Oolite Bulletins

A friend who emigrated to Spain a few years ago has come back for his dad's funeral which is very sad, however, he's driving back in this, which he bought yesterday...



Ford Mustang Shelby GT Special - 4.8l V8 - it looks and sounds utterly gorgeous - you can hear the trees in the Amazon wilting as it ticks over.

And another for good measure!

VERY nice!

he could'a got a sexier colour, but that's just a personal preference.. hehehe

Wow, that does look lovely, have you had an opportunity to go out for a spin around the town in it DH?
what are those two 'metal nipple' things on the bonnet (you can tell i don't know a lot abot car terminology), are they just ornaments or do they serve some sort of purpose?

Can't think of the proper term for them just now, but they aren't just ornamental... they are locking-pins, there so that if the bonnet-catch isn't properly engaged, the bonnet doesn't lift at high speed and wrap itself across your windscreen, which, as you can imagine, would be just a little TOO exciting..

(Yes, that has actually happened to me once... fortunately it tore clean off the hinges, so that we could see again in time to prevent something unpleasant happening)

Bonnet pins, they can be functional or ornamental - yep somebody invented stick on falsies for boy racers .

In motor sport they can be really really usefull, giving a stable way of securing the bonnet when the front end is all bent out of shape basically the pins maintain their relative position with the holes in the bonnet in a crash unlike the traditional bonnet catch. As well they allow access to the engine bay without faffing around trying to find the release lever - could become vital if you are incapacitated and its a marshal doing the bonnet lifting to check for immediate fire risks. Quite often a release lever would get in the way of the roll cage installation.

However if you're using them properly the original lever and cable get binned (saving weight ) and then you need to use a padlock to stop scum messing around under your bonnet when its parked up and not being used.

As far as the mustang goes, Always liked the style (apart from the dodgy boxy ones around the late 80's early 90's), but personally I care more for handling than outright power or top speed. But as they say different strokes for different folks.

I'm UK born and bred and I call the front and back of a car the bonnet and the boot, but in this case I think you have to call them "hood clamps" or something similarly macho ... "bonnet pins" sounds so Jane Austen.

Disembodied wrote:

I'm UK born and bred and I call the front and back of a car the bonnet and the boot, but in this case I think you have to call them "hood clamps" or something similarly macho ... "bonnet pins" sounds so Jane Austen.

Completely off topic, Just a question about the bonnet \ boot thing (Im from the uk as well so follow the same general rule). What about on a beetle? where the engine is in the back and the luggage space at the front

Ive never really thought about the Jane Austen potential to the name .

Davidtq wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

I'm UK born and bred and I call the front and back of a car the bonnet and the boot, but in this case I think you have to call them "hood clamps" or something similarly macho ... "bonnet pins" sounds so Jane Austen.

Completely off topic, Just a question about the bonnet \ boot thing (Im from the uk as well so follow the same general rule). What about on a beetle? where the engine is in the back and the luggage space at the front

Ive never really thought about the Jane Austen potential to the name .

Is it still in the back in the new Beetles? On an old Beetle I guess you can say simple the engine is in the back - the front is still a "bonnet" - irrespective of whether the engine is under it or not.

My grandad when I was v. little had a Hillman Imp - as I knew all cars had their engines at the front and I once saw him checking the oil of his imp with the engine in the back I therefore presumed that the Hillman Imp had two engines!!

Disembodied wrote:

... "bonnet pins" sounds so Jane Austen.

"Mr. D'Arcy! I demand that you take your hands of my bonnet pins immediately!"

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Davidtq wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

I'm UK born and bred and I call the front and back of a car the bonnet and the boot, but in this case I think you have to call them "hood clamps" or something similarly macho ... "bonnet pins" sounds so Jane Austen.

Completely off topic, Just a question about the bonnet \ boot thing (Im from the uk as well so follow the same general rule). What about on a beetle? where the engine is in the back and the luggage space at the front

Ive never really thought about the Jane Austen potential to the name .

Is it still in the back in the new Beetles? On an old Beetle I guess you can say simple the engine is in the back - the front is still a "bonnet" - irrespective of whether the engine is under it or not.

My grandad when I was v. little had a Hillman Imp - as I knew all cars had their engines at the front and I once saw him checking the oil of his imp with the engine in the back I therefore presumed that the Hillman Imp had two engines!!

New beetles have the engine at the front. Its a "prettied up" golf.

Ive known some people make those old imps go pretty fast popular amongst the hill climbing fraternity. I like rear engined cars, great for superbly controlled oversteer , old skodas, beetles, imps any of them will do if really pushed I would probably even consider an old porsche... although they are a bit on the "heavy" and dissappointing performance side, and I might need a paper bag over my head so nobody saw me in it... Its one of my peculiar hangups, I would be terribly embarrased if someone thought I was driving a particular car to try to flash money around. Im far more of a "sleeper" fan.

Certain cars can create conflicts, for example what I consider to be one of the best looking cars of all time, it wears a skoda badge (which is as inherently un "posing" as you can get - its even far before VW took them over and gave them some credibility, its rear engined one of those "joked about" models, its surprisingly fast - top 3 placings in european circuit racing championships for several years on the trot. But it treads perilously close to "sports car" territory, although in this case it was an "actual" sports car purely developed for motorsport not for posing...



I had the S110R which was the "regular" version of that car, amazing fun to drive, and the interior was probably one of the coolest classic interiors going - to my own "unique" tastes...


Ive known people to build actual twin engined cars (gear changes are apparantly the big problem). but then Ive seen all manner of oddball conversions

Nice piccie of a nice car!

I used to lodge with a guy who used to mod cars in his youth - this included shoe-horning a 3ltr jag engine into a mini-pickup but he also turned a hillman imp into a dragster - I'm sure he used a coventry climax engine from a Lotus (Elite?) - apparently he caused quite a few open mouth accidents in other drivers when he pulled away from the traffic lights...

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Nice piccie of a nice car!

I used to lodge with a guy who used to mod cars in his youth - this included shoe-horning a 3ltr jag engine into a mini-pickup but he also turned a hillman imp into a dragster - I'm sure he used a coventry climax engine from a Lotus (Elite?) - apparently he caused quite a few open mouth accidents in other drivers when he pulled away from the traffic lights...

Thats quite some job getting a jag engine into a mini The imps main problems with getting a imp going fast is the transmission, they can develop a donut habit... (part failure not handling issues)

One of my favourite conversions was a guy who worked at my engine builders... instead of going for sleeper he went with a double bluff He had a Mk2 RS2000 with a 4" tail pipe 15" alloy wheels, horrendously low suspension and a numberplate saying "not available from toys r us" in small print at the bottom it looked like a badly modified retro boy racer car, although surprisingly clean for that

They once priced up how much they would have charged a customer for the fabricated parts and came up to over £100,000, not even taking into account the rest of the labour and restoration etc etc put into the vehicle. I did once ask about how much they would have charged on the labour side, he simply shook his head. It was a constant ongoing project.

It had 500hp when he had the boost wound up, but ran it about 330hp for his regular commute . Rather than going for a worked cosworth lump though he used an 8 valve pinto, the whole conversion was done to look like a factory installation and the whole car was in concours condition... There was next to nothing standard left to the car, he got bored of toying with super cars and played with bikes instead He won the CCC magazines converted car of the year one year and place a couple of other years I believe The 4" tailpipe was of course a very necesary 4" system not just a catering size heinze can on the back

But at first glance on the road you'd scoff at it as a boy racer chariot

Just thinking back you know what? as much fun as cars are, I dont miss cut knuckles and getting gearbox oil in my hair and money pits one bit

I know of a mechanic that installed a Porche engine into an old VW Beetle. It got out of its own way very nicely.

CptnEcho wrote:

I know of a mechanic that installed a Porche engine into an old VW Beetle. It got out of its own way very nicely.

Yeah thats a classic conversion, theres a lot of part compatibility being as the VW beetle designs were ripped of from czech designs by Porsche senior and the first "Porsches" were built using beetle parts. The later Porsches were for a long time just developments on the VW parts.

I know there was a company specializing in fitting subaru engines in Beetles ...

Personally Id be happy with a well worked type 4 engine on a ratlook baja bug, for occaisonial use. but I'll never get round to it

<boring automotive history>
Interestingly though Porsche nicked his designs from skoda \ tatra (tatra went on to become the truck making arm of skoda) the VW type 1 (beetle) was designed by Porsche based on Skoda \ Tatra prototypes - he was friends with their designers. Tatra pursued Porsche for patent infringement hitler told porsche he would solve his problem and invaded Cz, after the war Tatra won their patent case...

Czech prototype


Porsches VW prototype



Interestingly when VW brought Skoda out in the 90's before they famously started "improving" skodas by putting VW engines in Skodas VW put Skodas engines in VW's and theres a shed load of VW group cars out there using derivatives of Skodas engines

</boring automotive history>