rabbitstew

Am i the only one who doesnt see the point of making pictures look all old and faded as if they were taken back in the 1970`s and chopping them square?

When I was looking for a 350z I briefly considered a Z4M. I remember searching on autotrader for z4m`s and 350HR`s within 100 mile of my house and there were only a handful of both. In the end I decided for the 350z as to me it had more character, was cheaper and to my eyes better looking. It also had the bonus that around my way its a very rare car and quite unusual to see one.. Z4`s are like Boxsters around my way, common as muck. Sure the Z4M is a different beast, but I came up against a couple during my time with my 350HR and have to say on the road there was nothing at all in the performance, they were neck & neck.

My first car was a 1971 Austin Mini 850cc which actually had a 1964 engine in it with the old "pudding stirer" gear shift. It cost me £20 to buy, and £500 to insure third party only. I had it for about 3 years, crashed it twice and repaired it myself. Did loads on it, had engine out, new clutch, rebuilt head, carbs, I fitted Cooper S disc brakes ("Normal" Mini`s pre 1984 only had drum brakes all around), roll cage, buckets, harnesses, alloys, adjustable suspension, cherry bomb LCB exhaust system, all the usual trick mini bits. I was always working on it and it was how I learnt all about car mechanics. In the end the rust got so bad I scrapped it and swapped all the bits over to a newer 1980`s Mini. I remember I got £5 from the scrapyard for the bare shell, then sold the rest of the bits in the local paper. I remember getting £20 for the original 10" steel wheels, and even sold the old engine for £60. One of the few cars ive actually made a profit on when I sold it!

Looks good in the photos, makes my car look filthy!

Fuel costs aside for the ridiculous mileage I was doing in mine, depreciation was by far the biggest killer. If you buying into the low end of the zed market, I think the depreciation is hardly anything, if anything at all. But when you start spending £15k upwards (probably 370z market now to be fair) then you get stung by a much bigger drop in price. I paid about £16k for my zed and sold it for just over £9k 18 months later. Which worked out at about £5500 per year depreciation. The original owner paid something in the region of £34k for the car when it was new, so over the first 4 years it halved in value by the time I came to buy it. Personally id rather the dealer dropped the price a bit rather than fit new tyres. They will nearly always fit the cheapest nastiest tyres they can get. Whereas if they just drop the price by £300 to reflect the cost of new tyres then you can get some decent ones of your choice. Also make sure they match the rear tyres! Im surprised your insurance company didnt have a stroke when you got a quote for the zed. I presume you have got an insurance quote? Even though I had 18 years NCB and years of driving high performance cars & motorbikes, I really struggled with insurance when I got mine, simply because I was driving an old Golf GT TDI at the time and they felt it was too much of a jump going from a oil burner to a 309bhp zed. The "specialist" insurers were even worse with some saying they`d only insure me if id driven/owned similar high performance cars over the last 18 months etc...

Mine was my daily driver, nearly 500 miles a week in it!

Same here. I've got Sky HD and a PS4 hooked up so no real interest in the smart TV aspects (or 3D, which doesn't really seem to have taken off). In all fairness you`ll struggle to get a set without having 3D built in these days. Mine has it, i didnt want it, and ive only tried it once to see if it worked. I can see why some people like smart tv`s, but I do find it quite funny to be honest. Say for example i want to check on facebook. I can do this on my mobile phone, or on my laptop, or even turn the telly on and log in via the telly. Hell even my blu ray player has a facebook app so I could log in via that. But I mean... who honestly would think, "i know, i want to check facebook lets log in via my dvd player?!!!"

They are, but no longer being sold in the UK market as apparently due to all the marketing people tend to opt for the mega thin bezel`d lcd/led sets regardless of whether the plasma has a "better" picture or not. I upgraded my old 42" HD plasma last year for a new 50" one and the difference is amazing. Its amazing how much technology moves on. My new plasma weighs nothing compared to the old one, has a much smaller bezel, the picture quality is loads better. One thing I noticed though is that nearly all the new sets are 3D regardless of whether you want it or not. But its entirely up to you if you use 3D or not, personally ive not really bothered. The main problem I found though is what starts of as "i`ll just upgrade the telly" ends up that you then upgrade your blu-ray player also as they are cheap enough, then you start looking at your AV AMP etc. then speakers and you end up spending a fortune. I ended up after spending about £800 on a new telly, forking out the same again on a new pioneer av amp and £250 on a new blu ray player. Have to say though that the difference HD Audio through the new amp makes over my old av amp is staggering, absolutely incredible. Well worth the ugrade.

I was waiting for the mower to go flying off the back of the trailer. In all fairness it was hardly a competition. I remember when I first got my 350z some bloke in a 4 door family merc came up behind me, over took me and just blew me off the road like I was standing still. It was then I realised the "4 door family merc" was a C63 AMG.

Oh, i thought this was your new "anti theft" plan!!! Block the car in with harris fence and diggers!

Ferrodo 2500`s is what i put on my 350z, Worked lovely!

Thats a bit of bad luck but these things do happen. I bought a Ducati 996 last June and literally within 200 miles the clutch went. So that immediately was £300 on bits I had to forkout, but luckily I could fit the new one myself. In my case it wasnt a case of the clutch slipping through use, it was the fact that the previous owner hadnt tightend up the main nut holding the clutch in correctly. So, this came undone and the clutch started working its way out of the side of the engine. Not what you want when your "making progress" on your favourite bendy bit of road. At least now I know the bike has a brand new clutch and I took the opportunity to replace it with lightweight performance bits which actually boosted the bikes performance.

You will be supprised. I had a similar experience on the way to work the other week. Im doing 70mph on a dual carriageway in my 123d and this guy in a tuscan flew up behind me. We come to a round about and he decides to try and undertake me on the inside lane. I actually out accelerated and out handled him as we went around the roundabout, then I accelerated back up to the speed limit (on what was an empty road) he didnt have enough power to keep up with me. Thinking I may have just got the drop on him or he wasnt trying, I decided to test it again and so off the next roundabout I put my foot down and once again I out accelerated him upto the speed limit. He then decided 80mph wasnt quick enough for him and rattled past me thinking I was still trying to accelerate whereas in actual fact id already put the cruise control on and was happily listening to the radio. Still it did sound nice though!!

What i did was knock up a quick excel spreadsheet. That way you can work out pretty much the exact costs over 12 months and each month. For my 2007 HR zed I was doing about 25k a year in it as a daily commuting vehicle so I was spending £450 a month on fuel alone. Tyres would last me a 12months and cost about £650 a set. Tax was nearly £500, insurance was £900, servicing came to about £200, I added £200 for other little bits and the biggest cost by far for me was depreciation. You can roughly work this out by seeing what cars like the one you are getting tend to sell for but a year older with a bit higher mileage. I lost £6k on mine in 12 months. Overall my zed was costing me £1200 a month when I worked it out. Thats not including any finance as I paid cash for mine. I also was "lucky" in that I didnt need a major service or have anything such as a clutch go. As a new buyer, id try to find one which has recently had a P2/P3 service as thats the more expensive one. The minor services are very cheap and easy to do yourself. If its got a new set of tyres, then you are saving £650 or so alone there, although try and make sure they are not el cheapo tyres and something like falkens or bridgestones etc. If your buying from a garage 9/10 they will just stick the cheapest on in order to sell the car. Pre 2006 will be cheaper road tax, although lower power cars. And if your buying an older car then depreciation wont be such an issue as the majority of the cars drop in value will already have happened. Good luck!

Well yep, would have been a brand new car back then and im sure at one point it hits the front of one of those cars it undertook.

I had this on my facebook earlier in the week. Pretty mental driving from both the porsche and the R1. It`s pitched as "from the 90`s" but the R1 is the same one as I have (1999) and the Porsches number plate is W777MJT so must be at least 2000. Wonder if the police can do them now after all this time?

Id go for a M135i or the 235i i guess how its called now, which ever is the convertible one. Ive gone from a 350z to a 123d and love it, best of both worlds.

Mentioned this to the missus earlier today and I get home from work to find this!!! Yey!!!!!!! Not bad quality to be honest, tyres are a bit too hard I feel and its a little under powered, but the cats love it! Good spot OP

[Rabbitstew goes off to google Simon Dee........]

Maybe but it wont affect much. Look at Jonathan Ross, he still gets plenty of work after the "manuel" scandel, and wasnt Chris Evans at one point "sacked" by the BBC for something or another, and yet now he`s rinsing it and has a fleet of cars.

Reminds me of when I went out for a couple of "quiet drinks" after work with a workmate and ended up rolling in at about 5am after spending about £500 in a strip club we had stumbled across on our travels. Funny thing was, if i remember correctly it was £20 a dance so we must have had no end of them. From then on, everyone else in the office was always asking me when I was going out for a few quiet drinks next.

Whilst I personally am not a big fan of clarkson, some of the things he has said are quite funny from this wiki list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Clarkson#Controversy

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO which one best not be the one at the beehive center i need my subway melt! Think its the one on Mill Road according to the local news. But apparently theres something like 7 Subway`s in Cambridge so hopefully not all of them are affected.

Will this be quicker than an R/C VXR though is the big question?

Well thats what happened with the whole "Alf Garnett" thing. I remember watching a documentary on it the other year and all these white people were saying how offensive to black people the show was because of Alf`s attitude. Then they interviewed a load of black people who grew up watching the show and they loved it they said they were not offended at all and thought the show was hilarious at how it portrayed Alf. It wasnt about being rude to black people but more about making the Alf character look like an ignorant idiot. So you werent laughing (or agreeing) with what he was saying, but laughing at how stupid the character was. Talking of Subway, by any chance? To be fair I can see why they'd do that in the named locations, but they'd be better off just admitting it and saying it's down to customer demand which is just good business practice. One of those Subways affected is in Cambridge. I dont see why they cant just have both halal meat and ordinary meat in their shops - like they do with veggie options. That way all customers will be happy rather than non muslim`s being forced to either eat halal meat or pick other options other than ham/pork. Also, I have to say ive never really noticed muslims queuing up wanting to buy sarnies in the past. Most muslims i know bring their own hot food to work for their lunch and wont touch a sarnie with a barge pole - but maybe Subway are right and theres a huge demand for halal meatball subs from the muslim community..