Pulaski

Bink

Todays craving of the day:

RoadWarriorFromLP

Hopefully, no one here knows anyone involved in this:

Dozens injured in 100-car crash east of London

The mangled wrecks of cars and lorries were strewn across the Sheppey Crossing as vehicles smashed into each other in a series of collisions at about 7.20 a.m.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...0H12NY20130905

MostlyYank

Wow. Some friends of mine were involved in a big pileup years ago, still have nightmares about it.

Pete

Jan Alaska

Adventures in restoring a 1974 mini, firstly on the back it says mini 1000 yet the title seems to think its a 1400
Then hubby after perusing an online parts catalogue asks me what 'that' is ..."err brake servo" I say ... turns out yanks have different names for anything and everything, this could take longer than expected.

Nutek

I never heard of a Mini 1400

There was a 1275 overbore kit. (That is, the 1275 could be overbored to 1400).

Is the motor original?

(lovely little restore project by the way).

Jan Alaska

The engine is original and it looks very much like a 1000 or rather 998 to me.

Bob

Wonder if that beats the one on the M40 outside of Oxford a few years back, that went into the record books as the biggest pileup.

Only one person killed in that, the motorbiker who caused it.

You could see the skid marks for weeks, very surreal.

RoadWarriorFromLP

I should have provided a better link. That crash ended up involving 130 cars. Amazingly, though, no fatalities at all.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-24007626

Nutek

that can be an issue. Tide can sometimes help.

Pulaski

Always. If you keep on top of the news of major vehicle wrecks, the roads of America are littered with the scars of fatal or serious accidents. A substantial tree close to the subdivision where I live, just a few feet off the road, lost a big chunk of bark when a high speed wreck took the life of a driver a couple of years ago, and there is still a major scorch mark in the fast lane of the interstate near my office, where a wrong-way driver caused a fatal wreck and fire seven years ago . Then there are the numerous crosses set up as shrines on the shoulder where fatal wrecks occurred, including where a youth somehow fell off a bridge over the interstate into the roadway earlier this year and was driven over by several vehicles before the emergency services were called.

Nutek

So, Mazda won't sell me a 2014 Speed3 with leather AND a manual trans. Which just seems bizarre to me.

And none of the dealerships around here have a Focus ST in top level trim.

My shortlist is now down to another MX-5 or a Mini Coupe.

Or just stay with my current MX-5 that has nothing wrong with it other than not-being-new.

zargof

I guess people must tip hairdressers well in your area...

Pulaski

You could (probably) special order the Focus, and get it direct from the factory in just a couple of weeks, with delivery mileage and no test drives in it. My F250 came that way, ordered just ahead of the summer shutdown/ between model years, but even so only took six weeks. It is likely close to unique (manual, 2wd, 5.4), and the last time I checked Ford don't even offer a manual F250.

Actually my Mustang came the same way, through International Autosource, ... "We don't have a manual in stock, but you can have an automatic ... ?" ... You have got to be kidding!!

Bob

Squelchy...

Cousins visiting us mentioned getting stuck in traffic down their way, when a motorbiker tried to overtake a truck around a outside bend and drove straight into a car, legs caught the handlebars and stayed on the bike, they found the other half a hundred odd feet over the side of the road.

Definitely do see a lot of smashed in road barriers that never get replaced down our way and car litter is all over the hard shoulder, very surreal, especially when you know it's a big mash up on a road you usually travel down but wasn't at that time for what ever reason.