I want to hold and twist your knurled knobs..

[MuZak]

[/quote]

Hmmm, for an audio forum this is getting to be quite a heated car argument.
[/quote].

If I were to have my way, we'd go back to the
original thread... I was rather enjoying it!

[/quote]
The chassis of the Ace had already been modified to accept the Ford Zephyr 6 cylinder engine before Carroll Shelby ever asked for the V8 modifications.
[/quote]

You're forgetting the Ford 283 V8.
In some senses, the best of all, given the cars
origins.

[/quote]
All AC had to do was change the differential to handle the increased torque - which they did using another British-built Salisbury unit.
[/quote]

You're forgetting the extensive frame bracing..
more like mostly new frame....
(in retrospect, probably not the best choice
of basic platform)

[/quote]
Don't forget, this was the turgid 260 engine, which wasn't much more powerful than most European built 6's at the time, and was certainly no match for engines from Aston or Ferrari.
[/quote]

Heh.....

[/quote]
Although the Cobra raced at Le Mans, it was always in the 'modified roadgoing' categories and was never likely to win.
[/quote]

Won in class though, no?

[/quote]
The coupe version (which was originally built for Daytona) was the only one built to take on Le Mans at the highest level, but wasn't a huge success. The Daytona Cobra also had transverse leafspring front suspension - the last place you would find that cart-spring technology used was in the Corvette 30 years later.
[/quote]

Both did quite nicely, considering humble origins,
and considering humble origns..

[/quote]
the Corvette 30 years later.
[/quote]
As I recall, one of those won also, later on..

[/quote]
By the time the 427 Cobra came along, Ford were quite heavily involved and bore most of the cost of the chassis re-design, but the design work was still carried out by AC with prototypes being sent back to Detroit in 1964. There is no record that the original cars were ever constructed in the US, neither were the wide bodies or re-sized radiator openings ever created there.
[/quote]

There are well known photos and video clips,
possibly available on the net, of those, obviously
being created in Shelby's also obviously Texas
facility.
Recently saw a TV special about Shelby...
those clips were therin... you could see the
Texas plains through the large door.
It was a former airplane hanger, I believe.

[/quote]
The Ford GT40 was, of course, designed and built in, erm...?[/quote]
Fords famous "Skunkworks".

[MuZak]

how do you explain this...

However, there's something very telling about that photo Ernie - the car is left hand drive, and therefore must have been made for the US market where gentlemen were more likely to wear tartan plus-fours than a blazer and cravat.

Tartan? you mean that plaid skirt thingy???
Plus-fours? WTF is that????

The sports car driving gentlemen I knew mostly
wore old jeans... maybe an oxford shirt, and old
deck-shoes.

Blazer and cravat?!?!?!
To drive in your sports car?!
Ugh...
Its just that sort of effetery that spoiled the rep
of the sports car back then...........

[Abandonflip]

Tartan? you mean that plaid skirt thingy???

No, that's a kilt. Tartan is the cloth kilts are made from.

Plus-fours? WTF is that????

You might refer to them as 'golf knickers' and perhaps this website will help:

http://www.pazzogolf.com/

There's certainly some "effetery" going on there.

Remember, in the 1960's cars like Aston Martin's were not considered 'sportscars' - these were lesser contraptions like MG's and Austin-Healey's. The Aston was a "gentleman's sporting carriage" and very much the preserve of the wealthy landed gentry, who were unlikely to wear jeans.

The only real exceptions were those owned by pop stars and actors, neither of whom would have been described at the time as "gentlemen".

[Karnevil9]

I don't see a 'DB-5' as a performace car even though they tram along the straits like an out of control tank...They are to be respected as an extraordinary classic car, the sheer quality & looks are definatly something to be desired, i also have to defend this company being to me probably the greatest car company in the world, italy can have the Ferrari as britain can the Rolls Royce cos to me the Aston are the first & last word in Auto bliss..

[sound-signal]

DB4 for me - none of this cutesy rounded nose and faired in headlamps.

Ah, the original, clean, classic GT shape of the Aston Martin DB4... designed in Italy by Giovanni Michelotti. Of course when the guys at Newport Pagnell started to mess with that shape, the only way was down, hence the DB5 and DB6.

By the way, legend has it that the DOHC six for the DB4, also later used in the DB5, DB6 and later models, was originally designed with a cast iron block because that's the technology their Polish engine designer, Tadek Marek, knew. When Aston Martin couldn't find a foundry that would cast them a small enough quantity of iron engine blocks for them to be able to afford it, they thought to re-design it with an alloy block and wet liners a la Alfa Romeo, which would allow a foundry to cast them a smaller quantity of blocks at a lower cost. Marek warned his employers that he didn't know the technology, but they had no other option so he went ahead.

Before the car's launch in 1958, Aston Martin tested it on the only stretch of motorway in the UK at the time, a fifty-mile stretch of the M1 if I'm not mistaken. Come the launch in 1958, the car caught the imagination of a number of European buyers, with the French representative, for one, crying to Aston Martin, "this car is a wonderful folly, I can sell as many as you can make for me" . And sell they did to owners in Europe who were only too eager to try GT motoring British style with a top speed of over 240kph on the then-new and almost traffic-free Autobahnen, Routes Nationales and Autostradas of Europe.

Come Easter 1958, Aston Martin was flooded with messages from their European representatives telling of ruined DB4 engines and irate owners. Tadek Marek was sent to investigate, and the engine failures did not at first display a consistent pattern. Some engines had seized pistons, some had bent conrods, some had seized bearings and so on. Marek exasperatedly told Aston Martin that "about the only thing I can find in common was that at least three of the failures happened on Good Friday".

Eventually, the Good Friday coincidence made sense. The happy new DB4 owners took off for the Easter weekend, onto the big European motorways, headed for fashionable holiday spots. They expected their new Aston Martins to cruise near their top speed all day. But at that level of sustained engine output, the alloy block expanded in a way Marek had failed to design for, which caused the bearing clearances to open so much that, as Aston Martin later calculated, to maintain oil pressure, the oil pump would have had to set up such a flow as to recirculate the entire contents of the sump in seven seconds. Of course no pump could keep up with that, and when the oil stopped flowing it was a toss-up as to which part of the engine would give first. In the colder British climate, and on the much shorter stretch of British motorway, Aston Martin had been unable to spot the problem during development.

Ah, British motor engineering - providing motoring enthusiasts with funny stories for decades. I love it.

[Abandonflip]

Ah, British motor engineering - providing motoring enthusiasts with funny stories for decades. I love it.

And it's nice to know that the long tradition is still being upheld to this day by the likes of TVR, those friends of breakdown organisations everywhere.

Great bit of background (and properly researched, which is more than can be said for some of the submissions ) - thank you George.

[sound-signal]

Interesting though, was the other way-round for the fighter plane that won WWII...
The P-51 Mustang. Was a P-47 (I think) updated, then fitted with a fab RR engine.

The P-51 was designed by North American in the US to a British specification but originally used a US-designed and made Allison engine. It was the first fighter plane to make use of a laminar flow aerofoil and this gave it a big speed advantage. It had nothing to do with the Republic P-47 or any other fighter plane, it was a completely new design.

Then the Brits first had the idea to fit the Rolls Royce Merlin in it, but eventually it was the Americans that perfected that installation and the Merlins for it were made under license by Packard in the US. The first production Mustang version to have the Packard Merlin was the P-51D and it made the Allison mustangs obsolete almost overnight.

The only fighter planes that the Brits could muster which could match the Mustang for speed were late-mark Spitfires with the much larger Rolls-Royce Griffon engine, and Hawker Tempests, also with an engine much bigger than the Merlin, the 24-cylinder H-array Napier Sabre. They needed the bigger engines to get the performance because their designers hadn't mastered laminar-flow aerodynamics. British attempts to design a laminar flow wing for the Spitfire were a failure.

[sound-signal]

Great bit of background (and properly researched, which is more than can be said for some of the submissions ) - thank you George.

Maybe what I remember from a quarter century of reading the classic car rags, quoted off the top of my head isn't quite "proper research"... But you're welcome all the same

I admit to being an Alfa Romeo fan - I only have three of the things. What's your poison?

Best regards,

[Karnevil9]

Italian bodywork! Zagato the only 'DB-4'body for me

[ben556473]

My Jaguar is beautifull, fast, spacious, comfortable and handles like a dream and was designed and built in England to a standard that trounces any modern car I've ever had the 'pleasure'of being in.

[Abandonflip]

I admit to being an Alfa Romeo fan - I only have three of the things. What's your poison?

I'm really rather hopeful that you're talking about Giulia's, GT Junior's and Alfa's of that ilk George?

As for my poison, I've worked in and around the motor industry for over 30 years and I've satisfied the vast majority of my "urges". Owning exotica has always been out of reach (and ownership is often not as glossy as it looks either), but I've had the chance to sample enough such machinery to last me several lifetimes and I'm quite happy.

On that list is a 427 Cobra, the owner of which (the late Roger Hart) also had one of the Zagato's Karnevil seems keen on. His (2VEV) was built for Le Mans and had magnesium bodywork that we weren't even allowed to breathe on! The list is then scattered with things like a Lotus Elan when I was still a spotty apprentice, a Ferrari BB512, Porsche 935, Lamborghini Countach QV and many, many more. Oh, and for our American friends, I briefly owned a Hemi Challenger.

As for now - we've just finished some extensive building work here, for which I bought a Toyota pickup (and laid up my Audi A8). The house is finished now, but I won't sell the Toyota - We're surrounded by fields and woods, and I haven't had this much fun on 4 wheels in years!

[Ernie L]

Well that was interesting sound-signal. Great picture K9..I can hear the snarl of the engine from here.

Since we are on the topic of transportation ( at the moment ..I think )

anyway.. I been given the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a start up enterprise that will develop and market alternative energy transportation. The only thing holding me back is they seem to have a log jam trying to reduce methane emissions!?!?


Here is a picture of their efforts so far

..keep in mind this is only a development mule built to test the mechanicals.


what do you think



In the foreground is the sport model with the family wagon to the rear.

[Karnevil9]

In a way back to the original topic...

The Durango-95 purred away real horrorshow — a nice, warm vibraty feeling all through your guttiwuts.



Aka Adams Brother 'M505',Probe 16...Only three of these were produced.These were the guys responcable for the Marcus Coup'e..




Has a wooden Chassis & a 1900cc Austin engine...

If i remember Jack Bruce originally bought the second one..

Back to Alex DeLarges Transcriptors deck, did someone say it had the Vestigal arm! I think you'll find it's not it has the Fluid arm...Only Michael Gamon can confirm this as he recently donated an exact one...

[Abandonflip]

Brought neatly full circle.

Very nicely done K.