Your fleet running reports

[GG.]

Great shots @Ascender. How I wish I had scenery like that on my doorstep! Dakar fits in well!

I think I would have to add wrap with full Rothmans livery (not the crap Porsche Roughroads imitation) and long flappy mudguards

No because they look fucking tragic GG. Mike's is perfect

Nah - not on a limited run special called the Dakar. A livery or stripe is perfectly fitting (hence why Porsche offered one from the factory). Thing is theirs wasn't great because of the IP issues.

Turns out they offer a few other alternatives https://www.topgear.com/car-news/motors ... -911-dakar I would probably go for this one with black wheels but maybe not the bilstein stickers



This one is lairy but also pretty epic IMO

[Swervin_Mervin]

I've seen one in the wild - Wilmslow - and trust me it looks fucking tragic.

[GG.]

Which one - a "roughroads"?

My son was asking can we have a roundel on the door of ours like an S/T and I had to gently say that would look a bit OTT on a run of the mill GTS

Thing is with cars like this (and I mean expensive sports cars in general, not just the Dakar) - in jealous Britain 90% of everyone you drive by thinks you're a cunt anyway so having a stripe on the side of a car with white wheels, knobbly tyres and a wing on the back isn't really going to move the dial.

Yes, I wouldn't run round London (or Wilmslow) in one but then I wouldn't have a Dakar in London or Wilmslow anway.

[Ascender]

With the amount of farm mud on the roads today, a Dakar would have been a very appropriate choice here in the shires. Envious!

Was that what caused the sideways moment?

On a roundabout so not necessarily - I could feel it was slick so gave it some more throttle to find out how little grip. Not much Felt more like a diesel spill than just farm mud.

It's great the MX5 hasn't lost any of its fun when it comes to getting the back end out. I don't think I've driven one in about 20 years, but they were always an absolute hoot.

[Ascender]

Thanks for the compliments, I have been massively obsessed with the car since launch so am still pinching myself to make sure its not a dream.

Apparently 75%+ had the Rothmans/Roughroads livery specced - that's a wrap + some paintwork and I think was about 18K.

I was thinking about something like the Porsche logo along the bottom of the doors just to break up the white a bit, but still undecided.

There's elements of those 70s/80s Dakar liveries I quite like - a stripe here or there, but I quite like the no-badged simple look of the whole thing.

The mudguards have really helped... there's a lot of loose gravel on the b roads round here and they seem to catch all of it which on the gts would just be thrown up onto the car.

[mik]

I've never been a great fan of the Dakar (or the Sterrato) as I thought the venn diagram of people genuinely interested in 911 packaging and performance that also needed some off-road capability had to be minute. And didn't include me.

However - we have one on here.

And since I'm always delighted to see cars being used as the designers/engineers intended : <doffs cap>

[Jobbo]

Apparently 75%+ had the Rothmans/Roughroads livery specced - that's a wrap + some paintwork and I think was about 18K.

It was madly priced but I'd have paid extra not to have a livery. There's enough going on with the exterior changes to make it quite obvious what the car is and if you're going to drive it rather than pose around in Knightsbridge all the liveries look tragic.

[MikeHunt]

I've never been a great fan of the Dakar (or the Sterrato) as I thought the venn diagram of people genuinely interested in 911 packaging and performance that also needed some off-road capability had to be minute. And didn't include me.

However - we have one on here.

And since I'm always delighted to see cars being used as the designers/engineers intended : <doffs cap>

On paper any car that is jacked up for off-road and added plastic parts shouldn't be my cup of tea, but the 911 (and the Sterrato to a lesser extent) are super cool.

Enjoy it @Ascender

[integrale_evo]

Are you forgetting the awesome VW polo dune, Rover streetwise or the mighty Renault Megane scenic rx4?

[ZedLeg]

I can see the appeal of the ruggedised Toyota hatches tbh. I saw an Aygo X hit an exposed manhole cover at like 20mph and it didn’t even slow down

[Swervin_Mervin]

I was drooling over a considerable number of A110s that were at Oulton Park on Sat, but had an idle thought yesterday. The roads near me are utterly awful (I thought I'd ripped the nsf off the Superb the other day in a hidden pothole for example), so would likely have to have a std A110. Which is fine as I like the ethos.

But if they'd done a "Dakar" that would be perfect

I'd forgotten they teased this a few years ago:

[ZedLeg]

Give sports cars the tyre profile and suspension travel they had 30 years ago but add black plastic and call it rugged

[Ascender]

Always loved a good Panda 4x4. Please tell me they still exist and will still go anywhere?

[DeskJockey]

Zoe now has a new front lower ball joint, and took a chunk out of the mechanics forehead when he managed to bang his head on the brake disc.

[GG.]

Always loved a good Panda 4x4. Please tell me they still exist and will still go anywhere?

Discontinued in 2022 for the UK market but still available in the rest of Europe.

I just checked on Fiat's website and apparently a base Panda is £14k!!! I mean WTAF. Its a £7,995 car in my head and even accounting for recent inflation, I wouldn't have guessed more than £11k for an entry level model.

[Broccers]

Got a quick explore tonight over an old B road which snakes up from the coast inland a bit then joins up with the top of the valley which leads down into the village. Was surprised by how well it does with big pot holes, it rides pretty well on those tyres and the extra ground clearance definitely helps.

Obligatory hip shot.

Lovely congrats

[Matty]

Quick trip up the my local C&M with my neighbour in his yellow VX (gratuitous pic below) confirmed that I have one, possibly two coolant leaks.

You sure Dan hasn't just painted the rocker cover red and stuck a Honda badge on your old K-Series, right? Have you checked the headgasket

[Matty]

Apparently 75%+ had the Rothmans/Roughroads livery specced - that's a wrap + some paintwork and I think was about 18K.

Fucking £18k?!? For some stickers?

Get Yanni on it - you'll be cool and all over the social medias with £13k more in the bank

[dan]

Quick trip up the my local C&M with my neighbour in his yellow VX (gratuitous pic below) confirmed that I have one, possibly two coolant leaks. It's just a few drips when hot, I suspect at the joints but a very brief feel around didn't yield anything. Coolant level hasn't dropped noticeably, so I'm inclined to just keep an eye on it for the time being, is that foolish?

I always just seem to be in a rush when I take the car out, and that's probably the only time I'm going to be able to find the evidence of its location.



I dunno what it is with the coolant system but @dan found a split in my header tank last time and it has played up in the past, so it seems to me like maybe it's having to work pretty hard / high pressure? So maybe it's loading the joints a bit more.

The header tank split was pretty standard elise stuff, UV light makes them brittle and they crack. The rest of the system is pretty robust generally though and is massively over engineered as far as keeping your engine cool goes - you should see the tiny rads they put in the front of civics.

The header tank level will need be to be quite low though otherwise it'll spit a bit out of the cap. The header tank is off some old front engined rover so the coolant level mark can be ignored as its from a car with about a third of the volume of coolant in it.

[GG.]

The header tank split was pretty standard elise stuff, UV light makes them brittle and they crack.

Aren't they concealed in darkness? Or is it that they spontaneously turn to dust when the bonnet / clamshell is opened