Automobiles

[rmplum]

Narrow tires are actually where it's at for winter driving. You want something like that to cut or slice into the snow, not float on top. Go watch some winter rally videos - yeah they are studded but even here in the US where they can't use studs, skinny tires are the thing. Get some blizzaks for that I3 and you'll be golden

[rmplum]

rally2.jpg

winter rally.jpg

Holy cow, it's like these winter rally guys are hording all the i3 width tires!

[j44ke]

rally2.jpg

winter rally.jpg

Holy cow, it's like these winter rally guys are hording all the i3 width tires!

That’s so strange looking it looks photoshop’d. Is it just the width they’ve changed or does the outer diameter of the tire increase also?

[Saab2000]

That’s so strange looking it looks photoshop’d. Is it just the width they’ve changed or does the outer diameter of the tire increase also?

When I had my GTI (I miss it….) the Blizzaks I used were slightly narrower than the normal summer tires but the same diameter. Blizzaks are extremely good snow tires!

[rmplum]

Lots of skinny tires here - (albeit mostly studded I imagine) - no photoshop jobs.

[j44ke]

Lots of skinny tires here - (albeit mostly studded I imagine) - no photoshop jobs.

Wow! Watch out for those plow-piled shoulders! Full contact steering.

[rmplum]

Wow! Watch out for those plow-piled shoulders! Full contact steering.

Old Rally videos are the best. I used to have all the mid to late 90s season recap videos on VHS and I watched them SO many times. This was the era of Mitsubishi Makkinen, McRae, Carlos Sainz Sr, Marcus Gronholm, Richard Burns (RIP ) etc.

[CJones]

Cool 1991 LAND ROVER CAMEL TROPHY DEFENDER 110 from Bring-a-Trailer. $127,000

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/19...fender-110-77/

land-rover-camel-trophy-1.jpg

[Saab2000]

Old Rally videos are the best. I used to have all the mid to late 90s season recap videos on VHS and I watched them SO many times. This was the era of Mitsubishi Makkinen, McRae, Carlos Sainz Sr, Marcus Gronholm, Richard Burns (RIP ) etc.

YouTube is full of so many great old videos. Love that place.

[rmplum]

YouTube is full of so many great old videos. Love that place.

Also you can watch all of the Subaru Launch Control videos there...for zero dollahs.

[claritycycler]

A bit more conservative(tailfins) than Jorn posted a few pages back, I believe that Caddy was a 1959. This was parked about a block from Saturday farmers market, 1960 Caddy, those things are behemoths.

[72gmc]

^^^ love the color but yes, I think you’d have to park at least a block away from pretty much anywhere you wanted to go.

[Saab2000]

A bit more conservative(tailfins) than Jorn posted a few pages back, I believe that Caddy was a 1959. This was parked about a block from Saturday farmers market, 1960 Caddy, those things are behemoths.

When I was a kid my grandmother lived in Oshkosh, WI and parked in the lot of her retirement community was a version of this car. I remember seeing it frequently and it was presumably someone’s daily driver. Or more likely weekly driver. Definitely a land yacht and parked just outside like all the other cars but I was always into then-rare tech like powered windows and push button radios with chrome buttons and knobs and the like.

This would have been in the mid- to late-70s to early-80s. So the car was just an old Caddy at the time and not some kind of show car. Just a slowly rotting and decaying old car.

[zachateseverything]

That’s so strange looking it looks photoshop’d. Is it just the width they’ve changed or does the outer diameter of the tire increase also?

typically snow tires get minus sized. you go down an inch in rim diameter and 10mm in width. then you go up in aspect ratio to keep the overall outside diameter (and your speedometer) the same.

for snow tires you want a narrower and longer footprint. you get a lot of your grip from compacting the snow into the sipes in the tread pattern and using them to push against the ground. higher contact pressures and a longer footprint help to make this happen.

[sk_tle]

^^^ love the color but yes, I think you’d have to park at least a block away from pretty much anywhere you wanted to go.

Is that really much larger than a random US pickup truck?

[Saab2000]

Is that really much larger than a random US pickup truck?

Probably smaller. Today's full size pickup trucks and SUVs are absurd and don't fit into normal parking spots well. But that's OK. Their drivers will just take up two or sometimes more.

The difference with those old US cars was that in spite of their size, they were often very inefficient in terms of space. Sometimes they had a lot of space and sometimes not. But to answer your question, this car pictured above isn't really larger, if at all, than a full-size US pickup truck sold in 2022.

[davids]

The sheer volume of empty space inside some of those old GM sedans is kind of mind-boggling. Maximizing interior utility was not on the list.

Even when Detroit started trying to make "compact" cars in the early 70s, they were so poorly done. Compare this:



to this:



...I remember the first time I drove an Accord, in maybe 1983. It was revelatory. I didn't know a car could be so smart.

[72gmc]

this car pictured above isn't really larger, if at all, than a full-size US pickup truck sold in 2022.

Since the car is vintage, I'll assume it's like my vintage truck (18 feet long) and has a terrible steering radius. So it's not just length. Relative to modern cars, it's not unlike docking a large boat with no thrusters. You need to consider available entrance and exit space wherever you park.

[j44ke]

First car I remember was my dad's 1960 Plymouth Fury 2-door. We lived in California then, and he drove it down to Tijuana and had the upholstery done up in two-tone tuck-and-roll leather. And then he had every part of the engine chromed that could be chromed. I think there was some raising and lowering of the suspension as well. The kids in the neighborhood used to ask him to open the hood so they could see the chrome.

[Mabouya]

The sheer volume of empty space inside some of those old GM sedans is kind of mind-boggling.

Not just GM sedans. My '73 Charger had about 12" of nothing between the front of the radiator and the back side of the grill. Totally empty space.

At least with the '70 Impala I could put my mid '80's Trek 400 with a 61 cm ST in the trunk without removing either of the wheels. Now that's useful space!