GTAm

Brilliant move by Sergio Machionne and Fiat! They've waited for everyone to say no to the dying patient Chrysler and then they've got it free with so many advantages. What timing - on the day of Obama's innauguration!! As I see it, this would 1. Increase Fiat Power Train Technologies output/turnover by a massive margin as Chrysler has no proper small engines. Except out-dated Mitsubishi derrived units and the old Mini engine that comes from Brazil. The Fiat engines are far more advanced than both. 2. Fiat gets access to Chrysler RWD platforms current or future/shared. These could be used for Alfa and Lancia which is what they've been looking for as with the current Alfa and Lancia sales volumes they could not afford their own platforms. 3. Access to Chrysler's US dealer network. It's a lot less costly than setting up a new network for Alfa and more effective than using the few Maserati network. 4. Fiat gets a ride into Off Road and SUV segment which they've neglected so far. - Low tech for sure but the brand is valuable - JEEP. 5. Fiat also gets free plants in the US and Mexico to manufacture on the North American continent! And Chrysler - They get to survive!!!!!

My choice would be an Alfa 146 1.7 16v . Not many would agree here I know but I assure you that it's due to lack of knowledge about the brand. Spares ARE available, You could pick one up cheaper than most of the cars mentioned above. And it's a great drive with the 129bhp flat four engine and great handling. It's a 5 door though.... Finding an un-abused one will be the key problem though. The Pug XSi on AL classified is tempting too (I've driven this and the handling is even better than the Alfa - but not the engine) Spares could be tricky though... I don't like the CRX 2 but love the CRX 1. I don't think there's an issue with the CRX 2 spares situ as one of my cousins' own one without much problem for ages now. The Autozam is a better drive IMHO.

Hmmmm.........! Any clues ?

Great handling and I was surprised at how good the ride quality was as well. Yes Cynos is simply a Tarred up Tercel....... Crap to drive. One of my ex's owned one so I know ( I meant the car btw )

Ha ha ha good one. It's clear to see some folk are over-reacting and trying to cover up their tracks. Btw GtbR was losing the defemation case.............. Would have had to pay Lasantha damages very soon.... Go figure!

Great car chase between Giulia Sprint GT and a Lancia Flavia Coupe. How many car chases must we have missed on non-English movies ?

You guys seem to have had a great time. Congrats!! Pradfred and I were thinking of driving that way too. But my Saturday afternoon nap ended only at 8.30pm Really sorry, but we had a late Friday night and a lot of

Let me guess, you watch Rupavahini news and read the Daily News? Anyone should have the right to talk about anything and express their views without getting killed uless we live in Cuba. So Lasantha was buddies with Ranil and went to TN with him......There they hatched a plan for the UNP to kill Lasantha!!?? So that military operation will be stopped???? Wake up mate. Snap out of your hypnosis please. Who was feeling threatened by Lasantha's revelations? The UNP? Or the Ruling govt? Or the LTTE? If the govenment has nothing to hide why did they not arrest anyone after the Leader press was burned? Why are all journos threatend? If what they are saying is wrong all they have to do is prove it!!!! There's no need to kill......................unless its the truth and they can't hide anymore! I salute Lasantha for his bravery! He was never afraid to reveal the truth and criticise anyone, including Ranil when he was in power - How soon we forget! Amidst constant threats and intimidation he never backed off. He's a true hero in a country mostly full of cowards and idiots who love being taken on a good ride with a false promise! His death won't be in vain, you wait and see! The cowardly dogs who did this will pay one day!

On the contrary Peri, minorities and especially Tamils do feel threatened a lot more than the Sinhalese. Lawlessness will affect a Tamil person much more than a Singhala person, that's a fact. I realize this when I am with my Tamil friends. There are so many instances where I have no fear but they have plenty. Just imagine if there was someone with the same talent as Lasantha who was a Tamil..... Would he have achieved half as much as Lasantha did? I doubt. He would have been killed with his 3rd editorial!

What an interesting discussion...... I'm glad that most of the posts are civilized ones. @Don I fully agree with your view. I couldn't put it across better. I wish our damn political leaders read this thread. In the end it's hard to find a single leader who truly cares for the country. (The Joke is that only Prabakaran has fought a foreign army- ipkf in recent times ) And let's face it India is going to be our big bully by hook or by crook. It is plain to see right now. They'll control everything and our stupid govt. is playing straight into their hands. Even if the CFA was a bit one sided for me it was bettre than this war. We lost a much lesser number of lives than now. That alone should be worth it. Then there's the economic boom which would have seen us far far away from where we are today. I find it pathetic that so many Singhalese (including many of my friends) are caught up in the false patriotic euphoria. Most are buying the government epic story wholesale. Of course our forces SHOULD win any face to face open war given the disparity in numbers. And we do need to end terrorism which is not good for anyone in the country. And let's face it no one like the LTTE even if they were the only voice of the Tamil people at one time, they have gone far now. They should have talked peace when there were so many opportunies. We are however killing our own population both Sinhala and Tamil who can be put to much more productive use. But it is our politicians who created and aggrevated the problem for personal or party political gain. Both main parties are to blame and still they are not brave enough to take a accomodating stand openly fearing a backlash from the majority. However as many of you have pointed out, there is absolutely nothing done to address the root cause of the problem. I think it's well documented how Tamil folk are subjected to abuse. I have seen it happen. I have seen how racist and narrow minded some idiotic Singhala people are....... They find in impossible and unecessary to empathise with the Tamil folk. Shame on them. I think its a matter of insecurity especially among some of the monks. Hats off to the monk from Asgiriya who wrote an article in the Daily Mirror about the need of an "Obama" from the minorty to lead Sri Lanka. For 60 years the leaders from the majority have been bungling!!!! It is the govt who should be promoting harmony between the Sinhalese and Tamils. However this is probably the most racist govt. we've ever had. And they actually are fuelling division among the different races. And its all for political gain. My view is that what happend in the East is a quick fix sham as well. In the end its a kind of Eelam given to a different armed. group. Then why kill so many civilians and soldiers in the North? Just to fool the people..... It'll be years for all the donkeys who lit crackers to realize this though !

Hi Hi Micha, Hope you are enjoying the beautiful beach! I was there on Saturday! Pls give me a call we can meet on Monday for a few beers. My number is 0777354081 in case you've misplaced it.

Whoa whoa whoa hold your horses mate. It's nothing personal aginst you or any other member. This is a friendly discussion. So if I have offended you, very sorry. Not intentional. These discussions are fun activities and it's great to have as many different views as possible. Ok I might have gone a bit overboard ranting about the Brits as I'm quite dissappointed to learn that we (at least I) have indeed been brain washed for decades by a highly biased Brit press. But then I just had to . If you read modern Brit Classic Mags you would know that it is only now that those journos have discovered how great Italian cars are and how superior they were compared to their Brit or other counterparts. They too blame the contemporary Brit press for unloading a lot of bull on them. I'll select a few great articles from my magazine collection and give you the dates of those issues if you like. Measuring greatness as you say can be done in many different ways and it depends what criteria we use for greatness. For example if we look at running the perfect business model and prioratizing criteria purely for economic benefits the greatest automotive nation has to be Japan. But we know that you and I don't base our analyses on something so unsavory as we are true petrol heads and understand something a lot deeper than the millions of people driving non high performance Japanese cars and believing them to be great! Maybe if its DIY, being gentlemen and hating boy racers etc for you then Britain very well might be great. If you went to Italy you definitely would have learned all this a much more I'm certain. Look at what I've learned sitting here in old SL and reading ? Talking of which I notice quite a number of members have voted for Sri Lanka as the Greatest Automotive nation. !!! However for me engineering IS very important. Engineering is the foremost thing that makes Lotus a great company. They've had one or two great looking cars too - Espri, Elite and S1 Elan. Technical advancement is SO neccessary to move forward. There needs to be developement and improvement. This is one reason the Brit industry failed. They were trying to live on their charm quotient. And of course motor sport is the place where technical advancement is created to a large extent. So motor sport heritage is a must too. As you know Colin Chapman knew this. I have no doubt that Land Rover is great. The greatness is its engineering mate. Without superior engineering how could it be the best off roader for decades without end? The Pullman is a stretched Limo for wafting around and showing off. Any car with that kind of wheel base and overhangs is never going to handle. And the Pullman weighs around 600 kilos more than the 450sel....... my point is that the latter is the more competent car. However that's not the gretest Merc for sure. It would be SSKs IMHO. Oh an I admire Germany too. They are brilliant engineers you have to admit. Even if they lack sheer purity they know how to perfect things better than everyone else. But their cars lack soul and are a lot less exciting than Italian machines barring Porsche IMO. Stirring a Hornets nest is good! And see what it has done it's taken this interesting discussion further. I find it a lot more interesting than discussing over heating problems with a Nissan Serena or choosing between a Vios and Yaris And I'm thankful that you've re-energized this thread. It's great to have newbies with new perspectives. Pls don't be put off by my ranting. Discussions can only teach us more! Cheers.

JadeyBlitzen, I was initially impressed by the length of your reply. Great reading I thought..... but sadly it lacks facts and I feel it's time to take off you union jack glasses so that you may see better. So here goes, The Rolls, Maybache and the 600 Grosser are all barges. The Rolls is a classy and charming barge, the Maybache is an ugly barge and the Grosser is an exessively barge that had to have enough room fo its rock star or dictator owner and his excessive ego! The key word is "barge". We are talking the greatest CARS here. And the SEL 6.9 is one of the latter. It handled well enough to keep up with some sports cars of that era. None of the above can do that. Get it? Cars are different from barges. The Rolls Royce Silver Ghost was the world's greatest motor car once upon a time...... My point with the Lexus is that it destroyed the last tangible proof that Rolls Royces were not that great. The story was that in a Silver Cloud and 100mph the only sound you heard was the clock ticking. In a Shadow, Spirit and Corniche etc you heard more than that. But in the Lex even the clock was silent and for all its ugliness and fake wood it could run rings around auntie's barge. Yeah yeah they're charming and they are big killers of trees, lambs and cows . But that alone can't make them great cars. Dude the original DB4 was designed by Touring of Milan ! That's why it is gorgeous. Actually the chasis was the superleggera type that Italians were famous for. And like many Alfas it was done by Carrozzaria Touring! No ugly Brit eraser marks on the pure Italian lines!!! Time for you to buy an Aston history book! I love the DB4 too. And the Zagato. Thanks to Italy they got two great cars ! In fact 007's coolest wheels have been Italian designed eh? Esprit too, which I'll come to in a moment. Sorry if you died by my Abarth Competition history part. Here's a stat to ressurrect you. Abarth ETCC manufacturers titles 4! BMC ETCC titles 2! 4 is double of 2 ! And didn't the Mini get disqualified from the Monte for infringing the rules? I really love the Mini and it's a great car and even wish to own one sopme day. It's among the most fun drivers cars that I've ever driven. But that engine is crap. I don't know about your wheezy 600 experience maybe the carb was not tuned or it had a cold. But I bet you any day that the Fiat engine revs a lot better than the A series. As for the 500 two pot it's got bags more character than both units. What killed BL was above all the crap cars that they bulit and poor management. Yes the Italian had their fair share of poor quality, Russian rusty steel and bad management. But today the Alfa sud is a legend to people who really know and understand cars while the Austin Allegro was ........ uh words fail me here... help pls. Another tiny exercise for you my young friend; in 1965 Peugeot launched the 204 with IRS and Mcpherson struts at front which were powered by an OHC engine that was transversely. In 1969 Fiat made a similar package with even better results. Mcpherson struts all round and brilliant handling coupled with torquey OHC engines. All this while the Brits floated around in their 1100s, the Pininfarina design the most attractive part of it. And your bog standard Escort had to make do with anciant OHV engines and wagging rigid axles at the rear! No good sounding engines from Germany? Dude you dissappoint me big time. ANY flat 6 Porsche, most straight six BM the new V6 Mercs, The new Audi V8s, the Audi 5 cylinder turbo........ The French are not so much about engines as they are about suspension, yet there's the 2CV air cooled flat twin and the Citroen GS air cooled flat 4 that ooze character. Ha ha you assume too much pal. I hardly watch Top Gear and I'm def not a fan of Clarkeson as a car tester. As an entertainer, yes he's the best, but his knowledge on certain things automotive and his recent contradictions make him not trustable. If you've watched his greatest 100 cars you'll realize what a load knowledge he lacks. One example is that he places the Alfetta GTV (which frankly is not the greatest as any Alfisti will assure you) as a greatest and ignores the most greatest cars they made. Shows how much he knows about the brand. My heros are Paul Horrel, John Simister, Richard Bremner, Martin Buckley and Mick Walsh (come to mind at this late hour) as guys who truly understand cars and driving pleasure. I'm really sleepy now.....so I'll come to your Ferrari maths, Lotus Espri Nissan GTRs and your Roman pal tomorrow. You need a break too . Have a nice evening!

Here I am rudely stirring a hornets nest, but then forums are there for such fun aren't they? ....... Hope it is taken in a friendly spirit as I'm not directing anything personal here, just enjoying the freedom of a forum. Who says that Rolls Royce is the greatest car in the world? If at all it was one of the greatest luxury cars before any of us were born! It's a myth. Rolls ceased to be the greatest a long long time ago. The Brit press used to brag about it being the quietest car in the world, but then came the Lexus LS400 and smashed that claim with measured decible figures abd by quite a margin. In the 70's the W116 Mercedes 450 SEL 6.9 was considered the best car in the world. Heck even and XJ would have out performed a Rolls on every front. The current Phantom is probably one of the best Rolls in a long time. But the reason for this is that it was engineered by the Germans. The first true gorgeous Aston WAS designed by Italians - Touring of Milan to be exact. That's when Aston learned beauty. There's also the most sought after Aston - the DB4 Zagato. That last name does not sound very British to me "they need good handling" you say JadeyBlitzen. Then how do you explain the millions of crap handling Austins and Morris'? They unvented the dirty word "Badge engineering" by sticking a bit of chrome and wood and calling a crap Oxford, Woolsley and Riley. Let's not even go to the Morris Marina......In an era when France had been producing the Citroen DS for 2 decades and Germany was a decade on with the NSU Ro80!!! I'm not comparing them directly but was there any Brit car of the 50s and 60s that could come close to these two in technology? Most British cars were technically out dated when compared with their European counterparts. I'd challenge you to show me any Brit classic bar maybe Jaguar that was technically more advanced than their rivals from Italy, France and Germany. Top down motoring? Of course they are obsessed with them the same way they are obsessed about talking about the weather. You hit the nail on its head when you say that it rain 364 days a year. That's why they crave for sunshine on that one day. Nothing to do with cars. All to do with a lack of sun. "they don't like bad sounding cars"; my foot (as a Brit would say himself ) how would you explain the Austin A and B series lumps? Oh yeah the Brit press used to call it chracter. Compare them with any Fiat unit of the era and they'll sound like toads in heat. It was Ford UK who put big engines in small cars to make them go faster?????? Most history books started a bit earlier than that. Don't forget Dr. Ferdinand Porsche transplanting a beetle chassis to give the world the 356 and Carlo Abarth breathing on the lowly Fiats that killed giants. The 356 in the US and the Abarths in Europe. These are just two I that come into mind, I'm sure theer are loads more. Ah the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Ti - a small family car launched in the 1950's with an all alu twin cam? Yes the original Mini is a great car. But both the Fiat 500 and the 600 predate it and have sold a lot more than the Mini. The 600 Abarth also has a more admirable competition history than the Mini Cooper. Britain does have some great names for sure. Jaguar is a great and admirable brand that made technically advanced cars that looked very good but again their competition records are pretty ordinary compared to the Italians. Then there's LR which is unique and Lotus which is quite an amazing company. The two reason why most of us believe Britain's cars to be great is a) We have a special realtionship with them being a colony for so many years and b ) We read only English! They were great at making a mountain of a mole hill and we (me included - until much later) bought it wholesale and let them keep the change! In some ways they were like what the Japanese are today with their hype. Except Japanese cars are better made ! Trust the cunning Japs to take up the Brit motor industry's major weakness.

All this chaos while the barrel's dropping further !

Chairman of JKH.....

Are they SUs? They are know for their simplicity.... Or have you upped the stakes with a couple of Webers ?

Miniace, what's the engine on these? 1.5/1.6 twin carbs?

Well you probably don't know jack and being very silly , but it would be great if someone did start something like this. There is a big demand for this service in SL. Why not diversify xXx? I can tell you the average classic car owner (like moi) who takes on a resto goes through hell and loses a lot of hair throughout the long drawn process. But as HellRazor has pointed out, it's not a bed of roses. The main problem will be finding skilled workers who take their attendence seriously.

Yeah good question. I guess it would have broken all those owners hearts when they came and saw there cars rotting there. It must have been so devastating that they simply abandoned them. But still I would have at least cracked his head with the nearest rusty cam shaft I could get my hands on. . Luckily my car was more or less in one piece and towable.

Cool mate. I would resto the Fiat first as it would be cheaper and quicker to complete.

I have not driven an old 'nuova 500' too. Shame on me . But folk who have rave about how much fun it is. Most famous raver being Michael Shcuey so there really must be something there! Don't sell it mate. You'll regret it. 500s are hard to come by. A guy I know was desperately looking for one but we could not find one and he settled for a 500C (bug) instead. This one does not fire me up though. Have driven a 600 briefly and it felt unique. Wish it was a longer drive. .....

Well 22,000 Mitos have been sold already. So it's off to a flying start! Rhd still not in swing mind you. Both the Mito and the Mini don't look that great Imo. A case of trying too hard. But I prefer the Mito (but then I would wouldn't I ?) Fiat have shown how to do small sporty cars with the 500 Abarth. From all the reviews read so far the pros and cons are, Mito - Looks fresher than the Mini, Better engines, More bhp per $ (big difference here), No steering feel (Shame as this is something that's embedded in Alfa DNA). Mini - Better steering, BMW reputation, Better ride comfort. The over-riding factor however is the price/value factor, Here's a comparison of UK prices, Mini Cooper Chilli - 15,340 pounds and 118bhp Alfa Romeo Mito 1.4TB Lusso - 14,175 pounds and 153bhp I think that difference is significant enough to draw buyers away from the Mini dealers especially in these times.

There's a massive difference in terms of character and noise between the 4cyl and the V6 engines. IMHO the 4 pot Kompressors sound crap! I would go for a V6 always. Silky smooth and they sing at higher revs. Btw XXX I sent you an email.

Not mine mate.... I had only about an hour with it. Truly funky styling. In the metal it seems so much closer to the original. I am not a fan of retro but this one is so cool. Interior is Italian mixed with 50's Americana! An dthe drive was better than I expected too. The ride was super considering it has such a short wheel base and 1.2L seemed 'hondatama athi'