(T) Steel wheels

Well if your after `rimmage` cheap, you`d probably be best off looking at the older big RWD Fiats/Lancias & Alfa`s, as I said, the 132/Argenta & 131 Sport had 14" & had a nice degree of dish.

They`d also be retro cool!

No idea where you`d pick em up though...

To be honest, I thought banding was illegal in the UK now.

Another alternative is to remove the entire wheel centres from the rims, turn them round, then re-weld them.

That should work out cheaper than banding labour wise, & be as strong as the originals.

Ive got Alfa Romeo 33 on mine at the moment


I think the wheels attracted the attention but i do have a set of Tempra wheels as well, not sure if i want them on the car yet because of the near theft of it!

I like them... especially on a black car... are they running spacers?

I`ve got a spare Tempra alloy & tyre for my Tempra, I keep meaning to try it on the Uno. I`m gonna ask the people over the road if I can borrow their spare wheel (off the multipla) to see what the clearences are like too.

You`ve got to get rid of the "Formula" graphics though mate!

"Rimmage" - LOL - an interesting term...

Any observers must have thought you were pretty hard-case heading over the street with a ruler to measure the PCD of the world's ugliest car

-Alex

Oh yeah, well we all like a nice ammount of rimmage dont we?

Mate, I even took pictures... lol

I made sure I measured the side against the house (it was on the drive)

To be honest, I quite like the Multipla, its 1 of those cars thats so ugly/weird, its beautiful... to me anyway... like a 500 or an SZ or an Allegro estate for example *cough*.

I was pretty disapointed when they did the bland facelifted one...

Looks like we agree on all counts... I think!

The 500... of course... the SZ! One of my favourite Alfas! ... and the Allegro Estate... well why not, it was a sort of distorted Schimitar. Of course I always thought the Princess was a better effort from Harris Mann than the Allegro was. http://www.leylandprincess.co.uk/HarrisMann.htm I even owned several Princesses - those and the Toyota Celica are the only non-FIAT-group cars I've owned.

I think it's fair to say that Harris Mann was not an engineer and that is where things went horribly wrong - once the 'hard parts' were put in place the concept style suffered - unlike in the Issigonis era when the car was designed around the engineering.

I thought the 2000-era Multipla was a great achievement - here was a car that seated six within an overall shape that was only the size of a regular five-seater. The design was innovative in many ways - the 'top hat' shape for the feeling of more room (at head level), the low waistline (which looks particularly wonderful now that cars have higher and higher waistlines), huge windows (ditto - windows get smaller and smaller), gearlever on the dashboard, etc. etc. Definitely designed around the engineering but with great new engineering as well... It was NOT ugly for the sake of Ugly - like that Ssangyong Rodius or Stavic... http://www.mirror.co.uk/advice/archi...5875-20855401/ The Multipla was ugly for a purpose. And that makes it beautiful. Stylish too. On top of all that, you got great turbodiesel engines.

It was truly deserving of the name, which recounted a version of the 600 that was an odd forward-control version for extra room inside.

The facelifted Multipla with the Zafira-look at least retained some of the key Multipla attributes.

I like the Alfa 164 so much because here again we seem to find a car that is designed around the engineering, with a great deal of testing and development and many new solutions. The beauty is more than skin deep.


Anyway I also take photos of things I think are interesting but that no-one else would care about - such as the silly text seen on Jap Import wheels ("Just a roller skate grand touring. All over the great ironic power.") or on the side of some of the vehicles themselves ("Nissan Patrol is for the man who has the feel of life in his own life. To enjoy yourself. That is important.") I remember a few years back getting a snap of a new Lexus model with non-Lexus-style rear lights (i.e. 'normal' rear lights) which made me laugh. Mazda was just bringing out the 3 and the 6, both with Lexus-style rear lights.


EDIT: AND you have some great cars there in the small print I like the way you mix it up...

-Alex

Nah they just go straight on!

Lol yeah it needs alot of TLC at the moment but i need to get the hardware sorted out before i sort out the looks

There aint many Alfa`s I dont like, in fact you own 1 of my favorites, the Alfa 164, IMHO the best 4 door FWD Alfa ever! (I`ve had 2 facelift 2.0 manual Lusso`s in the last 5 years!). The 2.0 does handle better than the 3.0, & in town you can throw them about almost in the same way you can throw an Uno about, the handling is sublime & unlike many other Alfa`s before & after it, the build quality & reliability was way ahead....

I used to work for a small Alfa dealer circa 1990(Camelot cars, Edmonton, N. London), so I had the privalage of driving brand new ones day in day out including 164 Cloverleafs, 75`s, 33`s, Spiders (classic shape, which often used to come in from the docks with signs of rust...). The company runabouts used to include a 75 2.5 auto, a sud, a 90 & an Alfetta america edition! so yes, I love Alfa`s, even the ugly & weird RZ, SZ & 75!

I`ve owned about 160-170 cars (maybe more) since I was 15, none of them Japanese (unless you count the 3 I bought my kids mum so I didnt have to worry about reliability).

Personally, I hate Japanese (& Korean etc) cars, I love design, whether its stylish (Jags/Astons//Ferraris/classic Italian etc), aggresive (Integrale / SZ/RZ / GTV6 /Mazerati`saloons & coupes etc) or cute, fun & funky (500 / original Multipla etc). The Japanese cant do styling AT ALL, they offer up bland, uninspired designs, obviously influenced by the west, all with clumsy detailing inside & out. Even when they get western help, even Italian help, the final detailing is still very obviously Japanese & it wrecks the whole effect. Theres just no passion, which doesnt make sence as the Japanese are passionate about cars, but there it is, it doesnt translate to beautiful design in this case.

I respect Japanese cars, in the same way I do German cars, but I could never love one like I do an Italian or British one...

I actually had an Allegro 2 door 1750 Equipe (silver, with massive orange A-Team van graphics & black velour seats) till the gearbox went & a Princess 1.7HL (met green with really nice black velour seats that folded into beds & wood veneer dash!). The Princess was easily the better car & was suprisingly very good all round... till the timing belt snapped... I just love the miniature hearse proportions of the Allegro estate though!

The facelifted Multipla did offer a great package on paper & had all the practicality of the original, but without any of the charm/personality of the pre-facelift, & as a result they didnt sell as well..

For me, the Multipla had the facial features of an alien dog, and I liked that, in the same way I like the Bedford CA van, because to me, that looks like a bulldog, and thinking about it now, the original 850T van looked like the cartoon dog from ren & stimpy... maybe I need to buy a dog...

Anyway, you get my drift... I think we`ve hijacked the thread long enough with our ramblings...lol

Reading your post made my day

I might get told off by the moderator any moment... but at least Borat... err... Biz got good answers to his questions and came to a decision... so it's practically 'thread closed', everyone else has left the building and only two nutters remain to consume the rest of the catering and forget what time they promised they'd be home.

After all, I've only owned about 25 cars, so I have a long way to go to reach your experience And I really do like the 164, I have three of them currently and owned an expensive one five years ago. I wondered for a while whether the Thema (that I had before) was better-made, but that PRV V6 was a bit weird.

And I owned a 166 for a while, but it didn't 'feel' as good as a 164. Fast and capable, but somehow flimsier with too many 'generic' parts. The detailing (or lack thereof) around the doors and windows, for example.

I didn't mention one of my few respected Japanese cars - the Subaru SVX - yet you summed it up brilliantly when you said that despite the Italian help, the detailing was obviously Japanese. The bar of lights across the back was certainly familiar - but rounded-off. Still a fine car to drive though - apart from the dead, woolly steering that is! Very smooth and fast and balanced, and 4WD of course.

The ex-Japan version I drove for a few weeks had both permanent 4WD and 4WS and LSD - it took off like a rocket - and would peg its 180km/h speedometer easily, going on to a top speed of at least 240. So about the same as a 164, then, but without the sound, the wheelspin, the torque steer... The SVX made a non-turbo Porsche 911 seem noisy and slow, I reckon. EDIT: Unfortunately I have to qualify that by pointing out that a same-aged 911 is considerably faster - I was comparing it to a late 70's 911

Yet some elements of the SVX were just like a basic Corolla. I still recall the Japanese-car 'hot carpet' smell now and the awful plastic wood mixed with the Alcantara 'stolen' from Lancia. I think one of the reasons I liked the SVX was that it tried hard to be something it couldn't be (like the FIAT 130 of the 60's)- an expensive GT car from Subaru. Totally ignored by the WRX crowd. A lot of engineering for the money that they are in NZ - land of Jap imports.

I see you have proper English cars as well - I nearly bought an XJ40-type Daimler once instead of that expensive 164 - they were the same price and I loved the proportions, the elegance of it. It seemed the perfect antithesis to the boy-racer Uno Turbo that I still have, of course. I suppose at some point you have to specialise, and for me it was in Italian cars.

Funny that we both own Unos, isn't it...

-Alex

Out of interest, whats the theft thing about?

I put a small speaker box in the boot of mine the other day (still with the standard basic grundig head unit, which I use with a plug in FM modulator), showed it to my younger brother who heard the improvement in bass, but recons I should stick a bass box in.

I have been a bit of a bass head in the past, my old uno had a HUGE system in it capable of stopping your eyes focusing! but that system was nicked & I havent done a mega system in any of my cars since, the anger I felt after was just too much.

Anyway, I said to him "look, I`ve got a rust free Uno with rust free doors & all original paint. The last thing I wasnt is some chav bending the doors open like they did last time, just to nick the stereo. I feel like puting signs on it saying - if you break into this car, please smash a side window. Thank you."

Theres a picture of the speaker box I adapted below. Its a house speaker that I changed to take my old JBL 6x9`s. The head unit (which is about 5w per channel!) is struggling to power them, but the bass is improved.

The plan is to get an old parcel shelf (I dont want to cut the original one) & put it under the front edge with 4" covers over the tweeters & mids)


The rims look nice though, I think I`d be tempted to polish the edge & do the centres graphite to make them look like they have more rimmage.

What you gonna do with the spare set of alloys?

Haha so true mate!

The Tempra alloys, well check this UT out: http://www.turbocollective.net/phpBB...hp?f=49&t=2043

Im thinking of that look but in black but mine UT will end up on a track/drag strip as much as i can so i think paint and such nice bits wont be high on the agenda.

I just spent about an hour typing up a reply Alex, an electrician outside working on a neighbours place then turned off my electricity by mistake...



I`ll sum up what I was typing quickly...

I had a Thema Turbo about a decade ago, great car, but nowhere near as perfect as a 164.

The 166 (or 156) is no 164, as tempting as the rediculously low prices are (both easily available for under £1000 here), stick to the 164...

As I said, Japanese/Eastern cars deserve respect for engineering & quality, but they just have zero personality & but exterior & interior detail lets them down big time.

I nearly got an RX7 twin turbo, but after driving it for a week, I decided against it & got a 944 convertible instead (I built a 911 3.2 convertible before that which did 60 in about 4 seconds & I got up to 174mph). I`m very glad I didnt get the RX7 & I still regret selling the 944 to get the Boxster, as fast & acomplished as the Boxster is, its no 944!

*most cars seem to have been going backwards in many respects in the last decade or 2!*

I dont think you do have to specialise, look at my collection! I`ve owned everything (except Japanese!), including Fiat 126`s, Panda`s, Uno`s, a Tipo, a Tempra, a 131 1.6TC Panorama, an Argenta, Thema Turbo, 164`s, Talbot Samba & Horizon, Citroen LNA 2, Pug 104, 205, 306, 309, 505 estate, Renault 18, BMW E30`s & E36`s, Many Jaguar XJ saloons from SIII up to XJ8, a 1965 S-Type, a 2000 S-Type, Vauxhall VX2300, Viva`s, Ventora`s, Victors, Senators, Carltons, Opel Kadett, Lada Riva, Skoda 110, Porsche 911`s, 944`s & the Boxster, an 84 Ferrari 308GTS QV, Merk 190 & 123 estate, Audi 100 Avant, Ford Escort Mk1 & 4, Sierra`s, Cortina Mk3 & 5, Granada Scorpio, Rover SD1 & P6, Austin Allegro, Princess... thats off the top of my head!

Alot of those I had at the same time....

My love of cars isnt down to how much they are worth, how `flash` they are or it how fast they are, its just how much personality theyve got & how much happiness they give me when I drive them.

If I won the lottery I`d be out there buying everything from 126`s & Panda`s to Ferrari Daytona`s & Lynx XJS`s!

I`ve had XJ40`s since I was 23, great cars that are usually let down by poor maintainance than anything else. I`ve done many many miles in them & have yet to break down (1 even got me home after loosing all its coolant via a burst rad pipe at over 100mph, melting the head in the process). The worst aspect is the lack of economy (I get 16mpg in town from my 3.6 XJ40`s & 13.5mpg from my supercharged XJR *on super unleaded*), but they easily make up for it in personality, style, feel & performance!

If you like the way Japanese use the english language on aftermarket parts, you`ll like this clip!
Ferrari`s chief test driver also uses his Uno (not a turbo) to get to & from work, so we are in good company

I love Jeremy

I like jezza when he`s NOT in destructive mode...

I was actually looking for the clip of the Ferrari bloke in his Uno, couldnt find that, irritatingly I found the bit just after it:


But found that one in Japan & thought "I know who`ll like that"

Here you go! *@ 11 minutes* Claudio Ori, he looks like my Uncle Lucio (who also has a mint Mk1 UT in Italy thats barely been used).

His Uno is identical to mine!



http://www.veoh.com/collection/Clark...82222k5Atqa2W#