Vince's Stuff

Wednesday, September 6, 2023

Car-wise, this has not been a great summer...

Out of service

Back in service

Even though we have been back from Italy for more than a month, I still haven't got the Civic back from Choo. He has been busy and I regret asking him to remove and modify the transmission before my trip... I should have just asked him to fix the subframe bolt issue. Anyway, I hope the car is ready soon because I feel the track driving season is zooming by...

What about the other cars? Unbelievably, the 535i experienced an engine failure when we were on a family trip in Ontario. I had to leave the car in Toronto and rent a car to get home. I chose a garage using Google reviews, because it was Sunday and everything was closed. The owner of the shop, called BMWizard, told me the following day that the engine was damaged because the oil filter had not been installed properly by the garage that did the last oil change. As a result, the oil was not being filtered. A car like this with a bad engine is virtually worthless. Given the cost of a replacement engine, the car is a write-off and will not be repaired. I am totally turned off these modern turbo German cars now... Luckily, it seems that the insurance is going to cover the damage. I hope it works out, because it will be difficult to justify the cost of a replacement car using only our savings. I realized driving hom from Toronto in an automatic economy car (Chevy Spark) that I prefer driving a smaller car, even if it's less quiet on the highway. Hopefully, we can go back to some kind of smaller car, preferably a Subaru, as a winter car... stay tuned.

So what is our daily driver then? The M3, of course. I borrowed my mother's Honda Fit to drive to Deschaillons and get the M3 out of the barn. Apart from a sticky front right caliper, the car is working wonderfully. There are more rattles than I remember in the interior, but the engine sound is so much nicer than I remembered it. The car still gets a lot of thumbs up and comments when I drive it, even though it's 20 years old. I plan to daily drive the car until winter, when I will certainly have found a winter car.

So there is only one functional car in our household, and it's 20 years old! This has been fine so far, given how little we drive in summer.

There are many cool cars on the road, from affordable enthusiasts' cars to high end sports cars.

Rare and exotic: Huracan STO

"Regular" Huracan in teal

SLS is still a great-looking car

The new GTi is nice in white

New and previousWRX together

Nice spec R8

I didn't even know there was a Raptor version of the Bronco

The same FL5 Civic I always see

Very clean Mk.1 GTi

Rare 968

And it's cousin the 944

Not my style, but you have to respect how clean it is

Amazing 510 near Collège Ahuntsic... what an awesome spec

You never see any Mazda 626's anymore

E39 M5 in the neighbourhood

Lexus SC with later OEM wheels

The big Bentley

Mazen's 512 TR at Milos

A Geo Metro in Deschaillons

A local 488

This Figaro is now in the neighbourhood too

JDM Fairlady Z in Ontario

Nice spec for this RS3

A clean E36 320i

The new SL is a huge improvement on the old one, design-wise

Tastefully modded E46 convertible

What are the odds of seeing two Defenders together?

The boys check out an Evo 10 on the way to day camp

Flashy spec Aston Martin Vantage

Surprisingly unmodified S13 240 SX

Another 488

The same E24, I still want one!

Rivian near the office

Two fun cars

Clean Saab with SPG wheels

Off-road-looking Lexus

996 in a rare colour with wheels that look like Enkei's

Rare colour NB Miata

The RS4 still looks cool

The M2 looks aggressive, but not pretty

V12 S65

First time I see the new Z06

I like the Bentley in brown

Very cool Jaguar XJR

Sleeper 992 GT3 Touring

The M2's only good angle?

The Corvette doesn't look terrible in this spec

The "cheap" Ferrari looks much better than the previous generation

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Car spotting in Italy

Florence from above

We returned from the family trip to Italy at the end of last week. Although it was sometimes very hot, the country is great, and we had a great time. It's always a bit sad for me to miss all the summer car events in Quebec, but it's also nice to be on a month-long trip with the family.

This was my second time in Italy and my last trip was 15 years ago. As I had noticed last time, there are very few "enthusiast" cars on the road. Most people have economical utilitarian cars with small engines. In a month, I maybe saw 2 or 3 BMW M-cars, 4 or 5 Porsche sports cars, 4 or 5 Miatas, 1 Alfa Romeo Spider, 1 Golf GTi, etc. Also, there are almost no modified cars. There are more SUV's than 15 years ago, but still way fewer than in North America.

As for driving, people drive aggressively and only obey stop signs and speed limits when they feel like it. Still, there is a logic to the way people drive and there is a certain level of courtesy... there has to be, with the number of 2-way roads which are not wide enough for 2 cars!

We used the train to get around for the first part of the trip, then had a rental car (a diesel Opel Astra, 94 or 108 hp, I don't know which). The car had about 16 scuffs, dents and scratches when we took possession, and I managed not to let it get any worse. The car was fine, comfortable enough. The Android Auto never worked and the navigation unit often sent us on tiny, awful roads, but the car met our basic needs for transportation in the South of Italy. It was very economical, probably costing the same to drive per kilometer as our 535i (diesel is 50% more expensive in Europe than it is here).

I photographed some notable cars, but really, there weren't that many, considering how long the trip was.