Online old engine(s) auction.

[rmd55]

Pollution caused by fossil fuels aside we need better fuel economy and alternatives to gas-guzzlers. Here in the US the highest legal speed limit is in Texas at 85mph about 140kph. In the EU it is at least 140mph, 230kph.
The US has the best highway system in the world. To make that happen we let our trains lines decline with passenger trains almost nonexistent. So we are a second generation of drivers. To go anywhere you have to drive or fly neither of which is fuel friendly.
There is only so much fossil available once it's gone it's gone.
Mass transit in Houston area where I live leaves a great sucking sound they have built so many "freeways"(long narrow parking lots) there is no place for right-of-ways for light rail. There are now 3 ring roads around the city. The largest one takes over an hour to drive across the diameter at 60mph. Detroit created a "love" relationship with the automobile that has been fueled by polices of the government since WWII to create. It's taken 70 years to get here hopeful it won't take 70 years to fix it.

 

[goldstar31]

Pollution caused by fossil fuels aside we need better fuel economy and alternatives to gas-guzzlers. Here in the US the highest legal speed limit is in Texas at 85mph about 140kph. In the EU it is at least 140mph, 230kph.
T
.

I'm afraid that you are misinformed. Some 5 years ago, I was co driving on a German Autobahnen with my ( late) wife in our Audi A4 Estate and there were speed cameras galore on the east west carriage way through from Munchen( Munich) to the Frenchborder and the interchange to the French 'payage' across Reims and on to the Tunnel. I'm still a shareholder!
Again, I had the account pass for the tolls- which ironically are supplied and paid for in Harrogate, Yorkshire. The French speed was 85 mph in the dry and less in the first drops of rain.
My son and family had me in the Dordodge last wee k and in the villages the speed limit has dropped yet again and so are the ordinary French road speeds on ordinary dual carriage ways.

We drove from Limoges to his French home and then to various towns such as Angouleme and Perigord and your statement is completely ridiculously ill founded as of this week.

Again, I owned a villa in the Balearics and drove a little Hyundai Getz there until it all was sold 4 years ago in the death of my wife and then the Span speed limits were ridiculously more suitable to mules.

Again, I owned property in the Savoie and found the same.
I have an invite to team drive on the German autobahben system through Belgium, Germany and down from near Munich into Austria where there is only one paid autoroute. I'm not going but I know Precisely where the Fohn Pass is and over through Innsbruck over the Brenner Pass- to Italy

Sadly, I've driven through those roads for more than half a century from Arctic Norway in Winter to the Mediterranean and from Scotland to as far as the Black Sea.

Understandably, Sir, I am very angry to learn what appears to be American lies.

And, Yes. I was based at RAF Hendon as a Goldstar where the US Navy Flight and the US Embassy Flight were also based. I've been around fella! And Yes, I've been to the Stares and Yes I've been to Canada and I've been over the Minefield in the then Easter bloc as well as HongKong and as far South as Fiji.

I may be a tired old cripple now but I've driven the MonteCarlo Route, been on the LeMans Circuit.
Norm

 

[stevehuckss396]

That's because better than 50 percent of our country elected a man who said outright that he doesn't believe in climate change.

I am in the camp that disagrees with him but have to wait until the next election to try and change that.

 

[rmd55]

Norm,
I got my information on the speed limit from my brother. We were talking on Sunday on how fast we had driven. He travels to Europe for work and early this year drove 140mph on a German Autobahnen and he wasn't the fastest car on the road.
I was not trying to make the US look better than everyone else just different.
I wish we had the train system that the UK has so maybe every time I got to visit the in-laws I won't spend 8 hrs behind the wheel of a car.
Richard

 

[goldstar31]

Richard, Your brother was wrong there was NO speed limit on German Autobahns. The 140 to which you refer was the restriction placed by German Motor Manufacturers! Our Merc SLK230 would happily do that as would the dear old Merc 20 and the big Audi S4 but the speed was controlled by the governors, It was a bit like my rather tasty 997cc but over bored to =60 thous with my reworked cylinder head, reprofiled cam etc etc and was governed by valve bounce despite being double valve springs. The hardest job was getting someone to throw the anchor out to stop it
People will always speed regardless of being legal.
My family were always in speed. We built cars, we drove motor bikes, my kids skied the Kilometre Lance, my son drives a Lotus, My daughter in law still airs the old Merc SLK230 on a fine day, I raced sailing dinghies with my wife, I competed in the K1 Kayaks and the Slalom. My son has just got in from France and was hinting tat the kiddy winkies had been canoeing as well as climbing and grandad might get his tools out and make the a kayak or two- and could they get my disabled scooter out.
I was doing a rather fast run up a French motorway- rather too fast but I was overtaken in a cloud of Dust by a vehicle whose number plate read 'Rowan' and I laughed.
Is Rowan Sebastian Atkinson actually a cousin- the families came from the same village.
Mr Bean does drive faster than my side of the family tree but has had more crashes

 

[fcheslop]

Hi Norm do you remember what Lotus stands for ??
After Brexit we wont be able to buy German or French anymore so its back to the old A series at least you can fix em and time them up with a fag paper and a radio
cheers tongue in cheek

 

[goldstar31]

Om ne Padme Hum? Hail to the jewel in the Lotus!
I always like the A Series. I was having a think and wasn't one of the Japanese cars of yesteryear's engine block drilled with the same intervals?
I used to follow up things in Cars and Car Conversions and did know that Colin Chapman did use a French- possibly Renault in that design that looked like a squashed delivery van. I've forgotten!
Son Richard took grandson Jonathan around the Lotus circuit for
- was it the 75th or the 50th for Lotus?

Tongue in Cheek too, I'm just a wallet on a disabled scooter now.
Mind you I'm off to a big Masonic 'bun fight' in London at the weekend. Hey they made me a Provincial Officer- they must be desperate!So after the big do, I'm going to the Dim Sum Lunch next day in China Town. It will cost me the earth but less than the Scottish invitation up to Oban -for mutton pies and a wee dram or two.

Really, I'm going through so many really expensive medical problems that model engineering is becoming so difficult.
So I do hope that you well and are still enduring the taunts of having hung a monkey as a French spy. Another thing that the rest of the known world hasn't a clue.

Be Good, or be careful and as the Scots say, if you can't, buy a pram

Norm

 

[rmd55]

Norm,
I stand corrected it was the speed at which you could drive. 140 was as fast as he wanted to go. I saw that when I went to click on the post in my in box I clicked on your user instead. That you are Just North of Hadrian's Wall. Does that put you in Scotland? That is one place I would love to visit my branch of the family left there about 1640
Richard

 

[fcheslop]

Hi Norm, after spending many hours fixing water pump leaks on my old Elan I became fully conversant with the acronym Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious
Datsun heads could be made to fit and they are cross flow and yep I had a misspent youth
Im not a Monkey by birth but youre heritage would that be a yakker , Sandancer or a Takem just to many tribes up here.
A lot of my relatives had a grisly end something to do with stealing sheep,cattle or women from over the border and we know it was no law land between the borders in the 1600s. Im sure it was just a simple misunderstanding
O hae ye ho heard o fause sakelde
A bit of subject apologise offered

 

[goldstar31]

Richard

Without trying to confuse you, the old boundary that separated what was then Roman Britain from the lawless Picts and Scots was the Roman or Hadrian's Wall.
It runs more or les for most of its wall from Wallsend( Obviously) along a geological fault called the Whinsill Dyke to just beyond Carlisle on the Solway Firth. OK the Dyke splits and comes out further north to form such places as the Farne Islands and the Holy Island of Lindisafarne.
Then it was primarily Wild West country of Rape and Pillage and Sheep stealling etc etc and the geological border is correctly the Cheviot Hills ending 50 odd miles at Berwick on Tweed
Incidentally, Berwick is still at war with Germany( honest)
I live the distance that someone could steal bits of the Roman Wall to make another wall which- would you believe) is one of my house boundaries. I'm not to blame- honest!
The haggis reference is a bit fictitious but I was offered a couple of llamas from the master of what is essentially a Chinese masonic lodge. he breeds them on the farm next to Rowan Atkinson's parents place. I know, I know- but it's true.
So there you have it more or less unless you believe the rest of the story.
I married a young lady whose relative actually built a railway statin OVER a bit of the Roman Wall- and Queen Victoria came up to see it at Newcastle. She and he, John Dobson were related to Alice Pleasance Liddell who was the real Alice in Wonderland. The family had- a castle which like all good stories - fell down. It was next to one of the family homes of our Queen's Mother.

Are my kids related? Heaven only knows but my lovely daughter in law was in stitches with laughter in France. I was well into my second bottle and somewhat merry and I told her.
So I'm supposed to do one of these family tree researches- assuming that I might keep sober long enough.

One thing is certain, there is NO money!

 

[goldstar31]

Frazer

Thank you for indirectly confirming much of my story for Richard.
I have a Tomlinson's Guide to Northumberland and had business dealings with the sister of a them important Member of Parliament who wrote very successful novels from the book.
I never told her I had a pole of magazines = Twixt Tyne and Tweed but thought that if my offspring after death need plots to some excellent stories, the books are on the shelf!
I Did, however, tell the story of the Hen or Hell Hole on Cheviot where the crashed B-17 bomber used to rise and fall again in the peat hagg. a more modern tale which I researched

Norm

 

[fcheslop]

A lot of souls lost in those hill and many far to young
Well not all the border clans ended badly as I seem to remember one descendant walking on the moon
Keep well
cheers

 

[goldstar31]

We are well off topic

Aplogies

 

[rmd55]

Norm,
I am a Douglas the family tree on this side of the pond is well documented. The Deccan William Douglas is of some fame in the family in New England in the 1600's, but whom his father was is a great mystery both here and to the Douglas family in Scotland. DNA studies being conducted to help in this mater. His wife inherited her fathers land after her brother died being the last living heir and her testimony is recorded before the Supreme Court of the Colony of Massachusetts.
Richard

 

[goldstar31]

Off Topic Sorry

 

[rmd55]

Norm,
No it the D**** spell check it should be Deacon. There has been a minister in every generation of my family since his except my dad's, the big one cut that one short.
Richard

 

[goldstar31]

As before

Apologies to everyone

Norm

 

[rmd55]

Yes we did get off topic. Apologies.
Richard

 

[kadora]

Hello
I hope this is not off topic question.
USA guys when you sell your car to somebody else do you need to do a lot of paper work for police or you just sell car and business is done ?
I am asking this question because here in EU buyer and seller have to fill up a lot of
I think useless papers for authorities before seller could return old number plate to police and buyer gets a new number plate.
BTW in my country Slovakia is highway speed limit 130 km /h. Common roads 90 km/h.
Cities and villages 50 km/h.

 

[dnalot]

In Washington State there is a simple short form the seller fills out for the DMV. It protects the seller from whatever the buyer may do with the car.

Mark