By Robert Emslie
With its gullwing doors and wide sill beneath, getting into and out of the Mercedes’ C111 experimental car was something of a daunting task for those in miniskirts. It’s 350-bhp 4-rotor Wankel would have likely made the exercise worthwhile however as it enabled the car to hit sixty in a respectable 4.8 seconds, and a 186 mile per hour top end.
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Jeff Glucker
I have that Hot Wheel,
Didn’t they put a v8 in one of these at one point? I’d rather have that one.
They put a prototype turbo version of the OM617 I-5 diesel in a streamlined version called the C111-III and set a butt-ton of international speed and distance record (both diesel and overall).
https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3140/2573752166_2ee03aa6c5_b.jpg
The lessons learned on the C111-III engine, naturally, were applied to the production OM617 turbo that debuted in the W116 300 SD. The V8 C111-IV (with its extra aero appendages) came shortly after.
http://www.autoviva.com/img/photos/569/mercedes_benz_c_111_iv_large_31569.jpg
The C111-IV’s front end looks a whole lot like a fiero’s. http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_images/3/2291/4601/30727300001_large.jpg
Now I want to see a LeMons Fiero with C111-inspired cardboard-and-duct-tape aero bits and a rotary or diesel engine swapped in, because a V8 just wouldn’t be LeMon-y enough.
Instead of a rotary or diesel engine, how about a rotary diesel?
I saw the aftermath of a motorcycle crash today, right after the crash happened but before the police and paramedics arrived. It looked like a van didn’t see him making a left turn and pulled out in front of him and the bike t-boned him (the van’s fault). It’s always really sobering to see stuff like that and makes me think a little bit more about the choices I make in life.
I’m racing my bike at a 1/2 mile event on Sunday and leaving for a 2500-mile motorcycle camping trip on Wednesday. The most dangerous part of either will be getting out of my city. That and elk, deer, and moose. And also people crossing the centerline because texting. And people pulling out of rural driveways without looking in either direction; or looking right at an oncoming bike and pulling out in front anyway. Head on a swivel and assume everyone is out to get you…
Other people are the biggest reason I keep delaying motorcycle ownership.
So, Thursday was Bike To Work Day here in San Francisco; and this happened. (I was typing this just as BigRedCaveTroll posted his comment, bad news all around, I guess.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eacBcZKSh7Q
Goes to show how quickly stuff like that happens. I used to bike everywhere from when I was a kid to the end of my time as student, at most 8000+km a year. I hit cars several times, usually in the same scenario: Someone went off or on the road and misjudged my speed or did not see me. One of the worst accidents was when I went down a hill and hit a little lady in her Peugeot trying to get to a gas station and crossing the road. The body reacts strangely, I “flew” over the car and landed on my feet. Never asked for damage repair on my bike as I knew the damage on these cars was very costly, too. I was lucky everytime.
Hope this biker is okay!
Apparently the cop also lied on the report, saying the lights and siren were on when he plowed over the cyclist – they weren’t. Interestingly, he was signaling a right turn when he suddenly veered left.
I once had two cops arrest me for charges they knew I had nothing to do with and made up a completely fabricated report that veered into areas of fiction typically reserved for schlocky hack writers. If I hadn’t had friends in high places to spring me after a night in the pokey, I’d have a record. I really loathe the police.
The other Police, I quite like: https://youtu.be/7v2GDbEmjGE
Since the dashcam video is silent, there’s no real way to know if the siren was on. The lie about the lights being on, and the rarity of the lights being off when the siren is on, makes me lean toward believing it was off. It kind of looks like he turned off his right signal, but I don’t see the left one come on. Hard to tell with all the brake light action. Maybe cop cars should have amber directionals?
Ahhh! That video… I just watched it and there’s so much to unpack. Disclosure: I owned Ghost In The Machine on 8-Track. That makes no sense at all. I was the target market for MTV in the ’80s, anyway.
I can only conclude that this whole video was underwritten by the Hamer guitar manufacturer. (Citation http://www.watersish.com/archives/2015/05/andy-summers-rig-the-police-years.html “The other Andy’s guitars include several models of Hamer that he endorsed in the De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da music video…”) Andy Summers is the only one acting like he’s really involved, and he keeps shoving that HAMER logo into the center of the frame. Then they all play the HAMER guitar… love it. Product placement.
Excellent ’80s MTV video. Videos were comedy at first. Stewart Copeland does a fantastic job of clowning for the camera by being the camera, having about as much luck mock-filming as he would have mock-drumming on the… where are they? Un-guarded side of some rich guy’s outhouse?
Also, J-Poles. Brings me back to learning to ski in New England. They were a lot more comfortable than T-Bars.
The outcome of this was the Isdera Imperator 108i. About 30 were built with a fiberglass body and AMG V8 engine. The strange thing on the roof is the rear mirror.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isdera_Imperator_108i
Great cars. I really loved those series of technology demonstrators, racking up long distance records. I don’t recall any being white – just grey or orange. It’s a shame they capped the program and didn’t put them into limited supercar production. I suppose they represented a zillion dollars of project investment, that no production run could have recouped.
And just how many times has someone actually attempted to get into the C111 while wearing a miniskirt?
I can assure you that it was never me. But only because i was never asked. I’d ghost ride one naked, if it was on offer.
Just once but he married her afterward, so it was legal
Whatever became of the Atomic Toast ???
Spontaneously initiated suspended animation.
Can a person purchase or take over a defunct site like Atomic Toasters? Who would I ask?
I am not sure we can characterize AT as completely defunct. It had just about hit that critical mass of readership/comment traffic/contributors to be self-perpetuating when a series of DNS attacks forced Dearthair to shut down the comment engine for a while that killed the momentum overnight. I have no ideas if there is any intention to revive it now, but there was always an expectation behind the scenes that it would rise from the ashes at some point. Dearthair is the one to ask.
de*******@************rs.com
Their R2 unit has a bad motivator. Last I saw they were heading into Mos Eisley.
Since I’m not very well versed in my Disqus-fu, how do you put text after a picture? My default is that the picture shows up at the very end.
Just paste the image link into your comment wherever you want it to go
Super Rocket hand car.
Powered by your arms and steered with your legs… sounds like something I would invent.
No brakes.
It had a brake: Force your heels against the front pivot arm, and yank back on the handle as hard as you can.