I drove a normal car yesterday

philvantwo · Post by **philvantwo** » 23 May 2019, 1:07pm

Yet you keep burning wood and polluting the air Mick F.

Post by **Mick F** » 23 May 2019, 1:40pm

I'm not talking about pollution.
Not talking about saving the planet or living a green and vegan lifestyle either.

Diesel cars are smelly and chuck out black acrid smoke when they are at full throttle up a hill and/or overtaking ............ and I don't like it.

Any road up, this is thread drift again. :lol:

Shifting gears manually on a manual gearbox and using a foot operated clutch is old fashioned.

I had the pleasure of driving an NSU RO80 some years ago. Lovely car to drive. Smooth, quiet, powerful.
Three gears and the clutch was electrically operated when you moved the gearstick so you only had two pedals - like an automatic.
Way ahead of its time and technologically advanced in many ways.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSU_Ro_80

Lance Dopestrong · Post by **Lance Dopestrong** » 23 May 2019, 3:05pm

Mick F wrote: Lovely car to drive. Smooth, quiet, powerful.

Indeed. Sometimes as long as 3 or 4 days in a row! :lol:

peetee · Post by **peetee** » 23 May 2019, 6:37pm

Lance Dopestrong wrote:
Mick F wrote: Lovely car to drive. Smooth, quiet, powerful.

Indeed. Sometimes as long as 3 or 4 days in a row!

Vorsprung Dienstag durch Donnerstag, you might say.

reohn2 · Post by **reohn2** » 23 May 2019, 7:11pm

Mick F wrote:....Diesel cars are smelly and chuck out black acrid smoke when they are at full throttle up a hill and/or overtaking ............ and I don't like it........

I'm saying mine doesn't

Post by **Mick F** » 23 May 2019, 8:22pm

R2.
Bring it round here, pootle along behind me cycling up a Cornwall or Devon hill, and then floor the throttle to get past me before the next bend.

If you do, and I'll be the judge, not you. :wink:

Post by **Mick F** » 23 May 2019, 8:26pm

PS: The issue with the NSU RO80 wasn't the design or the technology, but the poor cheap and nasty build of the engine.
If they'd got that right, the car would have been (completely and utterly) wonderful.

Well ahead of its time, but poorly produced.

Lance Dopestrong · Post by **Lance Dopestrong** » 23 May 2019, 9:14pm

Rotor tip seals and chamber wall wear. Materials technology hadn't quite caught up with the design. A fair few ended up with multiple replacement engines, but the only guaranteed cure was the popular Ford V4 conversion.

Cyril Haearn · Post by **Cyril Haearn** » 23 May 2019, 9:48pm

Mazda produced rotary engines later, were they more reliable?
Saw a RO80 last summer, painted a lovely greeny yellow, it is certainly one of the best-looking vehicles
Had a look under the bonnet too :wink:

Lance Dopestrong · Post by **Lance Dopestrong** » 24 May 2019, 7:37am

Mazda were better, even in their early days, but typically still don't have the durability of a typical reciprocating car engine. Even the modern ones have an horrendous thirst for oil.

Speaking of which, mention of the Ro80 got me reading. It seems that their first for oil was such that NSU eventually recommended to owners that engine oil changes weren't required, as the oil was burned off and replaced at such a prodigious rate anyway. Almost a total loss system like a two stroke. Certainly an intriguing architecture, and one wonders what might have happened is it had been developed further and the problems overcome?

Post by **Mick F** » 24 May 2019, 7:42am

Yes, the whole car was a wonder ............ only spoilt by the engine build.
It was ahead of its time in looks and comfort, and ease of driving too.

pwa · Post by **pwa** » 24 May 2019, 8:14am

I happened to be browsing the net for a replacement car a couple of days ago and as I was looking at reviews (by "experts") I noticed that I was still seeing automatic systems being described as unreliable, troublesome and slow to react. So there does still seem to be a reason to view them with suspicion.

Cyril Haearn · Post by **Cyril Haearn** » 24 May 2019, 8:39am

Can one stall an automatic?

..
The revolutionary audi (!) 100 (cW 0.30) was the successor to the ro80 maybe

Bonefishblues · Post by **Bonefishblues** » 24 May 2019, 8:41am

The Audi was slippery because it paid attention to that aspect, but wasn't 'revolutionary' in any way.

Eammno · Post by **Eammno** » 24 May 2019, 11:06am

Bonefishblues wrote:
Eammno wrote:Like all the other automatic stuff you now get on cars, automatic gearboxes are all about expanding the market, to include the less capable, or less confident drivers. Problem is this dumbing down also lowers the average capability of drivers and encourages the lazy attitude we all experience.

This is an ill-informed post, I'd suggest. An automatic gearbox dumbs-down driving? It lowers the capability of drivers? Exactly how, pray?

You didn't read my post, I wrote 'lowers the average capability of drivers' not 'lowers the capability of drivers'.

reohn2 wrote:I cannot for the life of me see how driving an automatic dumbs down driving,a mystery that needs explanation

and another one... my post said 'lowers the average capability of drivers' not driving :roll:

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