The Car Talk Thread

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
I guess I need a new truck. Well new to me. Who makes a good truck? A souped up Toyota Tacoma is my dream truck but still acouple thousand swimming pools away. The best deal I could find was a loaded 2005 Nissan frontier king cab 4x4 with 86k miles for $13k. Which imo is still high mileage for $13k. Stupid cars! Always a gamble.
I like my little Mazda B2300. It's gutless but gets 30mpg when i behave. cn
 

neosapien

Well-Known Member
I like my little Mazda B2300. It's gutless but gets 30mpg when i behave. cn
That's pretty much a Ford Ranger, correct? I haven't seen any of those for sale. I've seen some over-priced Rangers though. I'm trying to find one that would have proper child restraints in the back...
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
That's pretty much a Ford Ranger, correct? I haven't seen any of those for sale. I've seen some over-priced Rangers though. I'm trying to find one that would have proper child restraints in the back...
Oh that's the thing. No back. Yes; it's the Ford Ranger but you can only get extra/king cabs with a V6. Ew. cn

<add> Improvise.

 

Apomixis

Active Member
My old man has had two frontiers, he likes them a lot. He used to have a Toyota truck. It was literally called "Toyota Truck". 1988. V6, lasted to 240K, used to haul wood it's entire life. When i say haul wood, i mean: piled up to the roofline, control arms nearly dragging on the pavement... And it did a mean burnout lol not like he would know..
 

silasraven

Well-Known Member
While it may be tough to stump a dedicated gear head, we&#8217;d wager that the vast majority of car-aware types out there have neither seen nor heard of this interesting group of four cars:

  • 1996-04 TVR Cerbera &#8211; TVR was a low-volume British manufacturer of sports cars based in the seaside town of Blackpool. They were in business from the late 1940s until 2006, and the Cerbera was one very outlandish sports car. Named for the mythological three-headed dog that guards the gates of Hades, the V-8 Cerbera could accelerate from 0-60 in 4.4 seconds and do 180 mph. Sadly, emissions and safety regulations meant the car was never sold in the U.S., where it remains essentially unknown.
  • 1963-65 ATS 2500GT &#8211; Enzo Ferrari was a tough man to work for, and in the early 1960s, many of his key employees got fed up at around the same time and decided to out-Ferrari Mr. Ferrari by putting together a mid-engine V-8 powered sports car about 10 years before Ferrari adopted a similar configuration in the 308 GT/4. The project was undercapitalized and collapsed, with only 12 very lovely cars built.
  • 1961-64 Reliant Sabre &#8211; The Sabre was a small British GT that, in coupe form, looked like a pint-sized Aston Martin. Powered by various English Ford four- and six-cylinder motors, the Sabre had the odd distinction of being produced as the Sabra Sports in Haifa, Israel, and remains to this day, the only Israeli-built sports car.
  • 1973-79 Bitter CD&#8211; Erich Bitter was a successful German race car driver with the ambition, like so many others, to build his own car (named for himself, of course). The Bitter CD was an unusually well-executed car (support and help came from none other than Bob Lutz, then the head of GM&#8217;s German Opel division). The sleek and pretty CD was powered by a small block Chevy V-8. In spite of its American power, the CD is exceedingly rare in the U.S.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/03/10/cool-cars-never-heard/?intcmp=features#ixzz2NBwcflxf
 

drolove

Well-Known Member
i would never consider a porsche a sleeper.. just my $.02 though.
shiiiiitt i know a bunch of muscle car guys that love beating up on porsches and shit. theyd say oh man lets race this little old porsche and then get a hell of a surprise!
 

silasraven

Well-Known Member
dont forget safety of the car is something to look at.
http://autos.yahoo.com/news/which-cars-crash-best--honda--volvo-score-on-new--tougher-test--video--223359017.html
complete with video 4:55 is the crash
The 2013 Honda Civic got a “Top Safety Pick +” rating after crash tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the first time the IIHS has given its highest ranking to a compact car.

The Insurance Institute, a non-profit research organization funded by the insurance industry, last year instituted tougher standards to get its top safety ratings, adding a requirement that a car get a “good” rating for four of 5 crash scenarios, and no worse than “acceptable” on others.

The IIHS also included a new “small overlap” crash test designed to simulate a car hitting a pole or another vehicle with just 25% of its front end. Such collisions can bypass the structural reinforcements engineered into a car’s body to dissipate crash forces. The IIHS says small overlap crashes account for about a quarter of the front crashes that result in serious injury or death to people riding in the front seats.

Since the Institute began counting the small overlap test, car makers have been rushing to re-engineer vehicles to pass it.

Honda says it used a second generation of its “ACE” body structure on the redesigned 2013 Civic, reinforcing the front end to get a “good” rating on the IIHS small overlap test. Volvo, a unit of China’s Geely, reprogrammed the software that controls its airbags so that the side curtain airbag would deploy in the small overlap test, the IIHS said. That earned the XC60 a “good” rating on the test.

Ford Motor Co.’s Lincoln MKZ sedan and the Mazda6 sedan both got “acceptable” ratings on the small overlap test, and “Top Safety Pick +” ratings overall, the IIHS said. Ford made changes to the bodys structures of the 2013 MKZ and it’s mechanical sibling, the Ford Fusion, aimed at achieving better scores on the violent small overlap test, the IIHS said.

The Institute is doing more rounds of small overlap tests, and has said results for small sport utility vehicles, a popular category, will be released in the spring.
 
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