rcousine

Racing a Volvo 240 GLT Estate? So wrong it's, well, still wrong, but I have a burning desire to race one in GT. Must be some residual brain damage from learning to drive stick in a Volvo 242.

Mr. Schumacher equivocated wildly on that matter. It's easy to believe he has an Abarth 500 as a city car, but I think his slightly evasive answer about what he drives most of the time ("a family car, like a Croma") suggests that while it may be a family car, it's not necessarily a Fiat.

At a guess? A big sedan or SUV made by someone other than Fiat. Perhaps an M-B ML or similar.

This is odd. Turbos and superchargers are rarely used on motorcycles because the hardware itself is usually just as heavy as adding a cylinder or some displacement. In other words, if you build a 500cc single with a supercharger, it's likely to be about as big and heavy as a 1000cc engine, but for little or no added power.

Several Japanese makers went the turbo route in the 80s, and a combination of weight, complexity, insurance issues, and turbo lag doomed all of these bikes. A supercharger will do away with the turbo lag, but will add even more weight.

Curious. Hyundai and Kia are part of one big happy family, but the Atos uses a different platform from the Kia Picanto, which is apparently based on a shortened version of the Getz.

Bafflingly, there doesn't appear to be any reason to have even two different platforms here, much less an effective three. But I'm pretty sure they're all sharing similar 1000cc and 1100cc engines.

I got to drive a last-gen Picanto as a rental car this Summer. On an island so small and adorable I could count how often I got it into 4th gear, it was fine and functional transport. On the other hand, the suspension was way worse than the decade-old Peugeot 405 I borrowed for a day, so you know where they saved some cash.

I'll love it and keep it and call it George.

Phone!

Me like candy! Oh wait, camera?!? Okay...

This is remarkably like an improvised version of the Dutch bakfiets, a long-wheelbase bike with a huge cargo bucket in front of the rider:

http://clevercycles.com/?p=184

Grimmex, you're showing your ignorance. Here's a clearly non-serious cyclist riding without a helmet:

http://www.popstarsplus.com/images/LanceArmstrongPicture.jpg

And second, no less than three bike-shoe brands (including Shimano) will sell you sandals that can take SPD cleats. They're quite popular among a certain subset of serious cyclists. You can google that one yourself.

Aw crap. I screwed up my last comment. The primer on marine drivetrains is here:

http://www.dieselduck.net/machinery_page/propulsion_layout/propulsion_layout.htm

Well, this is neither universal nor unique. Lots of ships (and trains) use diesel-electric drivetrains, where the electric motors effectively act as a transmission for the always-running diesel motor.

That said, you would normally expect a tanker application like this one to have a direct-drive of some sort (engine coupled directly to prop shaft, maybe with a clutch or a reduction gear in the middle; the simplest designs do away with even the clutch or the reduction gear, and run in reverse by running the engine in reverse).

Interesting that they're claiming efficiency gains for this setup.

I found a good primer on marine propulsion systems. Note that cruise ships are mostly diesel-electric "hybrids," but there it gives them advantages like a quiet, compact drive (they often use turbines instead of piston engines), and the ability to use pod-thrusters, which help these dock-once-a-day ships be very maneuverable.