Flower Power Suxs !

I realise it's a sin to reference Top Gear on this forum, but one should never forget that a Beetle made it across Botswana unscathed - and it was competing agains a Kadett that nearly never made it - and limped across the finish line practically broken.
 
Top Gear references are the best :D

The Kadett was fine except for the fact that Hammond drowned it and they needed to open up the engine. All these cars were used cars, Opels tend to have "drivers" where VWs usually have "users" - so it had lived a full life. It was a very good performance from the 1L OHV engine - well done Kadett A !
 
Rouxenator said:
Top Gear references are the best :D

The Kadett was fine except for the fact that Hammond drowned it and they needed to open up the engine. All these cars were used cars, Opels tend to have "drivers" where VWs usually have "users" - so it had lived a full life. It was a very good performance from the 1L OHV engine - well done Kadett A !
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Whatever, the beetle was a backup and pwned your opel.
 
Aqua_lung said:
Whatever, the beetle was a backup and pwned your opel.
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If the Kadett failed and Hammond had to drive the Beetle then I would admit to that. But the Kadett did not fail - showing that the first generation Kadett/Astra is as good a car as they are today.

I guess for the same money Hammond could have gotten a Mk2 Golf but then he would have had to chop even more than May with the Merc W123. The Mk2 is just sooo bloated :p
 
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Agreed, he drove it into a lake, no car would start after that, especially not a modern car, not a chance in hell.

In fact after Jeremy saw the car he had a stunned look on his face and after saying no way so many times said in 47 years he'd never been speechless.

The reason why he was stunned, the engine drew water into the cylinders and actually survived:

Wikipedia: Hydrolock said:
Hydrolock (short for either hydraulic lock or hydrostatic lock) is a condition of an internal combustion engine in which an incompressible liquid has been introduced into its cylinder(s), resulting in the immobilization of the engine's pistons. The liquid causing this malfunction is often water, hence the prefix "hydro-". Internal combustion engines must compress air to work efficently and this works because gases can be compressed. Liquids do not compress so if a volume of liquid greater than the volume of the combustion chamber at it's minimum (top of the piston's stroke) enters the combustion chamber then the piston cannot complete it's travel. Either the engine must stop rotating or something must give. The result is often a bent connecting rod or sometimes a cracked cylinder head or block.
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That is a testament to the strength of that engine, it held up to that kind of stress and that after running for 44 years, it didn't even look slow at all or smoke everywhere, truly amazing if you ask me.

That is also the main reason I still love Opel, their engines are built to last, there are PLENTY of Opel Kadett's and Opel Astra's still running around with their old motors and many people salvage 30 year old 20XE motors to put into their newer Corsa's, those motors last a long time when they are looked after, not to mention that the Opel motors are universally highly tunable. In the UK and here in SA many people produce more than 200kW (atw) with both Opel 1600 and 2000 cc motors.
 
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I guess as far as tuning goes you get a lot of that going on with the VeeDubbaDubbaDoo Citi Golfs as well. Only problem is that after you tuned your Citi to produce 1.21 gigawatts it still looks like a piece of sh1t1.

Opel engines are fairly reliable. I drive the snot out of my 1.6 16v Family 1 Ecotec and it has never missed a beat. Sure it is not a Mercedes/BMW so minor things will break (cosmetics) but it has never left me stranded - something I have seen a lot of newer VWs do to their drivers.
 
2CentsWorth said:
I realise it's a sin to reference Top Gear on this forum, but one should never forget that a Beetle made it across Botswana unscathed - and it was competing agains a Kadett that nearly never made it - and limped across the finish line practically broken.
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As a life-long VW fan I have to point something out here to you: If one of the Top Gear presenters had to drive that beetle it wouldnt have made it either. The fact that the kadett made it at all and in such fine nick should tell you what a bloody good car it is.
 
:D I have to laugh at the "If one of the Top Gear presenters had to drive..." part. I guess the only saving grace for the Kadett was the fact that it is a rather simple engine to open. Anything with an even slightly more sophisticated engine into the water and it would have been tickets...
 
Rouxenator said:
Opel engines are fairly reliable. I drive the snot out of my 1.6 16v Family 1 Ecotec and it has never missed a beat.
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Yeah it's a very nice engine, it's seriously under tuned that's why you won't break it no matter how you drive it, they under tuned it to not compete with the 2 liter engine, some info about it's potential if you interested:

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y207/Mank_Yank/Random stuff/1-1.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y207/Mank_Yank/Random stuff/2-1.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y207/Mank_Yank/Random stuff/3-1.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y207/Mank_Yank/Random stuff/4-1.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y207/Mank_Yank/Random stuff/5-1.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y207/Mank_Yank/Random stuff/6-1.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y207/Mank_Yank/Random stuff/7-1.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y207/Mank_Yank/Random stuff/8-1.jpg
 
Stokstert said:
Given to them because GM couldn't sell them, were well over sell by date. :p:D
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Nice1 - good comeback :D
Yeah - that accounts for 15% of them. The other are repos GM took back from ex-VW drivers after they could not afford the installments on a real car and had to go back to their sh1t1 ways :cool:
 
Come on - I was hoping for another good one from your side like "Yeah thats how GM priced them self out of the market and into the cop car" :p
This could be a fun VAG vs GM thread...
 
Rouxenator said:
Come on - I was hoping for another good one from your side like "Yeah thats how GM priced them self out of the market and into the cop car" :p
This could be a fun VAG vs GM thread...
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I do not like anything VW, and never will.

I am not a huge Opel fan either, but would rather get an OPC than a GTI anyday, if I had to choose between the two.

But, that guy called Henry is on top of my list, and I would just like to point out how many STs, and new Fiestas, I have seen the cops using. And, there is an armed reaction co. that also seems to have adopted the new Fiesta.

B
 
I'm with you on that - the Ford ST models are pretty nice cars. I have had a Ford before my Opel and they are pretty good. Before that I had a VW and it was less nice.
 
Bismuth said:
But, that guy called Henry is on top of my list
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Henry ford? the guy responsible for the anti-semitic book "The international Jew"? :D

You thought VW's had a bad history, Ford's book inspired Nazi Germany's antisemitism :eek:
 
Aqua_lung said:
Henry ford? the guy responsible for the anti-semitic book "The international Jew"? :D

You thought VW's had a bad history, Ford's book inspired Nazi Germany's antisemitism :eek:
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That may be, but at least they did fund Nazi Germany's anit-semitism! :eek::eek:

I like the cars his co. makes, I think that the anti-semitism of that era was based on considerable ignorance, but that's not a debate for this thread.

B
 
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