ferrarilover wrote:I can solve your problem. Buy a Focus ST, an orange one, they're so frightened by the lights (a bi-xenon affair which'll outshine the sun) and the colour that they either stop and wave you past, or drive off the road all together. That and the 300bhp on tap should they fail to see you coming
Matt.
Not a bad idea that, it'll certainly be an improvement on the Daewoo Lanos! They probably see me driving that and assume I'm one of their own and will then happily pootle along at 20 mph in a 60 zone!
There is also the classic money thing too, or the lack there of!
ferrarilover wrote:I can solve your problem. Buy a Focus ST, an orange one, they're so frightened by the lights (a bi-xenon affair which'll outshine the sun) and the colour that they either stop and wave you past, or drive off the road all together. That and the 300bhp on tap should they fail to see you coming
Matt.
Focus ST's use the 221 bhp 2.5 lump Matt, I think you mean the RS
Or, alternatively, mine is running a massive AutoSpecialists intercooler, AutoSpecialists induction, DreamScience 3" downpipe, DreamScience 3" 100CPI sportscat, DreamScience 3" catback and (crutially) DreamScience DCSi (reduced from Mod X because I have the common 'go faster' ST problem of clutchslip in this cold(ish) weather)
Mod X'd it's running 315BHP and 400Lb/Ft, given enough friction from the clutch and traction from the tyres, it'll go from 0-national speed limit in 6.5 seconds and in 2nd gear. The other 4 are just there to decide the length of the ban and the size of the fine.
Matt.
As an aside, mine will eat an RS All. Day. Long. Any gear, any speed, any test, it's bye bye Rallye Sport.
ferrarilover wrote:Or, alternatively, mine is running a massive AutoSpecialists intercooler, AutoSpecialists induction, DreamScience 3" downpipe, DreamScience 3" 100CPI sportscat, DreamScience 3" catback and (crutially) DreamScience DCSi (reduced from Mod X because I have the common 'go faster' ST problem of clutchslip in this cold(ish) weather)
Mod X'd it's running 315BHP and 400Lb/Ft, given enough friction from the clutch and traction from the tyres, it'll go from 0-national speed limit in 6.5 seconds and in 2nd gear. The other 4 are just there to decide the length of the ban and the size of the fine.
Matt.
As an aside, mine will eat an RS All. Day. Long. Any gear, any speed, any test, it's bye bye Rallye Sport.
Ahh so it looks like we have a man with more money than sense! Surely with all those mods you could've got yourself a better car?
Not even slightly, that's a total of just under £1500 of extras. I now have a car which, point to point, is quicker than just about anything else on the road. The only stuff which will strip it in a cross country dash (rather than in a traffic light derby) do NOT come with heated leather everything, quickclear this and touchscreen that. It's such an everyman car, if I keep it off boost (and off dump-valve, I know, I know, but I like it) then, even despite the colour, it will ferry me and three friends around in perfect discression. Yet, if I wanna go to Teignmouth and I have 6 minutes to get there from Torquay, I can blitz along the coast road past Labrador Bay and be there in time. It's £150 to service, tyres are £60 a corner, oil is £13 a litre, high performance brakes are £40 a corner. Ok, it only does 21MPG, but then, I knew that when I bought it and since I don't smoke, drink or pay for fornication, it's my only vice.
Nothing on the road in its price range (I gave £13.5k for a top spec ST-3 with EVERYTHING) gives you such a complete package in a car capable of both cruising and ripping about. You can have a car which is better at some things, but not such a great all rounder.
Bearing in mind, while shopping for this, I looked at Jag XKR (the 400HP supercharged 4.2 litre V8 version) as well as M3s, M5s and AMG Mercedes. Plumped for the ST because it was the best at all things while being the best at none.
All well and good Dave, but they're altogether to heavy and too Mercedesish to be as fast cross country as the Focus.
Nice though, I'm tempted by a Mk1 SLK AMG, 380bhp in sommat smaller than my car. Mmmmm.
I beg to differ mate. Heard it all before from owners of various cars, once you've driven an AMG you'll know exactly what I mean.
I've just sold mine which is a shame cos I'd have let you drive it so you could see for yourself. I had a Brabus modified box put in mine and had it remapped and de-restricted by Gamma Racing in Banbury (recently mentioned on Top Gear for their work with Jensen Interceptors, was lucky enough to take one of them for a drive while they worked on mine). Rear wheel drive as opposed to your front wheel drive ST would make it much easier to handle too, but I digress, no point arguing, just tell me when you've driven one
Haha, my last foray into the world of rear (correct) wheel drive was an S2000, what a bubble bath that was when pushing on. I do take your point with the AMGs, they are rocketship fast in straight lines, but I felt immediately at home lobbing the Focus about, I got the feeling with both the Benz I drove that I'd never be able to forget just how heavy they are. I'm getting on a bit now though, so maybe my desire for hot hatches will soon begin to diminish.
I haven't yet although I'm currently driving a Brabus Vito which is seriously good fun as it happens. I'm looking at the possibility of going for the Sport X Vito Dual Liner more for the flexibility it offers over a car, but that will be given the Brabus treatment and will most likely end up around the 350 bhp mark when I'm done with it. If I decide not to there's only one other option for me and that would be the CLK Black edition, drove one a few months ago and it was frighteningly quick. I'm a committed fan of Mercs after spending years hating them for disappointing me when I went to buy my then dream car, a 500 SEC, it looked beautiful.................until you looked inside, powder blue paintwork with red leather? Disgusting !!
Jesus Dave, I'm not being funny, but just what sort of computer techie are you? The van sounds cool, but where the hell does a geek get £150,000 for a CLK Black? I've only seen one 500 SEC, mistook it for HMS Invincible, then realised my obvious mistake, the ship is smaller. Powder blue with red leather, that's abysmal, walk away and fast.
What the hell are you going to do with 350 bhp in a van? It'll be undrivable, unless you make vast chassis changes as well as carrying round some heavy shopping glued to the back to give the rear wheels some traction. Like the Ford F150 or Lightening pickup, it just hasn't got the weight at the back to get any traction at all.
Stop messing about, do the decent thing, buy a Ferrari F430 then get banned and hire me as your chaffeur.
Should we perhaps create a 'cars' thread rather than clogging up poor Camb's thread?
A. Where's this new thread? B. It's called throttle control. C. If B seems like too much effort, it also comes with a very effective traction control system
