ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,194
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Hardest car to drive?ChasR
@chasr
Club Retro Rides Member 170
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I'm fairly long legged, and found the VW split screen camper to have the worst driving position. It's like trying to drive while sat on the toilet, hunched over the steering wheel in your lap and the pedals sprouting out of the floor. No wonder they put beds in the back, you need a lie down after going any distance in one! Very cool vehicles that's for sure, but I don't know if I'd get on with driving one. You don't want to drive a Land Rover Series or Defender then! They are terrible for their driving positions and I am not the tallest bloke out there! Back to hard cars to drive? It would probably be my Escort RS Turbo. That was only down to the clutch ; it was a Helix 4 paddle solid centred item. In town you really had to be committed. Besides the biting point being like a switch it would shake the car like mental on the biting point. Changing gear in town was also a pain ; you needed to rev-match on up changes or again the car would shake like mental. It didn't help that it was horrendously heavy either ; I understand the AP items are much better here even in 4 paddle form. RetroWarwicK can remember that clutch. The clutch however did make sense if you were pushing on. Quick changes while flooring it? It was spot on. You could go from 3rd to 4th, and wow, it just engaged and let you get on with the business of driving. I did however come to understand later on that the fix was to keep the stock 4 paddle friction plate but change the clutch cover/pressure plate to a stock Ford item ; One car I drove with such a setup felt like a revelation in comparison. Putting in a normal clutch in my case was not an option. It was making 220BHP and over 210lbft (IIRC) (around 100BHP more than when the car left the factory), the torque figure in particular is what made even mildly uprated clutches look questionable, like the AP CP2000.
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,194
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Hardest car to drive?ChasR
@chasr
Club Retro Rides Member 170
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I had a '74 Beetle with drum brakes. You had to book in advance if you wanted to stop. Errr... exactly this. Took my '71 down a big hill the other day and had pretty much run out of brakes by the bottom Add to that the fact that it's almost impossible to get your foot on the brake pedal only without getting the accelerator as well due to the weird flappy hinged-from-the-floor setup and it's just as well it's only a 1200 and rarely gets up to enough speed to really need brakes I'll be honest. My Beetle was fine in the braking department on the drums. I really didn't get what people hated about them. Compared to my Spitfire and MG Midgets they actually felt pretty good, and both of those had the luxury of disc brakes! That said, most Beetles I've driven do have attrocious brakes ; pressing them does nothing and the pedal is almost at the bottom of its travel. I did also have to fully refurbish mine; 1/2 of the brake cylinders were chucking out brake fluid once it came back from the world's pickiest MOT tester ; he was cheap mind you.... . With 4 new cylinders, new decent spec pads and adjusted as per the manual (and trial and error) they were fine. I even managed to lock the front up on a few occasions when I was running low on fuel and was going a little quick!
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Last Edit: Oct 21, 2017 8:09:24 GMT by ChasR
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Has to be this recent visitor to my workshop - 1929 Jowett Long 2 Tourer - 2 cylinder / twin flat engine - 7HP Going from a modern in to this is quite a nightmare, awkward driving position which leaves your knees contacting the dash / steering column, non synchromesh gearbox, no power steering but does have electric start, brakes are 4 wheel (some were 2) but are banded so book your stopping distance prior to setting off, engaging reverse is part knack with a bit of luck thrown in whist performing a karate hand chop movement mixed with wizardry - then the real fun starts with the offset pedal arrangement which is conventional left hand clutch but a centre accelerator pedal and a right hand brake pedal - no matter how many times you tell yourself that the brake is on the right pedal you always end pressing the accelerator pedal to stop - combine this with the fact that you need to keep the car moving to maintain speed (once you have spent an hour to achieve any) but more importantly the car is cooled by thermo-syphon (no water pump / radiator fan) so you need air flow through the radiator by force of movement So given the choice 200 MPH / 0-60 in the blink of eye motor or the Vintage Jowett ? Vintage Jowett wins every time for me it's a lot more fun
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I'm fairly long legged, and found the VW split screen camper to have the worst driving position. It's like trying to drive while sat on the toilet, hunched over the steering wheel in your lap and the pedals sprouting out of the floor. No wonder they put beds in the back, you need a lie down after going any distance in one! Very cool vehicles that's for sure, but I don't know if I'd get on with driving one. I tried driving my friends bay window kombi once (possibly hungover) and just couldn't figure out how to drive it! He had the seat bolted in right at the back, I couldn't push the pedals down properly, find any gears and definitely not reverse..
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
Posts: 3,839
Club RR Member Number: 45
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Hardest car to drive?luckyseven
@luckyseven
Club Retro Rides Member 45
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Oct 21, 2017 10:56:12 GMT
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Errr... exactly this. Took my '71 down a big hill the other day and had pretty much run out of brakes by the bottom Add to that the fact that it's almost impossible to get your foot on the brake pedal only without getting the accelerator as well due to the weird flappy hinged-from-the-floor setup and it's just as well it's only a 1200 and rarely gets up to enough speed to really need brakes Why not change down a gear or two and utilise engine braking to save the brakes? Wow! It was like an angelic paean and beam of light just descended from the heavens! D'you know, I've been driving for over thirty years and until this moment of being patronised by some random fictitious person on the internet it never once occurred to me to use the gearbox to affect the speed of a vehicle. It's a miracle from God, I'm cured of my offensive ignorance and I shall be a changed man like Saul after Damascus henceforth. I'm off to find some orphans to buy Christmas presents for
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Oct 21, 2017 12:55:21 GMT
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Reliant Robin! Honestly quite surprised no-one else has said this So the last time I'd driven was when I passed my test, which was about six months prior, and my cousin thought it would be a good idea to get me to drive his newly acquired Robin LX. I warned him it wouldn't go well... Anyway, he drives it up the road, turns round in a gateway and lets me drive back. Things started bad; the seat was stuck all the way back which still wasn't far enough, my knees were either side of the steering wheel, the gap between the steering wheel and the door was less than what my knee required resulting in the door bouncing off my knee when I tried to close it. When I actually got round to driving it first and second were fine but I couldn't get it into third due to my leg being in the way, trying to go back into second it wasn't where I had left it. As we approach a rather sharp corner, I point my toes over to the brake pedal and wonder why we're speeding up rather than slowing down. Putting my foot on the clutch and another couple of jabs at the brake pedal reveal that it is the accelerator after all! End up having to pull on the handbrake as I could not get my foot across and get on the pedal, my leg was truly sandwiched between the wheel and the door - maybe the steering wasn't as heavy as I thought. Never felt like it was going to tip over even entering a corner too fast, sorry Jeremy Clarkson fans. On the flip side, thought and was told a MK1 Frontera would be horrible to drive with heavy steering due to massive contact area and 4 wheel drive pushing the nose out, was thrilled how well it drove, and at was after a decade of being parked on a farm. Better than a Land Rover I reckon, and cost less!
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Oct 21, 2017 23:19:00 GMT
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Why not change down a gear or two and utilise engine braking to save the brakes? Wow! It was like an angelic paean and beam of light just descended from the heavens! D'you know, I've been driving for over thirty years and until this moment of being patronised by some random fictitious person on the internet it never once occurred to me to use the gearbox to affect the speed of a vehicle. It's a miracle from God, I'm cured of my offensive ignorance and I shall be a changed man like Saul after Damascus henceforth. I'm off to find some orphans to buy Christmas presents for That makes us of similar age and experience then. My post wasn't intended to be offensive. It has been my observation that many people, even well experienced drivers such as ourselves, rely on the brakes far more than they should and are not actually aware of the common practice of going down a hill in the same gear as would be used for going up it.
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skinnylew
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 5,546
Club RR Member Number: 11
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Hardest car to drive?skinnylew
@skinnylew
Club Retro Rides Member 11
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That's because brakes are easier and cheaper to replace than gearboxes/clutches
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Hardest car to drive?accord83
@accord83
Club Retro Rides Member 51
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Oct 22, 2017 13:23:34 GMT
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1964 LandRover 2A fitted with a Perkins 4203 diesel, even with new brakes all round you needed to be Mystic Meg to know when to use them. The engine weight gave it a fashionable nose rake which loaded the steering to a level which would make Popeye sweat. At tick over the engine shook like a wet spaniel, so when you got alighted from it with all the style and panache of a country gent, so did you, and it looked like you suffered from Parkinsons for at least 10 minutes after. The spare was mounted on the bonnet, checking the oil gave a workout that saved on gym fees. But by 'eck the curse word could pull.
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74 Mk1 Escort 1360, 1971 Vauxhall Victor SL2000 Estate.
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Oct 22, 2017 13:57:10 GMT
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Column shift I felt natural with the very first time, I actually enjoy it a lot! Sadly I don't get to drive manual column shifts a lot...
My worst driving experience. Hmm. I think that's the VW T2 van. Can't find gears, can't see sh!t anywhere, weird driving position and instant death if you hit a pot hole. And I can't get used to the floor mounted pedals.
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ovimor
North East
...It'll be ME!
Posts: 816
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Oct 23, 2017 14:32:17 GMT
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Hardest car to drive[without a care in the world?]
Your own!
OVIMOR
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Knowledge is to know a Tomato is a 'fruit' - Wisdom, on the other hand, is knowing not to put it in a 'fruit salad'!
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Oct 24, 2017 13:39:56 GMT
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The modern daily after driving the landrover. The two could not be more different! Oh man I know those feels, I used to drive a 2007 golf GTD with power everything as my business car and wow, back to back, getting into the triumph toledo felt a million years away, soooo different, no power steering, hard pedalled all drum brakes, 4 gears x y z. Although I've had a lot of cars, I can honestly say I've never had or driven one thats hard to use, agricultural yes. Saying that, my MGF was very choosy about what tyres it had on it, I can't remember now what brand it was I had or changed to but with some it would be a properly scary experience driving at 60 down a back road, following all the marks in the road and squirreling all over the place, the others really nice as you'd expect from a mid-engined car.
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Oct 24, 2017 14:01:28 GMT
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This. DSC_8992 by dbizzle_, on Flickr The clutch is basically an on/off switch. Stalled it about ten times, looked a right berk.
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Oct 24, 2017 14:17:15 GMT
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not necessarily the hardest to drive,but probably the most pain in the , any car with vacuum operated wipers. try driving up hill in a rain storm (great going down the other side )
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Oct 24, 2017 20:32:03 GMT
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This. DSC_8992 by dbizzle_, on Flickr The clutch is basically an on/off switch. Stalled it about ten times, looked a right berk. I'd happily look like a right berk to have that sat on my driveway
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It strikes me that this car fits the bill quite nicely, it's a superb replica of the record breaking 1905 White's steam car of the early 1900's built, owned & driven by Dr Bob Dyke. The ' White Racer' purportedly reached 120mph in 1907 and wiped the board clean at every race it entered, (to put this in perspective the Rolls Royce 30hp, which was one of the most expensive and advanced internal combustion engined cars of that era had a top speed of 55mph and the contemporary Ford Model F could just manage 35mph). If you look at the girders that make up the chassis and the enormous rear axle I think this was definitely the fastest lorry in the world a full quarter of a century before Bentley was awarded that monicker. This is a car which would completely baffle everyone apart from locomotive or steam-ship engineers, with all the taps, valves, bizarre gauges, levers, etc. I think the average person would require many hours of instruction to be able to get this lump to (literally) move under its own steam! This is definitely not one you jump into and drive away as raising steam could take half an hour. Whistling Billy by Chris, on Flickr Whistling Billy - engine detail by Chris, on Flickr Whistling Billy - cockpit detail by Chris, on Flickr Whistling Billy by Chris, on Flickr Whistling Billy - engine & boiler detail by Chris, on Flickr I love the fact that it sounds just like a steam locomotive; Even Dr Dyke occasionally experiences significant difficulties in coaxing this 4-wheeled locomotive into life;
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Last Edit: Nov 13, 2017 4:52:47 GMT by MkX
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melle
South West
It'll come out in the wash.
Posts: 1,984
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Nov 14, 2017 10:21:25 GMT
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Gorgeous!
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www.saabv4.com'70 Saab 96 V4 "The Devil's Own V4" '77 Saab 95 V4 van conversion project '88 Saab 900i 8V
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Nov 14, 2017 12:33:44 GMT
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Our old Passat B5 estate aka the Turkey gatherer..
It was so worn (a hard 200k+miles), every suspension component was goosed, when you tried to "hustle" it down a country lane, you didnt actually know if you'd get chronic understeer, hilarious and bowel movement inducing oversteer, or both at once all with a healthy dose of insane bodyroll, the front brakes regulary set on fire, due to sticky calipers. Then a headlight used to fall out and dangle on the wires randomly.
The interior could be described as discusting, when we got it every pocket/bin/ashtray/recepticle/flat surface was covered with cigarette ash & stubs it stank.
Then the door release broke, so you hand to wind the window down to open said door, but the also when it rained and you went over a bump in the road the sunroof opened and windows that worked went down.
Why the Turkey gatherer you ask? well one front pully on the TDI engine was so warn / wonkey the serpanitne belt made a very distinctive hi pitched gobbblegobblegobblegobble.
still for £200 it served us for a year as a mobile skip / van when we started renovating the house.
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Take the Next slot right coming up on the left.
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I was going to say "AX" but that's already been covered (pedals close together + size 12+ shoes = ...., same as 106s etc) 105E Anglia for anyone over 6 foot. Even with seat all the way back you end up with 1 knee resting on the drivers door, the other hampering gearchanges. Bonus points if it's a 998 with original "crash" box (no sychro on first gear), especially if you work in a city and "double-de-clutch" is a phrase you've never heard before Anything with a dogleg gearbox (pre-72 Porsche 911 ) - who thought it was a good idea to put reverse where first should be? Worst car to drive safely? I vote quick FWD Lancias - Beta, HF Martini etc (I *love* RWD as they suit my driving style, Lancias are very front heavy so the back end slides if you ease off in a corner, I saw one buyers guide that said "common problems : check the boot floor for ripples in case it has gone off the road backwards! )
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Nov 15, 2017 19:56:31 GMT
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Young fellow across the way from the place I work had a nice restored 1967-ish Beetle with drum brakes, that didn't quite pull him up in time, resulting in front end damage to the bonnet and front inner and outer wings. It's now been sitting about awaiting repairs for months. Those Beetle pedals certainly take a lot of getting used to. I love them! Overly springy standard seats make them quite tricky, and as mentioned earlier, a variation of heel and toe to stop them stalling is a skill aquired quickly!
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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