I'm not dg but I support this thread!! The mister and I just watched that TG episode last night!! IMO James has really hit his stride in the past 2 seasons.

(loved the bug-vs-911 segment too)

/petrolhead

The Ariel Atom episode is a few years old, yes?

Anyway, I really want something like that plus the time and money to take it out racing.

mullacc, that's a new V8 Ariel atom; the vid Eideteker posted is from season 16 (i.e. just released this week). You are correct, they did one before, but this is a new one.

Did somebody say vroom vroom? I'm in!

Is that the Hartley V8? There's nothing about the phrase "Two-headed Hayabusa lump" that doesn't make me fizz like a schoolgirl.

An amusing anecdote for the petrolheads: Walking to lunch the other day, I turned my head to get a look at what sounded like a moderately evil 5.0 Mustang going past... What I saw instead was probably about $200K worth of blacked out & tuned AMG/Mercedes.

That's right, Hedge Fund... Your car sounds like a $5,000 crate-motor Ford.

Holy shit! Who would have thought the Atom could get better? I guess if there is anything that could have done it, a bespoke V-8 is the thing.

Thanks for the link!

[SPOILER]the bit where they race the new V8 Atom against a good road motorbike + driver AND WIN is priceless[/SPOILER]

An amusing anecdote for the petrolheads: Walking to lunch the other day, I turned my head to get a look at what sounded like a moderately evil 5.0 Mustang going past... What I saw instead was probably about $200K worth of blacked out & tuned AMG/Mercedes.

That's right, Hedge Fund... Your car sounds like a $5,000 crate-motor Ford.

our new (to us) evil black '05 Legacy Outback XT sounds like it has rabid badgers under the hood and also like it should belong to a 17-year-old juvenile delinquent in baggy trousers.

We knew when we bought it a few months ago that it had an aftermarket exhaust. We were just so happy to have found a loaded 5-speed manual with super low mileage that we didn't ask that many questions. What they didn't mention and we subsequently found out (we bought it the day after the prior owner turned it in) was that the engine had been pretty heavily modified. It has a little green anodised alloy engine mount plate with the name of the tuner engraved. It's been chipped, we know that. It maybe ungoverned too, and I say maybe, because the mister once got it up to 123 mph on a long, straight, flat stretch of road out in BFE Colorado, then got leery and backed off. Someday we'll call the tuner to see if he's still in business and remembers what's been done to it.

It's also been completely de-badged and tinted, and had the annoying door chimes / remote lock beeping crap disabled, which is also kind of nice. It's kind of stealthy looking without the badges (for a station wagon).

The suspension is kinda shite, because Legacy XT stock suspension is kinda shite and that apparently wasn't modified, which is weird but whatever. It's really only an issue because of how stupid fast the car is, and our plan is to install some sway bars and lower it a bit, although lowering it much kinda defeats the purpose of having an Outback. The torque it generates is positively into the ridiculous, rip-your-face-off territory; especially for a 4-banger. Despite that it has decent performance tires on, I've managed to squeal all 4 of them on dry pavement coming off a stop light, mostly because I'm still a hack at driving a manual, but also because the damn thing is just an awesome evil beast of a car. In a straight line quarter mile (we've tested this) it's easily faster than the mister's old WRX, and as fast as our friend's '09 STI. It will also go from 55-80 mph in an effortless blink, which on our local freeways is a reassuring feature. The downside to all the aftermarket stuff is that (for a 4-cylinder) it's kinda crap on gas mileage, but it still gets better mileage than my sorry old Volvo did.

all told, there is something disturbingly awesome about a plain-brown-paper-bag pedestrian looking station wagon, which looks exactly like the twenty bejillion other Outbacks roaming around Boulder, but which can go over 120 mph with no apparent strain.

...and sounds like it has rabid badgers under the hood, which is enough to make both of us snicker like Beavis and Butthead every time we put the key in :)