Insane Drives

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
D

Deleted96908

Guest
The award winning Climb Dance.

Peugeot's 1988 Pikes Peak record breaking win in a Peugeot 405 T16 - driven by Ari Vatanen.

Insane!

[YOUTUBE]TJsHlugRls4[/YOUTUBE]


Post your own.
 
Ahh, Pikes Peak - a classic :thumb:

You gotta love the 80's - back in the intoxicating/insane days of Group B, before electronics took over, when racing was still a hairy chested 'real man's' game and it took superhuman skill to win, whilst avoiding a short trip in a wooden box.

Funniest bit of this video is the one handed driving at 3.28, so Mr Vatanen can use his spare hand as a sun-visor :cool:

My 'Insane Drive' is from the same era and features one of my favourite drivers of all time, Mr Walter Röhrl - someone (like Ari Vatanen) with driving skills we can only aspire to.

[YOUTUBE]wdy8CG09rSU[/YOUTUBE]

The sound of the S1 at full chat still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up - great days :)
 
Last edited:
Ahh, Pikes Peak - a classic :thumb:

You gotta love the 80's - back in the intoxicating/insane days of Group B, before electronics took over, when racing was still a hairy chested 'real man's' game and it took superhuman skill to win, whilst avoiding a short trip in a wooden box.

Funniest bit of this video is the one handed driving at 3.28, so Mr Vatanen can use his spare hand as a sun-visor :cool:

My 'Insane Drive' is from the same era and features one of my favourite drivers of all time, Mr Walter Röhrl - someone (like Ari Vatanen) with driving skills we can only aspire to.


The sound of the S1 at full chat still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up - great days :)
Love the way Walter Röhrl drives = pedal action is awesome. So smooth and what a great job he now has as the Mr Porsche.
 
Love the way Walter Röhrl drives = pedal action is awesome. So smooth and what a great job he now has as the Mr Porsche.

Agreed :thumb:

Like most of the greats, his driving has become part of him - the kind of pure instinct that you gain by not only having a technical understanding of what's happening at the road surface but the experience to create muscle memory responses to every move and twitch the car makes.

I'd be happy with just half his skills (and a nice part-time job testing for Porsche) :D
 
Dunlop IOM TT - makes me feel ill just looking at the first 20 seconds.

It's adrenaline fuelled, stomach churning stuff and makes no rational sense for anyone to knowingly do it but then I love it and the fact that the IOM hasn't watered down the TT, as they could have done by now.
 
but then I love it and the fact that the IOM hasn't watered down the TT, as they could have done by now.

Give the EU time ;)

Btw, Alfasud 1.5Ti Green Cloverleaf? Very cool.

I had the model before - a Sprint Veloce in black with biscuit interior. I adored the zing of the boxer engine and the almost film star looks but came home from a year's contract in Africa and it had almost rusted away - why I then bought a 33 with similar moisture resistance I will never know.

How did you get on with yours?
 
Give the EU time ;)

Btw, Alfasud 1.5Ti Green Cloverleaf? Very cool.

I had the model before - a Sprint Veloce in black with biscuit interior. I adored the zing of the boxer engine and the almost film star looks but came home from a year's contract in Africa and it had almost rusted away - why I then bought a 33 with similar moisture resistance I will never know.

How did you get on with yours?

Thanks :thumb: Your Sprint Veloce sounds lovely - shame about the dreaded tin worm! I always fancied a Sprint or a Lancia Montecarlo (which I was also keen on back in the '80's).

I loved my Alfasud and was very fortunate to find a mint one with a tiny mileage, straight body and no visible rust - in Rosso Corsa with the Black plastic bodykit, Red/Black interior and the 'Telephone Dial' rims with original Michelin 'metric' TRX tyres.

Just like this one:

VJM_5Y_13-4-12_17.JPG

It was a very characterful car, the engine was a peach (even if the one carb per cylinder made it bit juicy) and the in-bound disks were an 'interesting' idea :)

What happened to your 33 - or shouldn't I ask?
 
Last edited:
Dunlop IOM TT - makes me feel ill just looking at the first 20 seconds.

I'm more than happy to watch it on camera but nothing would make me ride pillion with that guy at that speed round those roads!

One slip, and it's curtains as said.
 
Thanks :thumb: Your Sprint Veloce sounds lovely - shame about the dreaded tin worm! I always fancied a Sprint or a Lancia Montecarlo (which I was also keen on back in the '80's).

I loved my Alfasud and was very fortunate to find a mint one with a tiny mileage, straight body and no visible rust - in Rosso Corsa with the Black plastic bodykit, Red/Black interior and the 'Telephone Dial' rims with original Michelin 'metric' TRX tyres.

Just like this one:

View attachment 57765

It was a very characterful car, the engine was a peach (even if the one carb per cylinder made it bit juicy) and the in-bound disks were an 'interesting' idea :)

What happened to your 33 - or shouldn't I ask?

I traded the 33 for a Monte Carlo in powder blue. Probably the best looking car I've ever owned. Incredible build quality, but paint as always let it down. Trouble was I was never around to tend for cars I owned and that lasted right up til my SL55 which would be slumped onto its bump stops whenever I left it for more than a month or two.

A real shame Lancia lost its way. In its day much classier than anything else on sale I reckon.

How did you find the Toureg? I was tempted at one stage but bought its cousin instead.
 
Love the way Walter Röhrl drives = pedal action is awesome. So smooth and what a great job he now has as the Mr Porsche.

I think the a truly skilled driver.

With some great quotes

A car is just fast enough when you stand in front of it in the morning and are afraid to unlock it.
 
I think the a truly skilled driver.

With some great quotes

A car is just fast enough when you stand in front of it in the morning and are afraid to unlock it.

I feel that way with the GT3 RS.
 
I traded the 33 for a Monte Carlo in powder blue. Probably the best looking car I've ever owned. Incredible build quality, but paint as always let it down. Trouble was I was never around to tend for cars I owned and that lasted right up til my SL55 which would be slumped onto its bump stops whenever I left it for more than a month or two.

A real shame Lancia lost its way. In its day much classier than anything else on sale I reckon.

How did you find the Toureg? I was tempted at one stage but bought its cousin instead.

After what I said earlier about always wanting to own a Montecarlo: If you're joking about owning one ha, ha, if not then I hate you - only kidding!! :D

I was very fortunate in my early career in the motor industry, to combine my passion for cars with the opportunity to gain some hands-on engineering knowledge and during that time I worked with some amazing characters and on some classic road & race cars.

At the tender age of 15, I got a Saturday job (officially unpaid ;) ), helping at a new Lancia garage just outside Stafford. The garage owner was a larger-than-life entrepreneur, with several local businesses, a long history in international motorsport and a delicious collection of cars to his name.

Thankfully he took me under his wing, dubbed me Fangio (I'd been driving on private land from the age of 12) and taught me a bunch about cars and engineering.

A cavalcade of vehicles new and old flowed through the garage, with me assisting the mechanics wherever I could (or was allowed to), working on a range of cars including the Lancia HPE, Gamma/Coupe & Montecarlo, as well as older road/race cars like the Fulvia, plus his personal cars Mercedes SEC AMG Widebody, Ferrari 308, BMW 3.0CSL Batmobile, sorry I'm digressing down memory lane - anyway it was a fantastic experience and exposure to those cars only fuelled my passion.

The Lancia's weren't well understood in Britain (outside of enthusiast clubs) and sadly their reputation for rust overshadowed some truly interesting and (as you say) classy cars. The styling was of the classic Pininfarina variety and the engineering was advanced (by comparison to most British cars of the era). When I got the opportunity to buy a HPE in my early twenties, I jumped at the chance.

Years later, the Touareg was a very nice car (capable, comfortable and classy) - I had considered a Cayenne but by that time I was running my own company and it became apparent that some clients were quite judgemental about the brand of car you rolled up in - so much so that I'd sometimes rent a car or take the train instead. The Volkswagen was just less objectionable.
 
Last edited:

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom