sopor

I found that soft water still leaves spots but that they're far easier to remove later than hard water spots. No, but thanks for the idea! 😉

A few more tips... I often wash the car in the rain or at least just after it's had a good soak in the rain - helps soften the dirt. And reaffirm to the neighbours that I'm crackers. there are snow foam "guns" that attach to a conventional hosepipe but you need good water pressure for them to work. use loads of water to rinse the car and to keep it wet and to rinse the wash mitt between panels. I live in a hard water area so use a 0 ppm filter for the final rinse - means no water spots As Mondrian says - don't wash in the sunlight. Or wax/polish either. Wheel wax is an alternative to ceramic coating the wheels. DON'T USE AN ACIDIC WHEEL CLEANER ON FUCHS ALLOYS! Sorry if that was too loud. But an acidic cleaner will ruin the anodising. Use something gentle.

I would suggest you get your skates on for booking a room for Essen; they tend to get booked early. I'm going out with a mate whose into classic motorbikes on the Wednesday evening and returning Saturday morning and booked something on AirBNB in Essen.

Sort of... one of these: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1974_Chevrolet_(10754212153).jpg

A few minutes on google suggests the regs were that there could be no damage to a car’s lights, safety equipment and engine in angled 5mph impacts.

Memory’s hazy on the exact wording but it was US bumper regulations that drove the IB design. From 74 cars sold in the US had to be be able to withstand impacts of up to 5 mph into a fixed barrier, front and rear. Either without visible damage or without structural damage - not sure which. It was intended to reduce repair costs from minor prangs that generated disproportionately large bills but resulted in some very ugly solutions on previously elegant cars. Think 911, Merc SL and BMW 2002, to mention just a few. I guess for the 911 this seemed easier to achieve at the front as neither US nor RoW IB 911s have front overriders but both do at the rear with the US ones being bigger. Perhaps less space for bumper shock absorbers to do their thing and prevent engine damage so overriders were added? And from memory some of the bellows are subtly different between US and RoW cars.

US spec with that number plate format and those over riders?

Some are humble as well! 🤣🤣 😉😉

Sorry for the off-topic thread resurrection but... https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-japanesecars/suzuki-forced-to-cut-uk-jimny-allocation/41705

There’s always repair - see https://www.oldtimeruhren.shop/produkte/reparatur-angebote/porsche/ But 14 week turnaround as he’s rather busy.

Spotted in the window of a chocolatier...

All it takes is one uninformed buyer who is sucked in... and sadly they periodically come out of the woodwork... I should have put some of those on my 88 targa and marketed it as the ultra rare Targa Sport Club Sport Lux version. Missed a trick there. Again.

Sad news. It’s a grim statistic (pinched from https://www.thecalmzone.net) that suicide is the primary cause of death for men under 45 and the cause of 18 deaths every day. Let’s look out for one another.

To continue the digression... McLaren road cars (save for the F1) have always suffered from heavy depreciation. It seems to be a function of eye-watering service and repair costs, less than stellar reliability, derisory trade-in figures from McLaren themselves who seem to have zero interest in helping owners sustain value in the cars and a plethora of new models every year seemingly rendering existing ones “old” and obsolete. I suspect some day the McLaren bubble will burst big time, more so than other exotica. As for future car values... I wonder if ICE sports car values will climb a bit after the point in time when it gets difficult to impossible to buy a pure ICE sports car. Any anti-ICE legislation on legacy cars could have a big impact though.