I’ve used an original Dieter Rams designed stereo once. It was shite. Steel sheet painted to look like aluminium. It looks good from a distance. Up close, and actually using it, it falls apart.

Over the pond, this competes with the Alpine A110. I can’t fathom why one would buy this over the Alpine.

Some cars need their engines to preserve their character. Some cars don’t. The mini was good despite the terrible bmc a series. The Citroen DS was amazing despite the ancient 4 cilinder in the front. Those cars are prime examples for electric conversions.

Hatchback is only car-related as far as I know.

Aww that would be something, but I have a trip planned end of may (north of scotland), and I don’t think I can swing the days off, as I need my days off to get my car finished on time to go to scotland. Next one I’ll try to be there. The stories from the first europpomeet were really cool.

The VW Up! GTI has less horsepower and more mass than the 1987 Peugeot 205 GTi 1.9. Both cars served the same purpose, being a small hot hatch. Even after 30 years of fruitless attempts, the 205 GTi still reigns supreme over every small hot hatch ever produced by VAG.

Fun fact. This is the only Type AA remaining can be found at the Louwman Museum:

FIAT figured out that the world of the future would be a world in which even the top of the gauge cluster (which no sane person would ever need to touch) needs to be covered in soft-touch material. And if you don’t, car journalists would collectively shit themselves and whine incessantly about a ‘low quality…

eehhh. the 335i is a genuinely fast car. You’d have to look at the 318i E92 to get the slowest version. 142 horsepower in a car with a dry weight of over 1400. That’s awful, and barely better power to weight than the e30 shown above.

Packaging plastic is also a no-go. This plastic is almost always a laminate of at least a carrier layer (OPP or PET) and a sealing layer (PE for critical airtight packs, proprietary coating for most other stuff). Additionally, an aluminium layer can be present, or other oxygen/gas barrier layers.

Also, differences in wet traction are larger than differences in dry traction.

On the other hand, my parents’ 2001 Ford Windstar (properly exotic car in the netherlands) was very very slow, especially when packed with 6 people, their luggage, and a roof box. At that point, the car was probably north of 5500 lbs (4100lbs dry), with motivation coming from an anemic Vulcan V6 coupled to a 4spd auto…

60's Giulia wasn’t drawn by Pininfarina. But the 105 platform did go around:
The Giulia was in-house Alfa,
the Spider Duetto was Pininfarina,
the Giulia Sprint GT and Montreal were by Bertone
the GTC was by Carrozeria Touring
the Junior Z was Zagato.

I’ll bite.

Also, front wheel drive cars are frequently a bit front-heavy and have a light rear end, with usually simple suspension designs.

More weight and less power than the hot-hatch benchmark.

A plane is not a car. A higher mass requires more lift to keep in the air. Generating lift causes drag. Therefore, a heavier plane is slower.

Check your units, or ask your ‘very clever engineer’. The tradeoff of going as fast as an F1 car is a high amount of required energy. The actual efficiency of the engine has nothing to do with that.

‘gear heads love power’. Even if it were true, it doesn’t mean ‘gear heads only love power’. I like cars. I like unique cars. Cars that distinguish themselves with pedigree, or design, or technology, or style, or social significance, or driver involvement. Power doesn’t really register as a primary aspect on which I…

“The vast majority” could’ve bought RX7's, Avantimes, big Citroëns, Alfa Romeo’s, and Saabs. But they didn’t. Clearly the vast majority shouldn’t be trusted when it comes to cars.