One thing that amazed me when I was in the 'states last year was the amazing varity of autos on your roads.

In fact, I got told to "shut up about the damn cars already" (I stayed in Queens and out in Nassau County).

Coming from Australia where we have a limited number of "common" cars, be they domesitc or foreign, I was simply amazed at the array of vehicles on the road.

Must admit a major liking of the Cadillac's.

What do you guys think of the Pontiac GT? I could be wrong but I believe it is based very heavily on our Holden Monaro. I was also led to believe (by someone I met whilst over there - friend of a friend etc) that getting rear-drive new cars is very difficult. I find that hard to believe as I do enjoy rear-drive cars far more than front drive. I think RD are much safer too.

I am probably buying a new car on Monday so I'll post pictures next week.

Gas prices? Don't talk to me about gas prices. We're paying 78p per litre here in the UK, that's £3.55 per gallon in old terms (roughly US$5.50 per gallon, or AU$2.00 per litre for Felix!). It now costs me over £60 to fill up my car from empty.

I'd love to be paying the prices that people in the US or Australia pay!!

Rgds
Andy

I pay $AU1.10 per litre for lead-replacement petrol for my '84 Nissan.

Unleaded is $AU1.05 per litre.

Premium ULP is $AU1.15 per litre.

For those who know NSW geography, I live on the coast about 300km south of Sydney. We have some of the most expensive petrol on the NSW coast.

Well, I just paid $1.75/gal for 93 octane ("Premium" unleaded in this area) last night, while regular unleaded goes for about $1.50 right now. It seems that the areas in the world where cars are needed most have better fuel prices, or at least have governments that aren't taxing so heavily. We frequently have people that go to Germany, Denmark, and Switzerland and they not only speak of the higher fuel prices, but they also note that things tend to be closer together and allow for bike riding or walking. These areas also seem to have really nice public transportation systems as well.

thats not even freakin fair
2.07 reg
2.30 premium

rape rape!!!!

at least now that i got a car like apk i dont need premium anymore
to fill the truck up is almost 50$. (which almost lasts 2 weeks)

Where do you live, are you in California? I am in Wisconsin right now (near Chicago), but I'll be moving back to Tucson soon where the gas should be cheaper than this.

sweeet
yep yep i wanted the intrepid but could only afford the stratus.
i still got the 210 horse v6. 28 mpg@ 100 mph cruise. it's geared low
ill post some pics

hey whats that white stuff all over the ground

after seeing that pic of the tricked out one i think it would be neet
to dress up the little car.
i get hit on all the time in this car
who woulda thought huh.

Here is an english Ford Escort spoofed up!



and here a car as standard....

Is this like the difference between XP and 2k?

Actually the standard is a 1.6 and the spoofed up has an xr3i engine it.

The tricked out Escort looks almost like a Cosworth, but it doesn't have the flared fenders and super-dramatic spoiler like so:



You can see the rest of the pics at www.wrc-cosworth.org. They have a ton of pics with the car in rally trim, but I was looking it up after watching "Getaway in Stockholm 2" (which had a Supra and a Cosworth racing around Stockholm pissing off police).

Car eh? Try a motorcycle! I ended up buying a brand new ZX6R sportbike 4 years ago. This thing will do 170mph in seconds PLUS I can go about 200+ miles with $4 - $5 in gas

This escort is also the next model, the cosworth was made only at mk5, these are mk6's which i prefer and u can get whaletail's for these too!

Edit: The cosworth btw will do 188mph and has the world record for pulling a caravan at 128mph 8)

I'm a car person myself, and I favor AWD vehicles (Subaru Impreza, Mitsubishi EVO, Nissan Skyline GT-R R34, etc) since I want max performance in all weather. After that, I dig RWD cars as they're more fun to drift.

as long as it's got wheels or wings im game

it's all fun

Well, I do more than play racing games

This is my old car, a BMW Z3 Coupe 2.8


And here is my latest, an 02 Subaru WRX


I could have come in 2nd year end, but I missed a few races.

As for the Fast & Furious, that movie was not bad - BUT it glorifies illegal street racing. And that is causing all sorts of hell out here in SoCal! And as for drag racing? What good is a 8 second thrill, when road racing you can have up to a half hour or more or pure rush???? And its also more fun when you turn right as well as left! Never did any rally stuff, though it looks like a blast. Just don't want to spend the next month still trying to get the dirt out of the car 8)

Lot more to do that just the dirt.

When I was a little tacker my old man used to drive rallies.
(I'm talking aussie cars from here on)
WE had a Datsun 1600 Sedan with a 180b engine, Celica 5-speed, twin webbers, extractors and some really cool green mags.

Used to pull around the 160mph mark and had some mean acceleration and power.

Never won much bet we all had an amazing amount of fun with it.

Too expensive now, and after Dad sold the car, the blokes wrote it off in their first rally.

It looked something like this:
http://www.carsales.com.au/pls/carsales/...p;model_id=2737

Love what I have back in good old days thoses new cars junk to much BS on them.

WRX, nice rides. I just have a RS 2.5 myself, but I am hoping to add a "-T" at the end of it once I move back to AZ (there's a speed shop in Phoenix that does turbo conversions for the 2.5L motors). At first, I didn't care for newer cars either since they had a ton of sensors and crappy ECUs. But the newer engine management systems are much more flexible and can deliver a great deal more power by just tuning or swapping out the ECU to adjust the fuel maps. Basically, once you get familiar with the systems you find them to be much nicer than fiddling around with jetting at different altitudes and such. I like having the car manage itself.

Clutch, if you ever consider doing an SCCA Solo II (autocross) DON'T DO IT! The 2.5RS is a great car for the STS class (kind of a street prepared class allowing many mods but on real street tires), and most of the time so far, are beating us in STX (the class the WRX is in). A guy name Hiro Sumida has near the entire USA STS class shaking in their boots with his 2.5RS! Sure the turbo in the WRX gives us a ton of hp - but at the cost of lowend, low rev grunt. Just go look at www.scca.org and look under Solo II and PRO Solo. Then see the results of the national events. Instead of more hp - work on the suspension!

Amen brother, I am already picking out the replacement parts for the suspension. Mainly, I want solid droplinks and then replace the sway bars. I am also going to make sure that the sway bar in the back is dialed in a little firmer with respect to the front so I can get a little more oversteer. It has a slight amount of understeer right now, but with new sway bars, strut braces, and the eventual replacement of the wheels and tires I should be good to go. I don't mind the ride height and the suspension has a decent ride on rough roads, so I am not in a hurry to switch out the springs. The turbo conversion will be last, once the car is stable enough to handle the power. With respect to running in SCCA tourneys, I am just gonna go to have a blast, and not compete seriously. I want to run hard, but mainly have fun.

AlecStaar you love my old 76 Pinto she was bad bone
289 HiPro
5speed
195/50 15"
15" SlotDishMag
Ford 9" rearend
Diskbrake all way around
Sway bars suspension package
Peal White with Black/White Interior

Yup got very lucky when run a croos the 289 HiPro Engine setting a old 1967 Maverick she was stock 270HP but when I got done with she pump way more 300 pony's with a few custom eng mod hehe.
That was idea FLY not walk hehe she very fast I had 160 OD and I peg I build for speed and handeling like ROAD raceing car, and yes I reinforce sub frame.
Yup that rigth she come with drums on them stock 8.8 rearend most of the the part come newer Mustang II which was baic the same sub frame so swap thing was eazy.

Speaking of motors on bike frames... Dodge Tomahawk