Different Clothing

Had a drive of something yesterday that's called a Toyota GT86, which is a sheep in wolf's clothing. Has all the looks, but lacks teeth.

Look under the bonnet and, despite it being a Toyota, you're presented with a Subaru engine. Apparently Toyota has a stake in Subaru, who were initially unwilling to be involved as they were not happy with the performance.

It's very sluggish at low revs and doesn't start to pull till you're well up the rev counter, which extends to 9,000 RPM.

The most worrying thing about the car is the 86 logo, which looks awfully like either a swastika or an SS logo, depending on how the light hits it.

Talking of cars that are based on other cars, Hay went past a car dealership in Bristol yesterday and saw what she thought was a nice looking car. A bit of digging (the dealership has changed names and was hard to find) it transpired to be a Crossfire convertible,

Hay's Mercedes SLK is getting long in the tooth, so she's looking for a suitable replacement. However, looking into the Crossfire I came across the following information:

"Chrysler executed the interior and exterior styling. All other elements of the car such as wheelbase, track, engine, transmission, chassis structure, suspension components, are shared with the R170 platform. An example of this is the engine bay of the Crossfire, which is virtually identical to the Mercedes-Benz SLK320 on the R170 platform. The seats from the Mercedes-Benz SLK320 would bolt directly into the Crossfire chassis. The dashboard layout, controls and instruments are also similar to those on the Mercedes-Benz SLK320."

Rather ironic, considering Hay's current car is an R170 SLK 230.