Italian holiday

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Maybe you'd all like to share a few car related images and memories from our recent 10 day Italian break? We were based in Sirmione at the southern end of Lake Garda and traveled all around on the excellent local bus service, with a day further afield in Verona (Romeo & Juliet etc) and another in Brescia (Mille Miglia Museum!) Had a lovely time and far too much ice cream! Yum Yum Yum!

Surprisingly only saw two vintage 500's. The first was an immaculate red one which flashed past before I could snap it but made an impression because it had a wicker picnic hamper on the back?! It really was immaculate and is the only 500 I've heard which did not "rattle" the engine was so "tight" it sounded more like an old Triumph motor cycle! The other was a pretty rough example being driven, quite quickly, by an elderly woman with a young child in the back seat. I just managed to snap it before it turned the corner into the square.



This wee Panda beauty lived just up the street from the hotel (Hotel Porto Azzuro which we can thoroughly recommend) and apart from some evidence of rear bumper nudging, was in lovely nick. I want it!



How about this? A gold Rolls Royce! Apparently it belongs to the local ice cream king, who owns most of the ice cream shops in the area so we were told. The old walled part of the town was stuffed with ice cream shops, seemed to be every second shop! We (Mrs Jock and I) made a pact, before we went, that we would have two ice creams a day. We managed it 'till the day before coming home but the helpings were so big and the Hotel food so good, we just had to give up!





Our hotel was about a three quarter hour walk from the walled old town and on the way we saw this yellow relative of Beckys taking her ease in the sunshine. The colour is one I've seen before in the UK and always considered a bit "wishy washy"



Much preferred this which we saw the next day in Verona. Very similar colour to the "Bengal Yellow" which Tony, our old Seat Cordoba, was painted. Mrs Jock quite likes Becky as she is, in white, but likes this yellow too.



Also seen in Verona was this. I guess it's an alternative, natural gas? fuel. What first attracted my attention was the strange position of the silencer? It definitely wasn't a 4WD.





Then, one night walking back from the ice cream shop feeling just a little sick! there was this! An XK 120 I think? left hand drive on British plates. It was gone next morning.



Also seen one afternoon whilst walking back from the ice cream shop was this purposeful looking 4WD. It was parked in the street where there were some trendy bars and I'd guess it was a worker's car as it didn't really fit in with the other more trendy vehicles typically parked here.





Now one for you PB.



Could have been a broken rear spring or maybe the rear axle corrosion problems you've been having. Anyway, as I was about to try to snap a picture of the axle, it's young female owner returned and drove off.
Question: can you "upskirt" a Panda?

Finally there were a few Supercars roaring around making lots of noise, especially a Lambo which seemed to go everywhere in 1st gear! There was also the archetypal red Ferrari and, unusually, this blue one.



And who's got the biggest ------



Brakes?

And then, one day we came across the wee Panda I liked so much, which seemed to live just up the road from the Hotel, parked next to the quay outside the walls of the old town.



I hadn't seen her from the front before and was interested to see she had a bar across the front which seemed to run from the front of one tie rod mount to the other.



Felicity (our 1992 Panda Parade) didn't have one. Anyone know if it was a mod of some sort? Or was it a standard strengthening addition on later models perhaps? Anyone Know?

We also spent a Morning at the Mille Miglia museum just outside Brescia. A well set out museum with lots of interesting stuff. The cars rotate, many on loan from private owners, so it doesn't get "stale". There were one or two of the race cars which I really liked but, most of all I liked the immaculately restored Fiat support van which is the first display you see on entering the Museum proper. Oh dear am I SAD (as my boys would say) or what? The Trip Adviser site has some excellent pictures of the museum's cars. I'm too frightened I might be contravening some one's rights to post pictures I took there.

 

[portland_bill]

I think the natural power cars use compressed natural gas. I've often wondered why that is unpopular. We've all heard of LPG cars, and older ones fail because nobody maintains the LPG system. LPG is only cheap because the government put less tax on it than petrol. As the calorific value is less, if it was taxed the same as petrol it would be more expensive to run.
I like the idea of compressed natural gas. Most of us have a natural gas supply to our home. I've seen small compressors, about the size of the box outside the house with the gas meter in it. Just connect to the car, switch on, wait 30 minutes, tank full. Just adds to the home gas bill, government doesn't know, no tax.

No problem upskirting a Panda, but explaining yourself might be a challenge. I've peered under a few, and most seem to be lower on the left, but to varying degrees. Just poor manufacture I think.

When the Panda gained a catalyst, for the 1993 model year, it was fitted under the engine, as your pic shows. The bar is to protect the catalyst from knocks. This would be on any injected/catalysed car, built from mid 92. I guess yours was one of the last carburettor models. I had a 93 CLX, injection and catalyst, and that definitely had the bar.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I think the natural power cars use compressed natural gas. I've often wondered why that is unpopular. We've all heard of LPG cars, and older ones fail because nobody maintains the LPG system. LPG is only cheap because the government put less tax on it than petrol. As the calorific value is less, if it was taxed the same as petrol it would be more expensive to run.
I like the idea of compressed natural gas. Most of us have a natural gas supply to our home. I've seen small compressors, about the size of the box outside the house with the gas meter in it. Just connect to the car, switch on, wait 30 minutes, tank full. Just adds to the home gas bill, government doesn't know, no tax.

No problem upskirting a Panda, but explaining yourself might be a challenge. I've peered under a few, and most seem to be lower on the left, but to varying degrees. Just poor manufacture I think.

When the Panda gained a catalyst, for the 1993 model year, it was fitted under the engine, as your pic shows. The bar is to protect the catalyst from knocks. This would be on any injected/catalysed car, built from mid 92. I guess yours was one of the last carburettor models. I had a 93 CLX, injection and catalyst, and that definitely had the bar.

Wonder why it had that stonking great silencer though? The construction of which was obviously professional evidenced by the quality of pipe bends, welds and fit.

Compressed natural gas sounds just too good to be true, I like it too! (I looked into LPG at one time but never pursued it) Do you know if anyone does commercial kits for natural gas? Could there be safety and insurance issues?

Our Felicity did have a cat and single point fuel injection. She had twin steel downpipes from the manifold running under the sump into a small cylindrical catalyser. A few inches down the twin pipes from the manifold flange there was an oxygen (lambda) sensor screwed into a block which bridged the two pipes, but no protection bar and no after cat oxygen sensor. We had her for many years and as she aged this, pre cat, sensor started to switch more slowly - to such an extent that, if you listened carefully, you could actually hear the revs fluctuating up and down very slightly at idle. She was also more sluggish to accelerate unless you absolutely floored it - which, I suppose made her go rich open loop on the lambda? I had a couple of goes at removing it to replace it with a new one but it was so badly rusted in and the pipes themselves were so corroded that the block was in danger of being torn out of the pipes! I decided to wait until the front pipe needed replacement, which wouldn't have been long, but the rest of the car was so riddled with rust I just gave up in the end and bought Becky to replace her. Boo Hoo! I feel such a traitor! Wish I'd just parked her up down the side of the house and done a full restoration! Ah well!

I just blew up the picture of the front of the blue Panda with the transverse bar. The exhaust is clearly visible. Felicity's looked nothing like that being much more neatly constructed of tubes. All you would have seen in this view of Felicity would have been the two pipes disappearing under the sump. You would certainly not have seen a lambda sensor as it is much higher up on the pipes.

 

[pooroldcodger]

we saw that gold roller as well! near Lake Garda.
Ice cream was cheaper and much nicer than in UK so he has probably earned his Rolls !

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Yeah, Italian ice cream, don't think you can beat a good one. I'll have a stracciatella please!

 

[portland_bill]

Wonder why it had that stonking great silencer though? The construction of which was obviously professional evidenced by the quality of pipe bends, welds and fit.

I think the big silencer is also used either on diesel, or 4x4. Perhaps something to do with positioning of the gas tank.

Compressed natural gas sounds just too good to be true, I like it too! (I looked into LPG at one time but never pursued it) Do you know if anyone does commercial kits for natural gas? Could there be safety and insurance issues?

I've not seen anyone offering conversions, but I've not looked. LPG is well established, and I just think that natural gas has slipped by unnoticed.

Our Felicity did have a cat and single point fuel injection. She had twin steel downpipes from the manifold running under the sump into a small cylindrical catalyser. A few inches down the twin pipes from the manifold flange there was an oxygen (lambda) sensor screwed into a block which bridged the two pipes, but no protection bar and no after cat oxygen sensor. We had her for many years and as she aged this, pre cat, sensor started to switch more slowly - to such an extent that, if you listened carefully, you could actually hear the revs fluctuating up and down very slightly at idle. She was also more sluggish to accelerate unless you absolutely floored it - which, I suppose made her go rich open loop on the lambda? I had a couple of goes at removing it to replace it with a new one but it was so badly rusted in and the pipes themselves were so corroded that the block was in danger of being torn out of the pipes! I decided to wait until the front pipe needed replacement, which wouldn't have been long, but the rest of the car was so riddled with rust I just gave up in the end and bought Becky to replace her. Boo Hoo! I feel such a traitor! Wish I'd just parked her up down the side of the house and done a full restoration! Ah well!

I just blew up the picture of the front of the blue Panda with the transverse bar. The exhaust is clearly visible. Felicity's looked nothing like that being much more neatly constructed of tubes. All you would have seen in this view of Felicity would have been the two pipes disappearing under the sump. You would certainly not have seen a lambda sensor as it is much higher up on the pipes.

Further thoughts. I think the first catalysts were behind the engine. Later ones became part of the manifold, or connected directly to it, and they got the protector bar. Certainly had one on my 1993 model.

Edit: Just checked ePER. 1000inj had catalyst underneath, behind engine. 1100inj (as all the last ones were) have the manicat. Can't find a listing for the guard so no idea when it started.