What is your dream car?

[Alby_da_Wolf]

Michael-5 said:

Alby_da_Wolf said:

[...]

About Power, I put it in the first places, not as pure power, but Power/Weight Ratio, I like the weight to be as low as possible, that's why amongst American muscle cars I prefer the Corvette.

About some American muscle cars derived from light trucks, I guess the high torque and muscle, rough origin are part of their charm for us Europeans.

About pure electric traction with gas range extension, I know BMW has prototypes with diesel-run generator that boast medium sports car performances with city car fuel consumption, but nothing in production or even officially announced yet.

Peugeot already has, and the mechanics should be used on other Peugeot models in the future and ported to Citroën too, a diesel-electric hybrid, AWD, with FWD driven by diesel engine and RWD driven by electric motor, it's the Peugeot 3008 HYbrid4, but still it's not pure electric with diesel extension.

Mercedes instead has pure electric, no gas range extension, 4 motor prototypes.

And finally there is the Fisker Karma, a production pure electric with gasoline, not diesel, range extension car, designed in California and made in Finland.

The Peugeot burns more fuel than the Toyota Prius, but it's an AWD car and anyway diesel fuel is cheaper than gasoline. The Fisker, instead, claims even lower fuel consumption than the Prius, while offering sports car performances, speed is limited to 200km/h, 125mph (otherwise it could easily exceed 250km/h) to limit its maximum fuel consumption too, not only its average, for environment friendly image sake (while the pure electric, no extension Tesla Roadster limits speed to give decent authonomy also with sportive driving), but acceleration is 0-100km/h, 0-62mph in 5.9s.

Pure electric cars with no range extension will be short range, almost city-only viable, still for a long time, alas, but pure electric with range extension, and no mechanical link between the internal combustion engine and the wheels, are particularly promising, as the thermal engine run generator will be able to be easily replaced with fuel cells as soon as they'll become affordable and durable enough.

Edit: I'll have to replace my Fiesta Turbodiesel next year, the engine is still as new, but body and suspensions are falling apart, my next car will still be a diesel, hybrids are still too expensive for me and pure electric not viable, but I hope my next car will be my last pure internal combustion one, for pure fun sake combustion engines are almost unbeatable, the noise, shifting gears, etc (although electric motor could give better performances, the Tesla already beats a lot of sports cars, but the feeling is important too, not just performances), but for practical use they are becoming unsustainable dinosaurs.

Power - Yes of course. I refer to power as the ability of the car to accelerate and make the wheels spin. I like it light too, that's why I'm not a muscle car guy. They feel like trucks.

No Peugot in Canada or USA It's mostly USA's fault, Canadas car culture is suppose to mimic Europes, at least for cities. So the recently introduced Fiat 500 is selling well here. Small cars don't sell well in the states. They got the Smart car only a couple years ago, a full 7 years after Canada, and sales of subcompacts are a joke there. It's all Pickup and Economy car sales (Ford F-150 and the Honda Civic are the two best selling cars in USA).

No Fisker sold in Canada, and the car is a bit pricy. I've seen it at the auto show before, they look sweet.

Diesel and gas are same price in Canada and USA.

Out of curiousity, how old is your fiesta turbo diesel and how many km did you get on it before it kicked the boot? I want to know because I'm curious how the reliability of Ford has improved. If you can afford it get a BMW 1 series diesel (we don't get them here either )

Side note: Tesla Roadster is fast in a straight line, but due to the weight of the batteries it cannot corner anywhere nearly as well as the Lotus Elise it's based on. If you look on Forza 4 the Tesla and Exige have the same performance index, and if you look up Top Gear Power Laps, the Lotus Exige is a full 2 seconds faster, despite being less powerful, and having much less torque.

My Fiesta TDDI is from April 2001, more than 10yrs old, but it has run quite few km, little more than 70000, as I park it on the road and in my town finding a parking is a nightmare, so I used often my parents cars, when they didn't need it, as they have a garage. So the engine is as new, but the body has lots of scratches, the salty mist from the sea whenever goddamm Sirocco blows, often with added scratching Sahara sand (yes, the wind carries it even here, thousands km north of it) made all the paing ugly and rough, the inner lining is swelling near the left forward window due to years of sun in the summer and high humidity in Spring and autumn in my rainy town, and forward suspension are gone, after years of bumps and holes on shitty roads, my mom gave them the coup de grâce hitting a curb when she drove it one day she was very nervous with a friend, thereafter, even changing the suspensions frame, it wasn't the same anymore, it's still nice and sincere to drive, but it makes sinister noises. Weren't for the latter trouble, I'd say it's still in an acceptable state considering it was always treated roughly, and the engine and gearbox are still excellent, steering is good and brakes decent and reliable. Also it still has its original battery and never had serious troubles except the suspension damage that's not Ford's fault. Fuel consumption is better than my mom's old Opel Corsa Turbodiesel, despite the Ford engine still being an older project, but having 7HP more, 75 for my Fiests, 68 for my mom's Opel.

About the BMW 1 Series diesel, it's just the diesel car I'd buy if I could afford it, but I don't think it will be possible next year, maybe if I keep my current car one more year and replace it not earlier than 2013 it will be far more likely, although not sure. BTW my mom's moving to Tuscany, but if I stay in my town I could be forced to look for a smaller car than the smallest BMW, as parking problems and stress are getting worse and worse here in Genoa, and being a town with a majority of some of the most retrograde and dumbest post-communist left-wing electors and politicians in Italy, that what's worse in the last 20 years have been often allied with the Greens, lately not nation-wide, but still quite regularly in local administrations, to keep the majority, future car-friendly solutions can be safely ruled out.

About FIAT, they had a bad reputation for unreliability in the past, particularly in USA, in Italy they are still the best seller city cars, but like Americans I don't trust them anymore, mechanics was good, but the rest was crap, and despite now more reliable they aren't anymore cheap as they used to be.

About Peugeot, I don't trust them anymore, either. In my family we owned two of them, a big, for EU standards, 505GL 7 seater SW and a 205GL citycar, as time went by assistance got worse and worse, spare parts more and more expensive, and curiously, despite Peugeot and Citroën sharing many parts (except the high-end Citroëns with oleo-pneumatic suspensions) and being built by the same corporation, Citroën assistance and spare parts are a lot better and cheaper now, it's been so for the last 15 years at least, I don't know why. Also, while the old 505 was almost as indestructible as the older 504, the 205 was quite unreliable, we replaced it when brakes started rusting inside the pipings and often not correctly releasing the grip after braking, becoming red hot. Also both suffered from overcomplicated Solex carburettors, that lately, with the general switch to fuel injection, workshops weren't able to correctly adjust anymore after the oldest mechanics retired. My mom got a Citroën C3 last time not only because it's the right city car/subcompact for her needs, with low fuel consumption, good performance on both highways and tight roads, not only in urban traffic, and enough space for when she travels with dog and cats and lots of luggage, but also because the Citroën dealer and workshop next to where she'll move is the most honest of the zone and even fixed her old Opel a lot better and cheaper than official Opel workshops.

About the Tesla yes, I looked again at the test I read, it's unbeatable in some tests on the straights, but in the tests at Vairano, a tight track used by Quattroruote, Italian biggest car mag, the Tesla made a not bad lap time, beating most sport-touring cars, but it was beaten by every supercar and even by the quite disappointing Lotus Evora, that's not as good as the less powerful but a lot lighter Exige Cup, and that the Tesla easily beats on the straights, and also by a muscle elephant like the Bentley Continental SS,more than 600HP, but heavy as a truck (Quattroruote was lured into testing the Evora by the hype it got in UK, but they were disappointed, unlike the Tesla, the Elise SC and the Exige, the Evora didn't even qualify for their "4 seconds club", taking more than 5s in the 0-100km/h, nevertheless it beats the Tesla in lap time). Note: Tesla was tested in a different issue of the mag from the one with the supercars test. BTW in last year's supercar tests of that mag, Nissan GT-R in that circuit was third behind Ferrari 458  and Lambo Gallardo LP570-4, but it beat Porsche 911 Turbo S. In that test the winner was the Lambo on lap time, but it was third in raw acceleration data, with Porsche first and Ferrari second in the 0-100km/h, and Ferrari first and Porsche second in the 0-200km/h. Ferrari had the best brakes, followed closely by Nissan and Lambo. Ferrari was also declared by the mag's test drivers and journalists the most amusing to drive.