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Archive for July, 2014

Classic Cars: Ford GT40

Born in Britain, raised in Britain, went to America. Sounds like Davy Jones from The Monkees but no, it’s the Ford GT40. It’s also a car with an Italian connection, being none other than Enzo Ferrari. However the connection is not a friendly one…GT40 profile

In 1963, Henry Ford (the second) received word that Ferrari was interested in selling parts to the Ford company. As you do, Ford spent a squillion on checking the viability of Ferrari and on legalities, only to have Ferrari cut short the discussions thanks to a dispute over racing rights. Enzo wanted to stay as the sole operator of the Ferrari motorsport division however he’d been told that ferrari couldn’t race at the Indianapolis 500 if the business transaction went ahead, as Ford raced cars at the event using, naturally, Ford engines and didn’t want the Ferrari competition. Understandably, Enzo pulled the pin on the deal, leaving Henry Ford somewhat miffed. In response to Ferrari’s move, Ford directed his racing division to find a car that would flatten Ferrari on the world stage.

After looking at proposals from three companies, including Lotus (in which Colin Chapman insisted any car be called the Lotus-Ford, a polite way of telling Ford he wan’t interested), an agreement with Lola was signed and thus began the genesis of the GT40. The name itself comes from a simple mix; GT for grand touring and 40, for the height in inches. Prototype and testing cars were called, simply, GT, the GT40 name came when the production models arrived.
Lola had already used a Ford engine, a V8, in the mid engined Mark 6, which had raced at Le Mans. Eric Broadley, Lola Cars’ chief designer and owner, agreed to help Ford out with an agreement that didn’t directly involve the company. Two Lola Mk 6 chassis were sold to Ford and manpower was found in the shape of John Wyer, former Aston Martin racing team manager and Roy Lunn, the designer of the Mark 1 Mustang concept car. Work commenced on the car at the Lola factory in Bromley, before moving to Slough, near the Heathrow airport. The 800px-Ford_GT40_enginefirst car, known as the GT 101, had a 4.2L V8 engine and a transaxle gearbox. It was unveiled in the UK on 1 April, 1965 and could be had for the princely sum of 5,200 pounds.

GT40 Mk 1The GT40 first raced at Germany’s Nurburgring in May of 1964, running second for some time before withdrawing thanks to suspension failure. Three weeks later three entries ran at Le Mans, with one car leading until its first pitsop, however all three eventually retired. Due to the lack of results, the cars were given to noted American engineer, Carroll Shelby. Shelby entered a car for the Daytona 2000 in February of 1965, with immediate results, scoring the win. The Mk 1 was raced at Le Mans in ’68 and ’69, winning both events plus at Sebring in 1969. The Mk 1 was powered, in production trim, Ford GT40 Mk 2by 4.7L V8s, the same as used in the Mustang.
The Mark 2 GT40 was propelled by a 7.0L V8, as used in Ford’s Galaxie. Although looking like the Mk, there were differences enough under the skin in order to house both the bigger engine and a different gearbox, being a four speed from a company called Kar-Kraft. It was the Mk 2 that won Le Mans for four years, from 1966 through to ’69.
GT40 Mk 3The Mk3 was a very limited run, with just seven examples built and for a road only usage. It had quad headlights, a fatter rear for luggage and a detuned 4.7L V8, with 250kW or 335 horsepower.
In 1966 racing regulations were changed to what was called Appendix J. A development model, called the J-Car was built with bonded aluminuim panels. This came under the auspices of John Wyer, after he’d bought the previous construction business, Ford Advanced Vehicles, and had the design and manufacture more or less in house with Ford. The tub was superb in its weight reduction, tipping the scales at just 39kg and the whole, finished, car weighed 1210 kilos. The Mk 4 GT40 was born from this work, with the 7.0L engine being used plus a GT40 Mk4specific chassis and bodywork combination. Due to a fatal crash with one of the development and racing drivers, steel tube roll cages were installed in the racing cars, negating any weight savings from the aluminuim tub. This same construction would be credited with saving the life of Mario Andretti, at the 1967 Le Mans 24 Hour race.

The GT40 has spawned copies and replicas, plus an offical Ford version that went into production in 2004, although it was wider and taller than the original. It is known as the Ford GT after a falling out between Ford and a small company that had purchased the rights from a continuation maker based in Britain. The orginal GT40s command high prices in the auction market and will always be remembered for the low height and ferocious 7.0L engine. http://credit-n.ru/zaymyi-v-ukraine.html

Airbag Syndrome

Automotive safety has come a long way in the last 15 years or so.  Once upon a time, the only safety features in your

seatbelt

typical family car were seatbelts and the brake… and maybe the horn.  Back then seat belts were not always found in the rear seats, especially in older cars when I was a child.  Today, though, you’ve got the works.  In any new car worth its salt, you’ve got head rests to protect against whiplash, antisubmarining features in the seatbelts, three point-seat belts all round, crumple zones, pyrotechnic pretensioned seatbelts, airbags here, airbags there and airbags everywhere, including by the driver’s knee.  And that’s just the passive safety features. In the active department, there’s ABS brakes, dynamic stability control (or whatever the stability package is called – the name varies from marque to marque), hill start control, traction control, brake assist and on and on.  Really safe modern cars also tackle the human factors side of things, with cars that can sense that you’re getting into a pickle and start getting ready for a crash or apply the brakes automatically, or warn you if it detects you’re getting sleepy (a few of the most recent Mercedes
numbers do this) or senses things coming in from the side or…  They’re thinking up new things all the time.  And good on the designers for doing so and trying to make cars safer to drive.

But there’s a downside to all this: something I’ll have to call Airbag Syndrome.

Airbag Syndrome is what happens when a driver and/or the passengers neglect a few absolute basics – sometimes defying the law to do so – because their car has got a particular safety feature which they believe will keep them safe.  You’ve probably seen the sort of thing I mean:

  • Not bothering with seatbelts (so restrictive) because the car has airbags;
  • Approaching corners and intersections way too fast because the braking and cornering assistance will take care of things;
  • Not bothering to actually look behind you or ensure that the driveway is clear or skateboards, cats, random toys and small children because the car has a reversing camera (some of these things are too low down to be picked up by the camera);
  • Spending ages fiddling with all the gadgets on the car or texting etc. with eyes off the road, knowing that warnings will appear and emergency braking can be applied if needed;
  • Other things – give us your examples in the comments.

Airbag Syndrome can be defined as a misunderstanding of what safety features, active and passive, are for.  They are not supposed to replace the driver’s noggin but to enhance it.  Even if we own the safest of safest cars with the highest possible ANCAP ratings, we shouldn’t let this lull us into a false sense of invulnerability.  No matter how good a safety system is, we shouldn’t take them for granted or let the car do our thinking for us. After all, as anyone who’s owned a car for any length of time has found out, things do go wrong and malfunction at odd moments.

No way am I knocking safety features in cars.  But they should never replace basic common sense or good driving habits.

airbag2

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The Human Flaw

As we surge forward into the vast unknown that is the future, cars are becoming increasingly more safe, secure and simple. Many may complain that the modern obsession with health and safety is beginning to dictate our lives, but it does mean that the universal driving experience can begin to improve in the knowledge that we can place trust in our motoring machines as we surge on down the road ahead. And if that wasn’t enough, the development of alternate fuels such as electricity, solar or even hydrogen power is making the world of driving more efficient and eco-friendly. There is however but one problem; one unstoppable force of nature that not even the most modern of cars can stop. What is this juggernaut? Well, what I really should be asking there is who, not what; the problem is not with the machinery, but with us.

Human beings are very much like computers, just a bit more squidgy and blood filled. I am sure we have all been in a position where we have been working away on a computer and suddenly we are confronted by either a frozen screen, blue screen of death or an unfathomable error message, all of which renders the computer almost totally useless. This sudden malfunction in the usual harmonic running is not only limited to the machine world. As humans we are often find our bodies malfunctioning on us for a reason that lacks both logic and sense. The worst of these of course is the spontaneous sick, where you are going about your daily life and suddenly you find yourself throwing up a little bit in your mouth. And of course one cannot forget the sneeze that sends your entire body into a spasm and you lose all sense of time, space and self for that split second. It would be oh so much easier if, like a computer, we were able to reboot our system to erase the system. Alas, we are stuck with these malfunctions for life.

…and yet we are allowed to drive cars? Crazy.

Imagine with me if you will your every day driving scenario. Let us say that you are on the way to visit your parents, and you find yourself driving along a motorway. As it always does, your journey is running smoothly and the traffic is light. Your personalised CD blares out as you belt out your favourite tunes. But then, out of nowhere it strikes you. The deadliest menace to the modern driver; the sneeze. Past experiences would tell you that there is nothing to worry about; a sneeze takes but a second. And yet the driving sneeze seems to shock you out of time and space itself. I could not tell you the amount of times I have sneezed and managed to have crossed into another lane. And then there was the time I sneezed, opened my eyes and found I had pulled off the motorway, parked at a service station and ordered myself a full steak dinner. Seriously, you have to watch those sneezes. Crazy things, those sneezes yo.

All this... caused by one sneeze!

All this… caused by a sneeze!

One of the key pieces of road safety advice usually concerns the risks of driving when tired. ‘Dont drive tired, pull over and take a nap’ is usually the general idea. But we have all been there, that time when you really have to get somewhere and don’t really have those few hours to spare to be napping. There can only be one solution, throw caution to the wind and a mountain of coffee into your system. The epic caffeine rush will provide the alertness you need to push you on through to your final destination. There is only flaw in this otherwise perfect plan, which is a complete and catastrophic overestimation of your own bladder. Tiredness is no longer the issue but an absolute chronic urge to pee. But you have already wasted time stopping to buy a coffee at the service station, do you really want to waste more of your precious time pulling over to pee? Your stout ignorance of your own discomfort forces you to resist the urge until you reach your final destination.

We've all been there...

We’ve all been there…

You may think you have conquered your bladder through a wealth experience and finding a comfortable position to not move from. But of course we all underestimate the power of the bump in the road; every bump targets your now bean-bag like bladder. Just to rub in your suffering, it is always the case that you have chosen the single bumpiest road every created by the hand of man in all history. Even driving over a single atomic particle feels like a direct punch to the bladder. That nap really is looking rather good now wouldn’t you say? Why do we do this to ourselves?

To paraphrase the great prophets Goldie Lookin Chain, “Cars don’t kill people, drivers do”. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the cars we are driving, they are but angelic creations of loveliness in comparison to the demonic insanity that is the human presence behind the wheel. It is safe to say that it is our spontaneous malfunctions that make us so special, but why we are allowed to drive I will never know.

But I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Keep Driving People!

Follow me on Twitter @lewisglynn69

Peace and Love!

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Big Boys and Their Small Toys.

amt-munster-koach-car-model-kitGrowing up in the south eastern outskirts of Perth during the 1970s coincided, for me, with a huge interest in modelling. No, I don’t mean the Karen Pini kind of modelling (Google her but be nice), I mean plastic hobby kit modelling. Ships, space craft, planes, tanks, people, cars, you name it and it was available. My own room was filled with samples from the military, space and cars.

Nowadays the modelling scene, although not underground, is nowhere near as popular as it used to be. You could go to a K-Mart and buy kits, paint, brushes; hobby shops were, metaphorically, on every corner but now they’re a lot further apart. When I say not as popular, I mean that the awareness of it was higher across the population base.
In Sydney and, indeed, around Australia and around the world, the awareness is high but is more focused to be within groups such as the IPMS, the International Plastic Modelling Society, as an example. There’s magazines such as Fine Scale Modeller, from the United States or ModelArt Australia. Within the magazines is a surprising amount of information about the various manufacturers, the products, the tips to improve or help anyone from a novice through to an experienced builder.
UnderstandingScale_Vehicle_ImageLike anything in miniature, car models come in different scales. Those that collect the die-cast versions will immediately be familiar with this. It’s a mathematical ratio setup, one unit of measure Tamiya-Factory-Tokyo-9414-copyon the model equals 12 or 18 or 24 or 43 on the real thing.

Detail can vary from maker to maker and from scale to scale. Some modellers go across the board; I tend to lean more towards the military and sci-fi, others have the automotive field as their area of expertise.

To say there’s a variety of models in the scales available is understating it just a tad. Most modellers tend to look at cars in a 1/24 scale. The detail that can be found in such a size is startling; from intricate door handles to engine parts, the manufacturers. Other scales can be 1/18, 1/12 or, going the other way, as small as 1/32 or 1/43. Naturally, that makes the detail harder to see (and harder to mould!) however skilled modellers use a variety of techniques to make their model car look as realistic as possible. Some modellers even take a kit that would normally be built into a “New” car and make it look like  a junkyard dog.

Airfix2415JaguarManufacturers of kits range from a reasonable quality from the States, with a brand called Lindberg offering basic construction kits, to AMT, Monogram and a name from the past, Aurora. Of more recent times, a brand called Tamiya, from Japan, has come to the fore, offering high quality, highly detailed kits, including parts that are “photo etched”.

These parts are copper or, more commonly, brass and can provide even finer detail than plastic. Some people will instantly recognise the name Airfix. Once recognised as being the most common brand, Airfix is undergoing a renaissance with its new owner, Hornby (train modellers will know THAT name) retooling their moulds to provide better detailing. Airfix offer all in one kits, complete with parts, glue, brushes and paints. Another brand that’s been around for some time is Revell and they, too, offer a huge range.

Not unsurprisingly, if it’s been built in real life, you’re got a pretty good chance of finding a kit. There’s groups that are worldwide and split into local chapters, the IPMS has a New South Wales based chapter with a thriving social media presence. There’s also groups that are a kind of swap meet, allow members to buy, sell or swap kits of all shapes and sizes, such as The Aussie Model Exchange (look ’em up, along with the others).

From the common to the exotic, to the modified to the concept, modelling provides the ideal opportunity to have a large garage of small cars. What’s more, unlike die cast cars, this is a garage you’ve built yourself, from start to finish, allowing you to put your own personal stamp on your new drive. Wrecked General Lee

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