I have noticed that if I rev the engine over 5000 RPM (well below redline at ~6500 RPM) and use lower gear (say 2nd), the car develops almost its max power and engine note changes. I can actually feel the additional power and the acceleration is quite exhilarating.
I wonder if there is any smartphone app which will output the sound of supercar based on speed of the car. In reality sound should be generated based on engine RPM but I guess an outside app won't be able to capture that without a link to ECU.
I think part of "thrill" is often psychological rather than pure ability of the car itself.
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I actually find it exciting to drive a moderately handling car* as it takes some understanding and sympathy to overcome its limitations and hustle it fast enough to surprise those in more sporty cars.
* does such a thing actually exist now? I have not had a car with poor levels of handling or roadholding for about 15 years
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>>does such a thing actually exist now? I have not had a car with poor levels of handling or roadholding for about 15 years
Wanna a drive of my KIA? I reckon my old A35 handled better on crossplies.
ps. Got a new V5 for it today, made me laugh. Who's going to bother to forge one for that!
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regarding the v5 bathtub tom, have you noticed the dvla seems to have the balls now to stateon the front of the v5 that 'this is not proof of ownership'.
then read what is just below that statement.
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Of course it can. Often more so. Certainly in terms of power. I find I just 'normalise' to anything fast after a day or two, and the sensation of speed and power fades and all you are left with is that every time you give it any beans your licence is in danger.
Why else did James Hunt drive an A35 van (apart from being skint)?
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Can driving a bog standard car be thrilling?
No.
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Welcome to the world of the Italian tune-up.
I have seen a device on ebay that plugs into the lighter socket. It senses the engine revs from the alternator output and feeds a signal into the car audio. It can simulate a 4, 6, V8 or V12 engine sound. I know someone wanted their MR2 to sound like a Ferrari V12 and had the idea of fitting an external speaker.
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Of course it can. There are lots of cars that are very fine in bog standard form. Many but not all of them are far from 'reasonably priced' though.
It does depend on the car, obviously.
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We used to do that in the `70`s by taking the suppressor off the dynamo!
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>> I have seen a device on ebay that plugs into the lighter socket. It senses
>> the engine revs from the alternator output and feeds a signal into the car audio.
>> It can simulate a 4, 6, V8 or V12 engine sound. I know someone wanted
>> their MR2 to sound like a Ferrari V12 and had the idea of fitting an
>> external speaker.
>>
Soundracer: www.soundracer.se/
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It retails at £25. I might give it a try.
One potential issue, I can guess, is use of FM transmitter to catch the sound. I have used FM transmitter in the past and was not impressed with sound quality.
Searched on web for reviews - not promising.
mstoneblog.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/soundracer-v8-review-its-crap/
www.amazon.com/Victory-SRV8-Soundracer-V8/product-reviews/B002NDRSIO/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt/183-2355154-4724738?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
Last edited by: movilogo on Wed 11 Apr 12 at 15:33
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After reading the reviews, I realize that it is very much hit and miss based on what car you fit it on. The capturing of RPM information via cig lighter socket is very unreliable.
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Maybe not thrilling, but there's definitely a lot of satisfaction to be had hustling a lower powered car along swiftly. Today our A4 is in the garage because the emissions warning light came on last week. It needs a part (lambda sensor??) that's being delivered tomorrow.
In the mean time we have an A1 1.2 TFSI loan car, in a fetching shade of powder blue :-) It's the lowest powered car Audi make I think - around 80PS - but has a nice rorty engine sound when revved, and accelerating away from the roundabouts on the A27 involves a lot of revving!! On the roads north of the A27, up to Petworth, it's satisfying keeping the thing moving briskly, and despite it's lack of power easy enought to overtake mimsers in the usual places. All in all an ejoyable drive, though I haven't looked at the price of it yet...
Useless fact of the day - the Audi 1.2 engine is completely different to the VW 1.2 That's a 3 pot engine - the Audi is a 4 cylinder turbocharged (though only lightly looking at the power output) one. I wonder why??
Peter
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Isn't the VW(Audi/Skoda/SEAT) 1.2 petrol 4 cyl while the 1.2 diseasel is 3 cyl?
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>> Isn't the VW(Audi/Skoda/SEAT) 1.2 petrol 4 cyl while the 1.2 diseasel is 3 cyl?
Not sure about the current range, but the VW 1.2 petrol engine certainly used to be a 3 cylinder unit. It wasn't turbocharged though IIRC, so perhaps the later cars are all turbocharged 4 cylinder engines in various states of tune?
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The boggo (60hp) 1.2 Polos appear to be 3 cyl still according to Parkers.
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Shopping trolleys no they are dreadful things, but once you start getting up the range a bit to the better engines things brighten up.
Must be me but i get no pleasure or thrill (detest TBH) thrashing the living daylights out of a car with no guts to make it go fast, but revel in the effortless ease with which a even slightly overpowered, if that possible, car behaves in normal swift progressive driving.
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too late for edit...
i similarly find modern small engined as in torque trucks to be a source of driving displeasure...you can't beat having an engine, which is after all the heart of any vehicle, capable of providing easy power.
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The OPs findings largely depend upon the engine - plenty of cars sound like they are about to expire at the redline - the Hondas I have owned have always sounded at their most smooth near the top of the rev range.
(Prelude 1.8 12v, Civic 1.8VTi, CRV 2.0i, FRV 1.8i)
My old Forester also stayed creamy smooth to the redline.
Ford 1.1 OHV sounded cack at any RPM :-)
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>> Must be me but i get no pleasure or thrill (detest TBH) thrashing the living
>> daylights out of a car with no guts to make it go fast, but revel
>> in the effortless ease with which a even slightly overpowered, if that possible, car behaves
>> in normal swift progressive driving.
Going fast in a low output car is a satisfying knack involving not losing the momentum that you already have.
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For reasons I can't begin to rationalise, I agree with Zero. I am quite tired though.
:-)
Throwing diesel Mondeos around can be great fun for example. Knowing just where the revs need to be etc in what is a very fine handling car anyway. Good crack.
I like properly fast cars too mind...
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>> Going fast in a low output car is a satisfying knack involving not losing the
>> momentum that you already have.
i do that by default because of my normal driving machines, but increasingly other drivers won't let you for some obscure reason (manhood?) even if you and the other one are the only two on the road at 4.30am they still try to baulk you or dictate your progress.
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I always get a thrill when I take my old tractor on the road and use top gear. The lower gears are only walking pace, but in 4th it surges forwards with a satisfying boom from the exhaust pipe and a feeling that the front wheels might leave the ground.
15 mph flat out on a hard seat with the wind in one's hair is the life.
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Watch this all the way through Cliff. I think you might like it...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lmE17Dg23w
Edit - especially the bit around 1:40...
:-)
Last edited by: Humph D'Bout on Tue 10 Apr 12 at 21:17
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>> Can driving a bog standard car be thrilling?
>> Going fast in a low output car is a satisfying knack involving not losing the momentum that you already have.
I agree. I certainly extracted more fun out of my first few cars than anything I've had in the last 15 years or so. The average power output of the early ones was about 60bhp. As others have said above, it's all about exploring and overstepping the limits of a car - easier when the limits are lower IMO.
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Last year, I had reason to drive an 800cc Chevrolet Matiz for a week and I loved it.
The closest it had to gizmos was a 2 speaker radio/cd. Windy up windows etc.
I loved it.
Like driving any vehicle, you work it to its strengths. Driving about town was like driving a wee go-kart, from 0-15 it was quite fast !
Your whole driving technique has to change and that makes it challenging and enjoyable, going up the sliproad to the motorway you know you need to keep it in 3rd, it just won't do it in 4th. Overtaking you need to plan in advance.
Parking was a joy though!
I loved it, for a week I no longer drove on auto-pilot!
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Agree Bobby,driving the daughters Fiat Panda the 1.2.In town put foot down and trow it about.I like driving the little car nippy and fun.
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James Hunt used to drive an A35 van.
From driving my vintage Morgan and a Landrover, I can see the point as if you drive well, you can beat some folk, get real satisfaction and not be travelling at a licence losing speed. The Morgan has beaten a BMW and I've beaten a Scooby round a bend in the Landrover. True, the drivers of the modern machinery can't have a clue, but it's still satisfying!
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One of the most enjoyable drives I have ever had was a cross country thrash from just outside Leicester, to Oxford, in a bog standard 2003 Ford Ka 1.3. 60 horsepower, skinny little 165 section tyres and air-con that wiped 10 mph off the speed whenever you engaged it. :-)
As was mentioned earlier in this thread, when driving a car like this, you play to its strengths. Avoid motorways where it is going to be pretty hopeless, and find A and B roads. Despite straightline performance best described as wheezy, it could carry ridiculous speed through the corners, had all the feel you could want through the steering and seat of your pants, and it was one of those cars where you could get a lovely flow going, driving quickly, but quite instinctively, without feeling like you were overdriving it.
If they weren't such rotboxes, I would have bought one by now. Brilliant cars to drive.
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Agreed DP. I used to love driving my wife's Ka. Like being a teenager again !
On the rot thing. We bought her's new in 2004 and she wrote it off in 2010. We went to see its remains at the breaker's yard to collect her stuff from it. It had been cut up to free her from the wreckage and I have to say there was no visible sign of rust anywhere. Maybe they're not all so bad.
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My 1989 Escort - same 1.3 engine as the Ka, I think, but with a four-speed gearbox, a carburettor (and a manual choke) and no weight-adding concessions to modernity except a rear wiper and mirrors you (or your passenger) could adjust without opening the windows - was a treat to drive that way on As and Bs. I had, shall we say, good reasons for travelling from Hampshire to Birmingham at weekends, and in those pre-M40 days I had a gorgeous route using the A34, A415, A40 and then cross-country through Stow and the Cotswolds. Took three hours but I always enjoyed it, and still got 42mpg.
Then came the motorway, which saved time but raised the noise levels, and I sold the Escort and bought my first and last Vauxhall, an Astra 1.4. Miles better engine, and five speeds, but not nearly the same minimalist satisfaction as the Escort. Dreadful seats too.
These days I'm all for GB's waftiness, since most of my journeys involve motorways and the long ones a full load of family, so comfort and calm are key. I'm even looking at automatics, would you believe!
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>>I have seen a device on ebay that plugs into the lighter socket. It senses the engine revs from the alternator output and feeds a signal into the car audio. It can simulate a 4, 6, V8 or V12 engine sound<<
That can't be right, can it? Not if the regulator pack is working anyway.
And I'll bet the crisp new £20 note I happen to have left over from my UK jaunt that it won't sound like the V12 that I happen to know well.
And the answer to the OP's question is: no.
Entertaining in some circumstances, maybe. But a thrill is a different thing - as far as I remember.
Last edited by: Mike Hannon on Wed 11 Apr 12 at 11:00
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>> I had reason to drive an 800cc Chevrolet Matiz for a week and I loved it.
I also had it as a courtesy car for a week and loved it - for its fuel economy :-)
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>>That can't be right, can it? Not if the regulator pack is working anyway.
When the engine is running, battery voltage isn't steady. There's a ripple superimposed on the ~14V signal. The ripple comes from the peaks of the rectified 3 phase output of the alternator.
If a diode fails, the ripple becomes much more pronounced, but, even on a good alternator, there is some ripple present - the frequency content of the ripple being proportional to engine speed.
Last edited by: Number_Cruncher on Wed 11 Apr 12 at 12:38
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>> From driving my vintage Morgan and a Landrover, I can see the point as if
>> you drive well, you can beat some folk,
I don't think I ever contemplated beating anyone in my series 3 Landrover, but I enjoyed driving it. Trying to keep up with modern traffic was thrilling enough.
I doubt that young drivers brought up on modern cars would even imagine the relative lack of roadholding of a rear drive live axle Cortina, never mind a cart sprung, agricultural vehicle on remould cross ply off road tyres.
It brings back all the anticipation and concentration that used to be needed just to keep a car on the road if you were in a hurry, especially when you add in brakes that lock at the back on a damp road and make it steer across the crown of the road as the rear slides gutterwards; and the certain knowledge that if you crash the top of the windscreen will definitely meet your head. Just driving the thing at 50mph produced more adrenaline than anything at Alton Towers. I never went any faster as I couldn't bear the noise.
The only reason I sold it was to buy the MX5 - I thought three cars for me would be a bit greedy (well, somebody else did).
Slightly off the point I guess as a series landrover isn't really a bog standard car.
The most driving fun I ever had without attracting attention was probably either the 1965 Oxford, great fun in the wet, or an 895cc Mk 1 Polo that I got new in 1979 - the best way to make progress being not to slow down for corners at all unless absolutely necessary, 40bhp I think. Modern cars are mostly dramatically overpowered for what they need to do.
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>> Going fast in a low output car is a satisfying knack involving not losing the
>> momentum that you already have.
>>
This is why I like my 2CV, and isn't it what James May was banging on about when he tested a Panda on TG recently?
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Since what people seem to mean by 'bog standard' is low-powered, I can't resist putting in a word for the Skoda Estelle, even at the risk of provoking yobbish and ignorant Jasper Carrott-style bawling from bigots who don't know the car. It had fragile and annoying features (the engine's wet liners made even a head gasket change very risky), but was a brilliant design, easy to work on and keep in proper tune, and far more capable than people thought. I never drove the cooking 105, but the 1200 and 1300cc variants could reach 100mph, a whisker above or below, and the handling was safe and good fun.
Can't really call the experience thrilling, but there was something deeply satisfying about overtaking 10 or 15 mimsing South-east drivers uphill in a despised Skoda and vanishing over the horizon.
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Don't forget the original mini great small car for handling.I had one for a year with a new subframe bought it for £500.2CV brother had one with a duck painted on the door.
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Occasionally, if desperate, I have use of a friends absolutely clapped-out 205. The trick is keeping the engine running until you get from A to B! If you let the revs drop below 1500rpm, it cuts out and refuses to re-start for almost an hour, after which it will re-go.
When driving it, you are on tenterhooks and edge of the seat the whole time, you really have to read the road and conditions very accurately, you cant afford to get in a tail-back, jam, or stop-start conditions. I hate driving it, but it dont half get the adrenaline flowing!
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I had a similair experience with a old Lada on a trip to Blacpool.Chain kept going slack had to sort it out on the way there and back.It's all fun.>:)
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Another vote for the Ford Ka. My wife's was great fun to drive on a windy road. Agile and surprisingly neutral handling on skinny tyres and nicely weighted steering. You could power understeer into a bend then get it nicely back into line by backing off the accelerator. Only 60hp, so no real risk of overdoing it. and landing in the scenery. Not brilliant on the autobahn, but that isn't what we bought it for.
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I'd like to add another mention for Skoda.
I had an early Estelle almost twenty years ago, and it was the most fun thing to drive I've ever owned.
No power, skinny tyres and the engine in the boot meant not slowing down for corners was the only way forward, teaching me a lot about car control along the way.
Regular entertainment was to be had driving round XR3's and the like when leaving the Lakeside shopping complex, then watching them accelerate furiously up the motorway sliproad to overtake, confirming my thoughts about who had horsepower and who had talent ;)
Such conceit has youth I suppose.
Our Mondeo will cover the ground in a suprisingly agile manner for a big repmobile, but thrashing it about just isn't as satisfying as extracting the maximum from a vehicle which hasn't got much to start with.
Last edited by: Mr PDA on Sat 14 Apr 12 at 08:35
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Most of the time, driving my Avensis is pretty boring. The engine doesn't do a bad job considering it's only 127bhp. The chassis though is impressive - a strong bodyshell linked to Celica double wishbone rear suspension but made soft for a saloon car. It has massive grip. It's not it's natural forte but it can be hooned around corners or roundabouts with absolutely no tyre squeal if you need to get a move on.
Now if it had Recaro seats, a floor hinged accelerator and an MR2 turbo engine I might consider keeping it for longer.
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>> Now if it had Recaro seats, a floor hinged accelerator and an MR2 turbo engine
>> I might consider keeping it for longer.
>>
Can't help with the first two, but wouldn't the T180 Diesel be most of the way there.
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>> Can't help with the first two, but wouldn't the T180 Diesel be most of the
>> way there.
As well as not being quite as reliable as the Toyota petrol engines, I don't really need a diesel GB.
There must be some bog standard cars out there that are actually better to drive than the sum of their parts, but I haven't found one yet. I'm surprised you haven't considering how many cars you've moved in the transporter days. Some people regard the Focus quite highly but I know your opinion on them :)
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Can driving a bog standard car be thrilling? - Zero
