![]() I really enjoyed those autocross events, they were truly ‘run what you brung’ as you’d expect with poor college students. My avatar picture over there was taken at one of the autocross events. When I was in college I joined the sports car club, who put on events like autocross and even rented a local small asphalt oval track for a day for the club to run on… this was 2003 or thereabouts. Are you going to choose the car that looks good and is fun to drive, but needs work to be able to drive legally, or the drab, uninspiring one that’s less than half the price, and ready to go right now? ![]() But let’s just say you have your heart set on a manual, and you have a very limited budget. But it’s cheap, it runs fine, and it’s ready to rock. Nah, who am I kidding? It’s still a Corsica. And why are they always maroon? These things did come in other colors, right? Once upon a time, this would have been the ultimate stealth car, but it’s such an uncommon sight these days that it might actually get noticed. It has been sitting for a while, and the registration is several years out of date, but it just passed a smog test.Ĭosmetically, it looks like every other remaining Corsica: dreary. The seller says this car runs and drives just fine, and has a new battery and a recent clutch replacement. It still handles like a Chevy Corsica, but you can’t have everything. With the manual, this car could almost be considered sprightly. ![]() Now, even the best manual gearbox in the world couldn’t turn a Chevy Corsica into a performance car, but the alternative is a mushy three-speed automatic that soaks up the V6’s power like that one soggy French fry soaks up the pickle juice on the plate. Everything works, including the air conditioning, and the registration is actually still current, so there’s a little time to work out the emissions issues. It’s too bad, because this car runs and drives beautifully, they say, and it is in nice condition for 178,000 miles. The next step would be to fire the parts cannon at it until the problem goes away, but the seller sounds unwilling or unable to pay for that, so they’ve bought a different car and are unloading this one as-is. The solution suggested by the testing station was to drive the car a while and re-test, but that hasn’t worked. And that appears to be what has happened with this car: it won’t pass emissions because some sensor won’t reset. One sensor has a bad day, and the whole thing can go haywire. Unfortunately, it’s also a turn-of-the-century Audi, which means it also has a fiendishly complex and notoriously finicky engine management and emissions control system. Sounds good, right? Small car, decent power, tons of grip, three pedals on the floor – it’s a recipe for fun. This TT features a 180 horsepower version of the VW/Audi 1.8T engine, driving all four wheels through a five-speed manual. And when they don’t where does that leave you? Sometimes it means ditching the problematic car in favor of something that already meets the letter of the law, which leads us to today’s contestants. Sometimes the rules work out in your favor, but quite often they really, really don’t. So let’s move on to a little psychological experiment involving a pretty but ailing German sports coupe and a dowdy American sedan with a trick up its sleeve.Ĭalifornia, as our Editor-In-Chief is finding out, is a land of a great many rules and regulations surrounding automobiles. Neither one seemed too popular, however we weren’t exactly “swamped” with comments, or votes. We’ll dig into those details in a moment, after we look at yesterday’s truck results: I’ll give you a hint: one of these cars passed a smog test. Welcome back to Shitbox Showdown! Today’s matchup seems very lopsided, until you start to look at the details.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |