Are there any simpler cars around now?

[Regular.Cyclist]

I have driven round, and been driven round, a number of race tracks in a variety on cars.

One that sticks in my mind is being driven round a race track, by the demonstration driver, in a Sierra Cosworth. There was the driver and three passengers in the car and the driver was going round one hand on the steering wheel, whilst turned round talking to the three of us! He seemed to nail every corner and was still some way ahead of what any of us could do in the same car.

 

[Time Waster]

On the subject of pc plod. A former colleague had an e-type at one point one evening with it being late and many decades ago he opened it up a bit. There was a nearby dual carriageway that he did it on and as he was overtaking a rather plain looking, white car it sped up to match his speed. So he opened up a bit more, so did the rather plain looking car. Eventually doing well over 100mph the plain car turned it's flashing lights on and siren.

When that colleague stopped the police for out and went for a tour of his E-type, admiring it. A brief chat about cars later during which he was waiting for what they were going to do with him the coppers told him to take it easier and they weren't going to arrest him. They just pleased to get the chance to test the car out. Turns out it was a new high speed pursuit car and they were on its first run out looking for a fast car to test it against. Obviously a bit naughty of them so no no chance of a consequence but he didn't know that.

I assume it was a sierra cosworth saloon. My dad had a sierra saloon special edition in white. It looked so close to those cop cars that when he wanted to get anywhere quickly on motorways or dual carriageways he would sit in the outside lane and all the other cars would pull over and slow down until they saw a kid in the front seat and realised it wasn't a cop car, but by then we were past them and on our way. A good car that made f good time on the main roads.

 

[DRM]

BITD Humberside Police had a Sierra XR4, plain white, unmarked, it raised my suspicion when it came down the slip road onto the M62 at Goole, without accelerating away like a scalded cat, I noted the Reg number & later saw it parked up in Hull, where a quick look inside revealed a pop up Police-Stop sign on the parcel shelf along with Blue lights in the rear window & front grille.

 

[tyred]

Some guys from a company I worked for got taken round the test track by a Lotus test driver. You can imagine what a truly good, pro driver could do round a very familiar track in a Lotus car. Also, understand that they could have some fun at your expense.

With that in mind a rather cocky boy racer in that group had a bit of a hard time. Whilst he liked speed, had a superbike and a souped up car. However, that didn't help him when he crawled out of the Lotus throwing up all over himself.

Don't pee off a test car driver or race driver if they're driving you on a track!

On a side issue, just dropped a deposit on a Skoda Octavia 3 estate 1.6TDI. Nothing special but very practical and low mileage. Should serve us well.

Time to plan our next camping trip, get a tow bar for the bike rack and possibly roof bars for a canoe.

Not simple but not as complex as some cara out there now.

There is an apparently true story about one of the chief sales/demonstrator people at the DeLorean factory at Dunmmurry. Nelson Piquet, world champ at the time, turned up for a test drive and demonstration, but they didn't recognise him. The test track was a slightly banked oval and at about 90 mph, Piquet let go of the steering wheel and folded his arms, claiming you don't a steering wheel on a circuit like this. Sales man nearly had a heart attack!