The quintessential hot hatch

I’m a sedan type of car guy, through and through. And I hate SUVs with a passion. However, I do have a HUGE soft spot for hatchbacks, specially the so -called “hot hatches”. The Renault 5 Turbo is one of the best examples of a hot hatch. Weighing just 970 kg but with 160 hp on tap, the mid-engine homologation special was a driver’s dream. And the car was so good that instead of the minimum 400 units Renault needed for homologation, over 3100 cars were made.

I hate to look back and say those were the “gold old days”, but back then we had a Renault 5 Turbo. Nowadays, it looks like of every three cars on the road two are SUVs… 😣

Sad news

Earlier this morning I received some very sad news. My great friend Gary Blythe passed away last night 😥

I knew Gary since around 2003. An avid diecast collector, we met through DiecastXchange, at the time the biggest diecast forum on the web, when I started to collect 1:18s. Since we were both pretty active in the community, in about one year we both became moderators on the forum. And by then we had become good friends, even though we had an ocean between us. Around 2008 I had to stop collecting, and a little later so did he. Unfortunately I drifted away from the diecast community and we lost touch. But in early 2017 I was back, but this time collecting 1:43s. Coincidentally, he also shifted to 1:43 some time earlier. Through S143 we got back in touch, and instantly rekindled our friendship.

Gary had a lot of health issues, but had a heart of gold. Despite the distance between us I’m privileged to consider him a friend. The Oaf (Earl of Northumberland, His Smeliness or Mr. Ugly) will be truly missed.

Rest in peace, my friend.

Legendary Porsches

Welt just released the full version (in HD!) of their “Legendary Porsches” documentary. It’s a full hour about many of Stuttgart’s most iconic cars, with interviews and vintage race footage. With all that, I would say it’s a VERY well spent hour in front of the computer. In fact, it’s so good that I’m downloading it to have it in my video library.

The really first Silberpfeil

In January last year Jay Leno released a very interesting episode in his “Jay Leno’s Garage”. I talked about this car in the second part of my Silver Arrows series last month. This is the replica of the original 1932 Silberpfeil that Mercedes Benz built in 2019, and Jay Leno made a fantastic 28 minutes video about it. In this video was the first time I heard Mercedes admit that it wasn’t Alfred Neubauer who originally coined the term.

Historical origins aside, as usual, Leno produced a fantastic video that’s really worth the watch.

Mazda 787B

This morning I came upon this video, about the great Mazda 787B. The 787B was the first Japanese car to win at La Sarthe. Additionally, and just as important, it was also the first car powered by a Wankel engine to do that. Rotary engines are basically a thing of the past, and do to emission concerns it’s unlikely that we’ll see them on the streets again. Therefore, the 787B will certainly be the one and only Wankel-powered car to ever win at Le Mans.

Gordon Murray’s T.50s

I’m not exactly the biggest fan of Gordon Murray’s cars – or in other words, the Mac F1 is not on my dream garage list. However, the new T.50s Niki Lauda is another story. Revealed yesterday and produced by Gordon Murray Automotive, the car is sex on wheels. Top speed of 330 km/h, up to 1500 kg of downforce and powered by an atmospheric V12 that delivers 711 hp (or 725 hp when the ram air induction system kicks in). AND, gorgeous. You can easily see the F1 in those lines, and it looks stunning.

GMA will produce only 25 models, at US$ 4.5 millions a pop, plus taxes. So I probably will never even see one in the metal, but I can wish Spark will make one in 1:43rd 🤯.