Fave Cars O' Mine

1993 MINI COOPER S



Forget your modified Subarus n Mitsubishi Evos. When it come to Rallying, nothing beats the mini cooper s. I'm not talking about the latest cooper that is so bloody overpriced and delivers the performance of a proton in mud. I'm talknig about THE mini cooper s, first built in 1961 by the British Motor Company. The original cooper had an 848cc engine, but some dude got the bright idea of using it for rallying and thus the 1071cc cooper S was born. One thing about this car was its revolutionary front wheel drive system in 1961 that eliminated the need for a drive shaft (the funny bump u get in most cars today separating the back seat passengers) . Its iconic status is only matched by the Ford model T.



This car is bloody tough. Want proof? Dig this. My dad got one waaay back in the 80s (his first car). My aunt borrowed it one day to go to Ipoh and in those days , PLUS was nonexistant. To cut the long story short, somehow, she drove it down the hills near Grik ( Perak). Car was hardly damaged except for the crumpled bumper. This car is the iconic rally car and is the winner of Monte Carlo 3 times .



LAND ROVER DEFENDER (FIFTH GENERATION)


"70% of all land rovers sold are still in use today" ....as claimed by Land Rover in 1992. Thats reliability for you. 2 factors contribute to this. One is, the entire body structure apart from the chassis is made from aluminium, rendering most land rovers rust free for years. The body is not a unibody design (welded together). Rather, its made of panels that are simply bolted together. This actually helps in absorbing shock n preventing metal faigue due to constant off road use. Forget your 3 million dollar Humvees and your crappy japanese wannabe offroaders. You want to serious jeep, get this. The Malaysian Military uses it.

To me, its the best jeep design out there. Absolute classic, and it never goes out of style.






ASTON MARTIN DB5




Classic design. Given the option of choosing between the latest Vanquish or DB9 and this one, no prizes for guessing which car i will take. Why? Its a freaking Bond car..in fact, the MOST iconic Bond car. Appeared in 'Goldfinger', 'Thunderball', 'Goldeneye', 'Tomorrow Never Dies' and it even had more on screen time in comparison the the Vanquish in the latest 'Casino Royale'. Its a gentleman's car. Elegant, with the right mixture of style and not-so-expensive-look, it beats the new Aston Martins hollow. Utterly capable of giving a Ferari F-50 a run for its money (demonstrated in 'Goldeneye' by Pierce Brosnan). It does lack sex appeal, but the elegance makes up for it.






BUGATTI VEYRON




Here are a few fast facts to whet your appetite:

1) The quickest accelerating production car in history(0-100 in 2.46 seconds)
2)Consumes more fuel than any other production car
3)Everyday top speed of 377km/h and capable of 400 km/h speeds.
4)" THE BEST CAR EVER MADE"..Jeremy Clarkson


The car's performance is so damn jaw dropping that jealously emerged in this fashion:



"The most pointless exercise on the planet has got to be this four-wheel-drive 1000 horsepower Bugatti. I think it’s incredibly childish this thing people have about just one element—top speed, standing kilometer or 0-60. It’s about as narrow minded as you can get as a car designer to pick on one element. It’s like saying we’re going to beat the original Mini because we’re going to make a car 10 mph faster on its top speed—but it's two feet longer and 200 kilos heavier. That’s not car designing—that just reeks of a company who are paranoid."




the chap who made this comment was incidentally the dude from Mercedes whom designed the McClaren F1, which was the fastest production car before the Veyron.


Its base price is $1,440,800, making it the most expensive production car in history. righto, on tto the engineering.


Only two points of interest here. At speeds of 200++ km/h, the car hydrolically lowers itself to the ground and the rear spoiler opens out automatically to increase the down force on it, so much so, the car is capable of driving upside down.

To enable the car to go at its top speed of 407.5 km/h, a special key must be used. This can only be done when the car is at standstill and after the onboard computer automatically goes through a check-list to determine whether the car is ready. Only then, the rear spoilers flare out, increasing the down force required to maintain the car on the road at these speeds.




1936 ROLLS-ROYCE PHANTOM





The holy grail of luxury cars. Its good enough for Queen E , so yeah, think i'll get one in future. Rolls Royces are synonymous with quality. The original ones were built in a funny way. The chassis was by the company, but the body was by craftsmen...H.J. Mulliner being the most famous. Its not about the way the car handles or about its performance ...leave it to your chauffeur to figure that out....its all about the ride. Most Rollses are named after ghouls and shadow ( Phantoms, Silver Ghosts, Shadows) gor a reason. They are that silent. The ride is akin to sailing all alone in uncharted waters in a mega boat. I'm a big, big fan of all the Phantoms from the Phantom 1 to the latest Phantom by BMW. People say the Maybach is the best luxury car in the world today. I say "go soak your head". You want class? You want style? You want bling in an un-rapper like style? Get a bloody Rolls.






1965 FORD GT40





I was torn between doing the final post on the Lamborgini Diablo and the Ferari Dino. Then, realised there was a better car around, one so rare, only replicas are available for the public today. Who can't help liking the car that wiped the floor with Ferari and Lamborghini at the mother of all endurance races , Le Mans, FOUR years in a row...at a much lower cost. The GT40 is named thus as it only stands 40cm above the road surface.


The GT40 was born when Henry Ford the second wanted to win Le Mans. He opted to buy Ferari, but was snubbed. The GT40 was his answer to the snoots in Italy. Its a British racing vehicle despite the American company that owns it....entirely designed and built by the Brits whom in my opinion are the BEST Formula One, Rally and endurance race car designers..........Honda was the Ferrari of the 80s in Formula One and their engineers were Brits. Most F1 teams today employ British engineers.


Design is simple. Large engine, streamlied body. It Worked!