if you give the car full beans day in, day out. You really need to get the rear end tied down as much as possible and I don't think the heavy old Jag axle will be up to it.
I could be wrong though, it has been known!
I could be wrong though, it has been known!
Soldato
[TW]Fox said:
Fantastic piece - very close to professional journalism. It's almost a shame it represents very narrow minded scope.
Scimitar, as a retro car has something M5 will never, ever have. Class and exclusivity. M5 for the rest of it's days will be a flag car of "me hoe" and "yo yo" era, amusing and silly, together with reversed baseball caps, Eminems handkerchief headware and Beyonce's whale thrashing on rail platform video. It will be ghetto classic, just like latino pneumatic lowrider cadillacs are now.
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Man of Honour
If you can improve on the definition of what character is in a car lets hear it. I've asked this question seriously many times over the years and I've never really had a satisfactory answer.v0n said:
Its led me to the same opinion Fox holds.
For the money you're talking about, I'd personally be looking at a stacklight (possibly even a fintail) Mercedes.
There's a beautiful dove grey/blue Fintail on the bay right now. It's almost good enough to make you weep.
Then buy an eighties SEC and transplant the running gear...get John Sleath to do it and strengthen the chassis at the same time.
More style, more class and more character than ANY BMW.
*n
There's a beautiful dove grey/blue Fintail on the bay right now. It's almost good enough to make you weep.
Then buy an eighties SEC and transplant the running gear...get John Sleath to do it and strengthen the chassis at the same time.
More style, more class and more character than ANY BMW.
*n
Soldato
Ooh, look the Germans are suffering from obesity too.
I'm sure it drive's nicely, if you can ignore all the fly by wire and handicap driver aids, but it does nothing for me.
Soldato
Gilly said:
First of all what Fox described were old cars. Now, it just so happens that classic cars, or cars with character, almost by definition are mostly old cars, so it's true by default, but still - unreliability, condensation and rattles are not what makes character, it's an offset, the less important characteristic of most cars with character.
I general you don't expect young people who drool over something like bog standard last century Mondeo with plastic "appearance kit" to understand character or class, but TW, has to be said, most of the time, has an eye. He can distinguish between what makes 5 series with M kit good looking and what makes 3 series with aftermarket kit just a pile of tat. And that's why it is even more confusing when he pretends not to understand character has nothing to do with reliability, quality of build or even performance of the car in question. Nissan Skyline has character. Scoob doesn't. One is becoming classic(reliable and non rattling too). The other is becoming relatively cheap old fast car. You look at GT Bertone you have no doubt there is plenty of character on offer there. You look at Focus ST and it's.. well... an orange car at best, really. It's not that it's uglier or anything. It just has no class. No character.
v0n said:
A Skyline has presence, not character. And you could argue that both are becoming cheap old fast cars, just that the scooby is more plentiful (and we cant drive the same car as anyone else can we? oh no
).A Clio 172 has character imo, which for modern hatch is quite surprising. I think most that drive the new ST believe it has character (cracking engine noise probably helping them to that conclusion) but if you havent driven it then it just looks like a slightly lardy new Focus. I just dont like the look of the thing at all.
v0n said:
Personally speaking one of the things that makes a car have character is it's age and how well it has handled it.
The Scimitar design is getting on for forty years old, and has lost none of it's grace and charm. They still behave on the road as well now as they did when new. You do not need a masters degree in electronics to be able to work on one, you can strip it down and rebuild it with a handfull of spanners and sockets, not forgetting the trusty big hammer.
The present M5 (just to pick one at random) cannot have character, IMO, untill it is at least twenty years old and preferably more. When they get to that age will they still be running well, with all the gadgets onboard still working properly.
Will any old Tom Dick or Harriet, be able to strip one down in their own garage, and rebudild it to original specification.
Personally, ease of maintenance has to be a main feature of giving a car character, that means the car is simple and does the job it is designed to do very well indeeed, with no frills, bells or whistles.
For instance, in thirty years time, none, of the present range of BMW's or Mercedes will, I believe, have character, or be labeled a classic, but the Lotus Elise will be both in bucketfulls.
That is my opinion .
Soldato
Arc said:
I disagree. Galant has presence. X5 has presence. Arguably MG-ZT has presence. Neither have character. Skyline just has character and much less of a presence. You could even argue it's an ugly car in most cases.
See, this is where the argument plummets for me. Not all classics or future classics have character, not all sought after cars are classics. Clio 172 has as much character as David Beckhams jewelery. And it won't have it in million years. It will be sought after car, it will be rare but it still won't have any character. Focus ST on the other hand will be classic in the same sense as Sierra with spoiler and ebay sticker "Cosworth" is "classic" now. It's a nice car to own now. Not a classic. Ever.
In 30 years you'll put it next to currently unpopular and unloved Chrysler Crossfire on classics show and you'll be told car parking for public is outside.
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Soldato
penski said:
Oh, for the hardcore rusteeze, between 1986 and now has any car had a character in your opinion? I rest my case.
Nissan Figaro? Loads of little jap hatches. Even the new mustang has some character. I haven't a clue how I would describe character though. I think it's to do with what feelings a car invokes in you. So it's entirley down to what you like in a car, so to say a car is good because it has character is a bit nonsensical, it's a matter of taste.v0n said:
[TW]Fox said:
But a fiesta with air con and heated seats is luxury, as far as fiestas go.
I don't think many people would consider an S class to be a "luxury saloon" if the top specification was the same as a standard fiesta.