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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold and Silver Juniors, Mid-tiers and Producers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: loantech who wrote (51734)	10/31/2007 6:13:27 AM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78421

Actually one of the best cars I ever had was a Volks 411 Fastback. It would do 90 mph with its Porsche 90 HP engine and still get 15 mpg. It averaged an honest 32 mgp city and town if you drove it normally, and would seat 5 with light luggage. It was the winner in Consumer Report's fuel consumption figures for North American passenger cars. It had computerized electronic fuel injection which worked well. Full reclining bucket seats. It cost little to run. Cepting for the brakes pads which had to be changed often but were fairly cheap. Once in a while you had to sandpaper the fuel injection points. The onboard computer, which was fairly advanced for its time allowed you to diagnose anything wrong with the vehicle by plugging in Volks' system and running thru a diagnostic book. It always worked. (It is amazing how few mechanics could catch on to this, but it was a very simple four light system.) Corrosion was very low on running gear and exhaust, since it had a belly plate. Heat exchange heater from the air cooled engine worked ok. Gas heater was not bad. Winter starting was easy. ( air cooled engines are superior in that department). So, since it was a winner, Volkswagen cancelled it. The Rabbit, Golf and Passat were not superior vehicles. 411's were fast and agile, had good traction and cornering. MacBlo used to use them for company cars for their foresty crews and cruisers. (The best cornering production cars on the road were the Volskwagen Beetle, the 411 Volkswagen and the Lotus Elan in that order. The would corner at 1 G, 0.9 G's, and 0.9 G's respectively.* Don't every try to follow a Beetle around a clover leaf. Drivers tend to naturally go to the max speed they will corner at. If you try to follow one you will go off the road. I tried that in a Volvo which corners fairly well, and I started to drift into the margin. 1 G = the acceleration due to gravity. To get the speed for that, given a 40 foot turning radius (min turning radius for most small cars), use the formula A =V^2/R ... 32=V^2/40 -- V = Sqr(40) = 35.77 feet per second = 24.4 Mph. A clover leaf that turned 90 degrees in 350 feet of chord would be 550 feet on the curve. Radius would be 175 feet. Speed would be 32= V^2/175 = 75 fps or 51 mph. With most cars that would be (0.7 G's) 22.4= V^2/175 = 62.6 fps or 42.7 mph. The Beetle is 1.5 seconds faster around the clover leaf (@ 7.33 seconds), than the ordinary US auto. Best comfort of any vehicle I ever drove was the orthopedic seat Volvo. Great feeling car to drive, but soft in the corners. If you drove it all day it was like 2 hours in any other car. 4 on the floor, electric overdrive. A real 20 mpg. 16 mpg in the city. Nice motor CDN's could probably build a car like the Beetle or the Volvo and improve on the Beetle's weird gas heater. Mexicans and Iranians build their own vehicle. What is wrong with Canuckistan? I don't count the Motown CDN built stuff. Canadians buy 1.7 million new vehicles per year. You would think they might want to take stab at that kind of market. 50,000 cars or 2.9% of that market is 1.2 billion per year. ********************************************