John K

Maybe I'm showing my age, but I still remember "Tammy has one. Mal is one"

Saw my first on the road. A white FG F6 pulled in behind me at my local servo on Tuesday night - he only had 500ks on it and was very happy - he migrated from a BA XR6T. I'm certainly in agreement with others that the FG shape comes over much better in real life than it does in photos. The new F6 in white looked verrrrry nice!

Had a few run ins with the cops over the years, but none as enjoyable as this one ..... Around 20 years ago I was on a road trip across the US. I was driving a bigblock Dodge coupe that I bought for a pittance in Florida. It had a straight through dual exhaust system with just hot dogs on it. It was LOUD and had so much grunt and the shockies were so shot that the bonnet would lift about 8 inches when you nailed it. Then it would bounce up and down like a Super Stocker LOL! I was in Arizona minding my own business, just leaving Tombstone when I got pulled over by an Arizona State Troopers Mustang. He went over the car and told me it was too loud. Then he asked if I would submit to a vehicle search - I'd become a bit of a talking point, being with Florida plates, Alabama licence, Aussie passport, he said I pretty much had to submit. I wasn't really going anywhere so it wasn't a problem. He got on the radio and next thing another State Trooper Mustang shows up and they all start pulling my car to pieces. Then a third one arrives. I was more or less living in the car, so I had heaps of stuff and they pulled the seats, door trims, air filter, everything else off as well. It was all neatly stacked up by them in the gravel on the side of the road. After they finished their search, they all stayed and helped my put the car back together again. I even found some stuff I'd lost under the back seat. They were nice guys and were paying out on me driving a @#$%^ Chysler product. They moved their Mustangs so I could get a piccy of what were, according to them "real cars". They all posed in front of them. I ended up with just a defect for the exhaust (which they said I could ignore), a good story and a good photo (which must still be in my "old junk" box somewhere).

My 5 month old T has developed a bunch of scratches on the windscreen, and to a lesser extent the side windows. The glass seems to scratch really easily. Any one else noticed this? Has Ford glass gone soft? I need to get a bunch of scratched fixed on the front windscreen - driver side a couple of little ones, passenger three fairly big ones. Are there any windscreen polishing services which can fix small shallow scratches?

Here is a piccy

Here is mine - a quick couple of snaps after work today - just picked up from the panel shop after getting the rear end repaired - and de-badged at the same time. Completely stock apart from a few missing badges

It's a March 2008 BFII and the parcel shelf has the hump but no lamp or lens - its carpet all the way down to the window frame. I wish it was that simple.

Just picked up my car from the panel shop - got rear ended last month. It took 10 days to fix and they had to repaint the boot lid. I wanted to take the opportunity to de-badge and de-wing while it was being resprayed, but the de-winging part was too tricky with trying to get an alternative brake light. I did get de-badged though - my boot is now as smooth as a babies bottom apart from the blue oval (that was easier to keep) - I reckon it looks heaps better - All the guys at the panel beaters agree.

The Ring does it for me - creepier than anything else I can remember.

Mustangs were manufactured in huge volumes - if it's not a collectable model they can be relatively cheap. I just did a google on '66 Chargers - This one turns out is a '67 model and if it's the real deal with all matching numbers, it is one of only 110 Hemis made in that year. That makes it expensive.

1966 Dodge Charger with 426 hemi donk. Classic 60's muscle. Mint in LDH. Any guesses on landed cost? I reckon $80K-$100K.

My T is in now getting the rear end repaired after some one hit me. Turns out there is some chassis damage - it's going to be a week. I picked up a 380 from Thrifty (paid by insurance) - it absolutely stinks of unleaded inside. I'm swapping it this afternoon!

GETNANY ?

Last year I was lucky enough to spend an afternoon at the Duvel brewery. We had a few at the brewery bar - specially picked batches, specially aged etc etc. Absolutely awesome! Even the very best Aussie beer is one dimensional in comparison. Next on my list would be almost any number of Belgian, North French and Bavarian beers - I could live in Europe easily - just for the beer l

Here it is (before the window tinting got done). I reckon it's dressed up enough with the colour coded wheels and skirts to look dandy de-winged. I'll drop into Super Cheap at some stage and see about the aftermarket lights - it's a good idea that could save a lot of dicking around to keep the car legal!

I agree with you snap and bang guys. Logic doesn't work with phones. I've been mostly Nokia. Got a Moto based on the Razr buzz - Every man and his dog was raving about Razrs - It would freeze and need rebooting several times every day. The Moto operating system is a POS and Razrs are junk. Don't tell the millions who bought them and love them. Each to his own. I've depended on a Palm PDA and a phone for the last 3-4 years. I'll wait until the iPhone buzz dies down a little and see how the 3rd party apps develop - If it can sync with Outlook, do pdfs, excel, word, ppt, play dixv movies, I'll probably get one, if not, I won't.

I can't believe the prices for the badges. If I opt to lose the LHS badges completely and the turbo badge on the RHS, keeping only the center Ford and RHS XR6 badges) I will save about $250 - $300 off the repair. I'm sure the panelbeater could weld and fill the wing holes for that - the whole boot lid needs repainting anyway. Then I just need the high mount stop light .... The repairer will be in Brookvale. I should be able to wheel and deal a little. What's a wing or a winged boot worth? Does anybody ever want them? I have the run out model with grey highlights on silk. I reckon it would look pretty good de-badged/de-winged.

I got run up the rear end last week on the way home from work. Just washed. Nice and shiny. I was stationary at a red light - been there for 30 seconds. My foot was on the brake, so the back was all lit up in red. BANG! So skid or squealing, just bang. She did steer over to the left though so her car copped the corner of my tow bar frame. Me relatively minor $2k damage - just @#$%^&* inconvenient. Hers was a lot worse. I need the bumper replaced, reversing sensors and the boot lid repainted. Now I'm thinking taking the opportunity to de-badge and de-wing when the boot lid is getting done. But costing in the parcel shelf brake lamp may be an issue ....................................

I can't understand how the chrome plating process could do anything to cause this damage. You can see classic fatigue lines across the broken alloy surfaces in the pics - possibly the Nissan design was borderline and then the chrome platers ground and polished off just enough material to push them over the edge into fatigue. Do they have a theory about how this happened?

I remember waaay back in the early 80's there was a spate of stolen Porsches in Sydney. Most were knocked off by kids (when they were dead easy to hotwire). The kids seemed to be amazing drivers and the chases were so dangerous that the police were told to back off. One particular red 928S owned by a dentist was seen doing burnouts in front of Newtown Police Station in the vain hope of getting a good chase started . It was recovered by the police after a couple of weeks and the owner reported no damage apart from needing new tyres and brakes.

Sh#t happens. I bought my Honda powered Victa from Bunnings 8 years ago and the first time I started it it made horrible grinding/scraping noises. I returned it immediately and grabbed another one. No problems ever since.

Look at the pros - they ALL have Honda powered Hondas. I couldn't afford the full Honda and got the Victa Mow'n'mulch Honda 4 stroke. Its about 8 years old now and has worked pretty hard. I have a large lawn with heavy summer growth - hybrid buffalo. It's not unusual for me to fill the catcher 10 or 12 times in the backyard every fortnight. Normally I mulch though. It's a lifesaver. One thing - 4 strokes are not as grunty as 2 strokes. I had to tweak the governor on the Honda - it would bog down when mulching heavy growth.

A friend has one - 1 1/2 years old. It's a DSG. He took the dealer tuning option on it (which is covered under factory warranty) that bumps up the boost and gives more or less the same kw as a R32. It is a screamer. He had a couple of teething problems, but he racks up a lot of kms without any dramas.

Corvettes since maybe the C4 (mid 1990's) have been incredible performers for the money when compared to "cost is no object" overpriced European super cars - often out doing them in lateral G force tests. I guess the Japanese are now going to show the Italians how to make an extremely quick (relatively) cheap car.

Thanks for the replies. Since I posted I've had maybe 1 crash - can't really remember, so it seems to have become a bit of a non issue. One thing - I wish I opted for the remote with illuminated keypad. It's a bit tricky working the keypad in the dark!