Wow...

[jsbowden]

I've burned up over one hundred hours of vacation over the course of the last six months. Good thing I start earning four weeks per annum as of next week, I haven't had less than two weeks vacation sitting there doing nothing in several years now. I'm down to thirty one hours of vacation and twenty four hours of sick leave. Woe is me; whatever shall I do?

robeli and I took a BMW convertable out for a test drive the weekend before last. After taking a test drive, she says she's a majority of the way to being convinced. Excellent.

And yes dear, of course I know you're reading this.

All I can say is holy shit. It drove wonderfully; stuck to the road like it was superglued down, has a nice responsive 235bhp 3.0L inline 6 for an engine, and a 6 speed manual tranny mated up to 18"F/18.5"R low profile tires with big GIANT ventilated rotors on all four (ABS of course) that stop like it was free and corner like being on rails. I'm in lust.

Oh yeah, and the roof disappears at the touch of a button. We had to test drive the M3, as they didn't have any 330ci models with the Performance option and the manual tranny (the engine in the M3 has slightly more power than the straight 330(c)i w/Perf. pkg (and the dual exhaust on the M3 is a little more throaty sounding, but I prefer quieter anyway...the 330i is 225, w/perf is 235, I think the M3 might be 240 or 245 (I was wrong, it's 333bhp), but it's not much different), but not enough that it'll make any real world difference). Anyone who'd buy that car with an automatic transmission deserves to be taken out back and shot.

All the other shit that BMW throws on a car is just icing. There are better performing cars out there, but not with 4 seats and a roof that retracts.

If money didn't matter and I didn't need room for a carseat, I'd hunt down a 1989 930 (911s haven't been 911s internally since the 70s, it's a marketing number these days) Turbo Carrera conv. and ask that nice Mr. Ruf to work his magic. I'd kill for a 911 chassis that did 206mph. and still managed to be street legal, and that's what Ruf does to Porsches.

I love this disc, but I'd make one change to make it really ideal; I'd drop "Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word" and put "Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters" on it instead.

Comments

auto vs manual

[warpedpuppy.livejournal.com]

so does anyone ever notice that the HP advertised for vehicles is always produced at or above 6000 rpm? do any automatics go up to 6K before the shift? I don't think so.... touch and go traffic is the only reason to have an automatic.

and the M3 produces roughy 100 bhp per liter, the best ratio around right now, if I remember

/drives 350Z Touring - 287 hp at 6200 rpm

Re: auto vs manual

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Snow. I know an expert can get more out of a clutch in the snow, but less then expert and the auto does better in the snow. Can you get traction control with a clutch? We have traction control on the hyundai, and I had to turn the traction control off in order to lose traction in the snow.

Yeah, my del sol would be pathetic with an automatic shifting out just before the power band hits.

Re: auto vs manual

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

Yes, you can. I bought my Saturn in April 97, and it's a manual with TCS. It almost never activates in snow, snow actually gives decent traction (once it ices over, that's a whole other story). The most common time for it to activate for me is in the rain after having sat through a red light. Those painted stop bars give almost no traction at all when wet.

Re: auto vs manual

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Kewlio. The hyundai is the first car I've owned that's had it.

Yeah, I end up breaking traction in the honda on paint more often than I like.

Re: auto vs manual

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

There are some (unmodified) cars around with up to 125 bhp/l, but none of them is in the pricerange of the M3 TTBOMK. If you go really specialistic or modified, you can get more, though. An F1 car engine does about 800 bhp out of 3 liter, IIRC (or is it 3.5, now? Anyway.). 'Course, *it* does do that at something like 12000 rpm and with an engine life to rebuilding of approximately one race.

Re: auto vs manual

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Speed=money, how fast do you want to go?