puntofan01 said:

Seriously nice! I think good 156s are starting to become sought after.

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I used to think the MGB GT was the only car you could park outside a supermarket or posh hotel/golf club and not look out of place. The Mk1 MX5 came close but now the Dub Scene rejects have got hold of them not so much. The 156 especially in Sport Wagon mode has potential.

I must admit, I don't get what it is about vws that chavs love so much. :/

Liquid Knight said:

I used to think the MGB GT was the only car you could park outside a supermarket or posh hotel/golf club and not look out of place. The Mk1 MX5 came close but now the Dub Scene rejects have got hold of them not so much. The 156 especially in Sport Wagon mode has potential.

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Indeed..."bozoku" and rat/drift style mx5s..totally misunderstanding what an mx5 is about.

Hopefully they'll just get rid of the sickly mx5s to the point the price of them is out of their reach. At which point they can go back to bagging golfs, polos and lupos and fitting huge wheels. However nothing of value is lost if they do then.

There is a guy I work with who's got a 1997 MX-5, and he's put a huge thing on the back, (I won't call it a spoiler, as it resembles an air-brake more than a spoiler!) and he intends to supercharge it as soon as his insurance comes down. Thankfully, his is a poverty spec model, so not a really nice example.

Mk2 and 2.5's are really cheap now. But the pop up light ones are on the brink of the classic market and good ones are expensive bad ones are a bottomless pit. The days where you could pay £2,000 for a good UK model are over. Too many "Wheeler Dealer" types out there who have bought a shed, tarted it up and think it's worth a King's ransom have made the MX5 market a waste of time. For every decent one you have to wade through two hundred piles of crap.

I'm looking at MX5's for my next Winter car and have all but ruled out Mk1's completely.

Mx5 BMW 3 series and a host of other little hot hatches make perfect auto cross cars, especially the mx-5 with next to no weight and rear wheel drive.

puntofan01 said:

If I do that though, won't I risk ballsing up the phone? In the past, I've uninstalled/disabled factory apps, and I get a warning saying it could cause other functions to fail. I wonder if doing that is what started my S3's gradual demise.

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That's just a fancy way for saying "if stuff relies on this thing and you stop it, other things will stop too" - it's not normally an issue for standalone apps. If your phone goes to pot, factory reset, no biggie. Just backup your stuff.

I've had Androids rooted/flashed/experimental software, all sorts, and they tanked through until unrelated hardware failure killed them off.


Incidentally I'm gonna get a 156 and bag it and put it on the biggest fattest wheels.

Noxide said:

Incidentally I'm gonna get a 156 and bag it and put it on the biggest fattest wheels.

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Crack on...at least it would show a level of imagination in that you wouldn't be building a car that's basically mass produced at this point.

I understand the aesthetic appeal...



...the 156 even looks good in matte black...



...I prefer form and function.

Already looking for a GTA 147 or 156 SW next.

Now I have done a few hundred miles there are a few niggles.

1/ The fly by wire throttle pedal is vague and the engine too quiet so I either have to look at the rev' counter instead of my surroundings or risk stalling.

2/ She has the Alfa squeak and the rear pads need changing.

3/ The suspension is soft. Nice on the main roads almost Jaguar/Lexus levels of waft but on the more interesting B and C roads the undertray has bottomed out a few times.

4/ The air con' has stopped working. I'll do a pressure test before regassing.

Apart from that all is good and the car is Fantasia blue! Somewhat serendipitous.

StevenRB45 said:

Crack on...at least it would show a level of imagination in that you wouldn't be building a car that's basically mass produced at this point.

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Haha true that. I'm waiting for VW just to do the "scene edition" which is BBS replicas, half a suspension, and rust where the rubber of the stretched tyres has worn away the arches.

I think a build that offends purists would be the best. So maybe getting a high spec Jap car and putting in the 2.0 TDI engine from a Passat or something.

Noxide said:

I think a build that offends purists would be the best. So maybe getting a high spec Jap car and putting in the 2.0 TDI engine from a Passat or something.

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If you did that the other way i'd totally be on board take a Passat taxi and fit a K20a Honda V Tec..

Yes it makes no sense you could remap the 2.0 tdi to produce more power with a remap than the k20 would but that would genuinely be an interesting thing.

StevenRB45 said:

If you did that the other way i'd totally be on board take a Passat taxi and fit a K20a Honda V Tec..

Yes it makes no sense you could remap the 2.0 tdi to produce more power with a remap than the k20 would but that would genuinely be an interesting thing.

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Haha well maybe if I ever save up money I'll do some stupid build (and probably horribly regret it almost immediately).

Noxide said:

Haha well maybe if I ever save up money I'll do some stupid build (and probably horribly regret it almost immediately).

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There are some interesting tuned vws about. There's a bloke has a Skoda Superb 280 4x4..which sounds dull. Except due to vw reusing parts in everything it's basically a saloon golf R without the "innit bruv" and all the tuning parts fit. Last time I read about it it was well over 500bhp and externally standard pretty much. That appeals to me a lot.. if it was slammed on its ring piece with a 2.0 tdi..nope.

Tbf you need a forza game...I tend to just build the ridiculous..personal favourite being a 5 door supercharged honda engined rear drive Astra J..

StevenRB45 said:

There's a bloke has a Skoda Superb 280 4x4..which sounds dull. Except due to vw reusing parts in everything it's basically a saloon golf R without the "innit bruv" and all the tuning parts fit. Last time I read about it it was well over 500bhp and externally standard pretty much.

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There are some interesting non tuned cars about....



Note that little badge on the grill.

Ah the W8.

Interesting if immensely heavy.

StevenRB45 said:

Ah the W8.



Interesting if immensely heavy.

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About 70kg more than today's golf R

It's not that heavy by the standards of cars in that category.

It was basically a test mule for the technology they used in the veyron

It's also about 30bhp down and has less torque, and you have to assume comedy weight distribution.

The Audi A8 w12 with the aluminium body was only 400kg heavier.

StevenRB45 said:

It's also about 30bhp down and has less torque, and you have to assume comedy weight distribution.



The Audi A8 w12 with the aluminium body was only 400kg heavier.

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It's the fact the engine is incredibly strong and can take some serious upgrades.

When you get into Audi A8 territory they it looses it 'sleeper' appeal as any A8 petrol as anyone knows, goes like stink.

Don't get me a wrong they are a cool thing, but it's modern equivalent is the insignia vxr. On paper it should be amazing but somehow the end result isn't the sum of the parts.