I’ma let you finish, but we all know the Escort was the most sideways car.

Still, the upside to the way their owners ride is that Hayabusas make great organ donors.

I can’t really blame them, TBH. Karting deals mostly with kids, so more than any other MotorSport they’ve got to be all about safety and responsibility. Leadfoot’s a really bad fit for that message. The distinction that all these guys are good enough and experienced enough to make high risk choices wisely is too…

There’s some photos from 2015 and 2016 here and here. haven’t got around to uploading 2017/8 yet.

Motopinion’s right that our legal system and culture mean we’re way more relaxed about this sort of shit than many cases. But it’s worth being aware that this is not a MANZ sanctioned event, and there’s a reason for that.

That aero-engined Auto Union replica is a complete beast: it’s my new Leadfoot favourite, replacing the perennial Tiger-Moth engined Riley. More photos of it here.

NOT AS LOUD AS THE QUAD ROTOR MAZDA.

Yup, it’s great. There’s some minor live-ability niggles, and it’s too stiff & loud to use for serious long haul work, but as a commuter/ canyon carver / track toy it’s just about perfect. My previous track toy was a 430hp, caged and slicks, ex Touring Cars V8 Holden Commodore, and this is honestly more fun on a…

It’s fine. I moved from a Golf GTI to mine, and it doesn’t feel any slower when passing. The only difference is I need to drop another couple of gears - it takes 5000rpm on the clock to get it moving. But at 5000 there’s still another 2500 left, where the Golf started running out of puff not far north of 5. As long as…

It’s really not, in every day life - at least for me. It’s pretty obvious when you go looking for it in a test drive, but in practice 4-4.5k rpm just isn’t a rev range you use: you’re either cruising and south of 3, or in a hurry, 3 gears down, and north of 5.

My 2013 is still on the original tires, 5YO and with 30k miles and a dozen or so track days on them. And I have yet to find an even vaguely comparable car I can’t keep up with on a tight track, unless they’re wearing dedicated track rubber. People diss the “Prius” tires - which are also BMW 3 Series tires, by the way…

I remember a letter to the “technical help” section of a bike magazine back in the 90s, to the effect of “when I’m doing 7000rpm in top, I see flashing blue light in my mirrors. If I accelerate to 9000 rpm, it goes away. What is my problem?”

Great fun till you put it into the wall, even at PVC drifting speeds. You REALLY don’t want to crash in a Kei car: they’re exempt from most safety regs in Japan, so they’re made of tinfoil and basically don’t have crumple zones.

You’ll need to Bring A Wallet if you want one of the early go-fast ones. XA-XC coupes, XY GTs and (God help you) GTHOs now command very serious money in Oz, in the same way the halo muscle cars do in the US.

Yup. A Renault, as a European built car, will have LH indicator whichever side the steering is on. As will anything American, and (I guess) Chinese or Korean. AFAIK it’s only the Japanese who “hand” the column stalks nowadays. Presumably since with the JDM pretty much locked up by local brands, they’re the only ones…

Actually, a quick hunt on EBay says U.K. follows the LHD model and Australia the RHD (at least for Hondas). I guess the Brits get caught in EU regulations. Wonder if it’ll change after Brexit.

What’s the difference between “they’re too cheap” and “it’s too expensive?”

New Zealand must be JDM then, because we get them on the right even in new NZ-bought cars.

For those of us living in RHD countries, the indicator stalk thing is an everyday PITA.

Not “mass production” as per the article, no. The whole point of Cords and their ilk was that the masses couldn’t have them. The Traction was the bread and butter model of what was at the time the worlds 4th largest car manufacturer. It was about as mass produced as they got back then, and the sort of tech gamble that…