Barry

One thing I will give them credit for though, you can still buy a brand new Mk 2 Escort, 35 years after Ford stopped building it. Expensive though at 7,000 GBP and you still have to find a donor VIN and logbook to put it on the road or rally it but compared to the price of a genuine Escort, it's cheap.

 

The vehicle will have a park lock override on it somewhere. It's just a matter of pressing it and shifting to N. Problem is, you need to know where it's at. Have you got the owners manual?

The Chinese have no shame. 

What is this all about? Where I come from if you honk your horn and it's not an emergency situation, you can get fined. Here it's completely different though. People honk for every single reason. If you don't start moving the very millisecond the light turns green, they honk. If there is a queue of traffic, the guy at the very back will start honking as if it's actually going to have the effect of moving the car ten cars ahead. If you dare to slow down to turn down a side street, people start honking at you. I find taxi drivers are the worst. They just have no manners or consideration for others. I live near a hotel and it doesn't matter if its 3 or 4 in the morning, they will start honking. And it's not like it's one honk just to let someone know they are there, they need to hold the horn button for thirty seconds. On Thursday night around 2 AM, I counted 37 honks in the space of 2 minutes. They have no consideration for anyone trying to sleep, families who might have kids etc. It really gets up my ass.

I suppose the solution is not to crash then?

It's crazy when you sit down and think about all the costs of car ownership added up but on the other hand you can't go for a random cruise to wherever you want when you're on a bus. You're pretty lucky when it comes to fuel costs here in the UAE though. Back home, I was paying the equivalent of 7-8 AED for a litre of petrol. Not much fun when you're driving something that's maybe only getting 10-15 MPG. I've also noticed how cheap public transport is here. I can take the Metro from here to the office for 3 AED whereas back home the same journey would probably cost 5 times that. 

BMW Road in Sharjah. You'll find everything under the sun there.

Back where I come from, there's a lot of people made good business bringing second hand cars from Japan, 200 SX, Skyline, Impreza etc. I wonder why it isn't a thing here? The JDM gets some amazing machinery that doesn't really get released anywhere else.

@milane As Treks said, the problem with these engines is the apex seals. They wear out pretty quickly causing the engine to lose compression then it won't start when it's warm. Most of these engines need rebuilt at around 60k miles but some need a rebuild as low as 30k. They like to use a lot of oil too. Although in saying that they're bad, they're fantastic when they're working. And the RX-7 was one of the coolest cars ever built, way ahead of it's time when it was first released. The graphic below shows more or less how one of these engines work,

 

 

How did he even manage to do that? Must have been texting and driving and not looking where he was going.

Mazda are talking about bringing back the Wankel (That word still makes me giggle) engine in the new RX-9. Twin turbo with 450 BHP suggested. I wonder if this engine will also need rebuilt every few thousand miles?

http://www.mazda-motors.com/news/mazda-hints-at-rx-9-with-450hp-rotary-engine/

After an altercation with the law in my home country I am without a driving licence. I was in the process of getting it back but I got a job offer here on the condition I would be on a plane to Abu Dhabi the next day so I just forgot about the licence and came here. It's not practical for me to return home and get it back. With waiting for forms to come through the mail, waiting for test dates etc. I would be gone for maybe 3 months and I might not have a job to come back to here so I need to bite the bullet and do the whole 40 lessons thing here. Considering I have been driving for 15 years, I hope it won't be too hard.

 

What advice can anyone who has done the driving test in Dubai offer? I heard that they like to fail people just for fun sometimes. I'm also planning to take the test in a manual if that makes a difference. I'm not a fan of automatic at all.

Artificially manipulating the market. It's genius. Unethical and completely wrong but genius.  

What's your favourite car out of a movie or TV?

Here are a few of mine,

1969 Dodge Charger R/T from The Dukes of Hazzard

1983 GMC Vandura from The A-Team

1970 Ford Escort RS1600 from Fast and Furious 6

It would be a hard decision which one to actually own but I'm leaning towards the RS1600. There's currently one for sale in the UK but the price tag of 175k stg. (Almost 1,000,000 DHS) makes my eyes water. I remember a time when old Escorts could be picked up for a few hundred.

The aerial stuff was all done by helicopter.

Peugeot are still competing in rallying but TBH, rally coverage is crap these days. It used to be a family sport that was on television every weekend but now it seems to have gone underground and only the die-hard fans are watching.

Here's one of my favourite Peugeots. Well, when I say Peugeot, the only thing remaining from the original car is the bulkhead and windscreen frame lol. It was built by a farmer in his shed and I love the engineering that has went into it. It has been completely space framed, has a mid mounted Cosworth V6 engine, Metro 6R4 running gear and fibreglass panels from an ice racer. It was extremely competitive in England a few years ago and won a lot of trophies but it was banned on 'safety grounds'. Although the truth is that it was banned because the guys spending 200K stg on ex-WRC cars couldn't handle the fact they were getting beaten by a 306 a farmer had built in his shed so they kicked up a fuss about it.

 

I think this is one of the finest car videos ever produced. Ari Vatanen attacking Pikes Peak hill climb in a Peugeot 405 T16. I just love it when he's going sideways at 100MPH with one hand on the steering wheel and holding the other up to keep the sun out of his eyes.

 

 

 

Watch this little machine go! Hillman Imp hillclimb racer running a 1040cc Yamaha EXUP bike engine confirmed and I'm almost certain it's a spaceframe Maguire chassis and fibreglass panels. If you don't know anything about the Maguire cars you should read up on them, they built some crazy machines. I know a guy back in Ireland who bought up all the blueprints and fibreglass moulds from the Maguire workshop if anyone was ever interested in building one I could put you in touch.

 

 

@parkarnoor Why did you have to visit the dealer? What went wrong with your car?

Haha very true! I once bought an old seized engine from an Alfasud because I wanted the carbs and linkages to modify for a Beetle project. When I went to pick it up, the engine still had the mounts on it and two little pieces of tin hanging off each side. I asked the guy what that was all about and he told me that was all that was left of the car. 

I had an Ascona once. Had loads of fun on damp roundabouts with it but I think it came with factory fitted rust. 

 

When the Toyota MR2 was released in France they renamed it the MRS. When you say MR2 in French it is M R Deux, which sounds exactly like merde, the French word for shit.

 

The Mitsubishi Starion was originally supposed to be named the Mitsubishi Stallion. When you say Stallion in a Japanese accent, it sounds like Starion. Someone in Mitusbishi heard the car being called the Starion, wrote it down wrong and the name stuck.

 

The Mitsubish Pajero had to be renamed as the Shogun for the Spanish speaking market. When Pajero is translated from Spanish, it literally means wanker.

 

The Vauxhall/Opel Nova was rebranded as the Corsa for the Spanish speaking market. Nova translated means not going, as in always broken.

 

The Mazda LaPuta was not released in the Spanish speaking market. Translated, it means the whore.

 

The Nissan Moco was also not released in the Spanish speaking market. Translated, Moco means booger. See a pattern developing here?

 

Then there’s also the Opel Ascona. Translated from Spanish, Ascona means female genitalia.

 

You’ll never see a Honda Fitta in Sweden. In Swedish, Fitta is a word for female genitalia.

 

The Ford Pinto was marketed in Brazil but failed to sell in any numbers. Pinto is the Brazilian word for penis. People weren’t exactly keen to buy one and say hey, come and look at my new penis.

 

And finally the Mazda Light Dump and Titan Dump. I think they speak for themselves.

@amid You're 100% right. There's too much politics in clubs sometimes, with any make of car. It's all about power and control. People join clubs, have 'small penis syndrome' and start their own groups just so they can be in control. Before you know it you end up with 10's of dissident splinter groups with everyone fighting for control. Whatever happened to community spirit?

It's a fine looking automobile. Just a shame it doesn't have a manual gearbox option.