Apple iPhone 3G - Could be for You!

The picture above shows the new 3G iPhone, for which there have been reports of people queuing for days to be amongst the first to have the new toy. Apple reportedly sold 1,000,000 in the three days following the launch.

Since then developers have been busy coming up with new applications for the phone and one I found yesterday really was quite a surprise and should be of great interest to those of you who are developing your cars - or who even just take a close interest in your Fulvia's performance.

The new application has the rather unfortunate name of Dynolicious (how do they think of them?).

As you can see from the pictures, all the performance data you could need are provided.

I learned about this from Gizmodo, from which the pictures came. The article explains that the iPhone has a built-in accelerometer which is used to generate the data.

Now all you have to do is a) get an iPhone; b) load up Dynolicious; c) find a police-free zone or a race-track to get down to some serious testing!

Best of all is the price of the application: $12.99!

A bientôt.

New Look

You will no doubt have noticed the new look: blue for Lancia and Yellow for Turin... Sadly this blog page is somewhat corrupted I suspect and I was unable to change the colour of the hyperlinks to something more contrasty; I have urgent need of someone who understands the nightmare that is HTML!

I have been sent some more restoration pictures and these will go up here this weekend. I shall do my best to try to post a bit more and once again, apologies for the dearth of activity.

One of my regular Fulvia correspondents is experimenting with programmable ignition, an excellent idea in my view although not entirely easy - unless one has a great deal of dyno time available. His car is highly developed with many exciting features; he knows who he is... I hope that before too long he will allow me to "lift the veil" a little and show off some mouth-watering developments. However, my readers will, I am sure, understand that it is perfectly natural to keep original ideas "under wraps."

À bientôt

Restorations

I am flattered that from time to time some of my readers take the trouble to share information about their cars and in particular details of the work that they are doing. Recently I have been sent two sets of pictures showing restoration work - either done or "to do". I have always found such pictures instructive and often inspiring, so, presuming no objections from the senders, here is the first selection I have chosen.

No doubt those of you who have worked on your cars will be familiar with the areas shown!

I await your comments with interest.

À bientôt

News from South Africa

Those who you who look at my "C Box" - RH side of page - might have noticed that I have received contact from Phil at the Cape Lancia Club located as their website says, in beautiful Capetown.

I recall meeting, many years ago in Harry Manning's place a splendid South African enthusiast who ran an early Flavia. I asked him how he managed for parts... His response in best pioneering style: "I make 'em - and I can fix your TV set too!"

Lancia at one time had an assembly plant in South Africa, which, I imagine, together of course with the perfect climate, accounts for the very considerable numbers of classic Lancias still in use there - see the beautiful Lambda in the picture above - sorry Phil, I couldn't resist...

I hope to hear from some of the Cape Lancisti - and I think if one of them would care to contact me with some information, I should be delighted to add a piece about Lancia's South African operations; and of course I hav added a link to the club's home page in my links list (RH side of page again!).

À bientôt

Fuel Consumption News

Hello.

I do not for a minute imagine that I have to remind you that the price of crude oil has now reached $145 per barrel, and nor do I have to point out the impact that this is having on our lives!

Nevertheless, "necessity is the mother of invention" so the old saying goes and now a chap in America is claiming that his 1987 Ford Mustang can do 110 miles per gallon. Not bad you might think; in fact since he is an American, he will be talking in US gallons; the equivalent in Imperial gallons would be 132 mpg - or for my continental readers, 2.1 litres/100km.

There is nothing like a pain in the wallet to stimulate development is there?

À bientot

Rallying is Dangerous

Yesterday, I spent most of the day watching our local rally: Le Rallye du Pays Rochois. It was my intention to write a piece illustrating the glories of the French countryside on a beautiful sunny day whilst various French men and women competed over the special stages.

This will have to wait for a little while, as sadly in the penultimate "special", there was a tragic crash: a Renault collided with a tree. The driver actually survived the accident but tragically died of heart failure after being freed from the car by the emergency services. His co-driver was taken to a hospital in Geneva - the usual procedure with very serious injuries.

However, for now I attach a little video clip that I think will entertain some of you



À bientôt

P.S. By the way I have had the same problems with this post as with the Nantua one: again I had to delete a load of HTML gibberish, before Blogger would accept the post - and again all I did was type out the post onto Blogger's page!

Bloggrrrrrrrrr

Anyone know a better blog-host than Google's blogger? I apologise for the appalling appearance of the previous article which was in no way my fault. I spent an hour trying to edit it to no avail.

To start with, Blogger rejected my publication on the grounds that "Your HTML cannot be accepted."

What HTML? I hadn't made any or written/created/cooked up any. The stupid program does this allegedly by itself. So I deleted great tranches of rubbish until it accepted the article and if it finds this bordel acceptable then that speaks volumes for Blogger.

Now the various fonts that appear in the article do not appear on the draft page; anyone who doesn't believe me is welcome to a screenshot!

Finally it is about time that Blogger produced a preview page that at least vaguely resembles the item that will appear on the blog.

Grrrrrr!!!

A Grey Sunday at Nantua

Despite its Italian-sounding name, Nantua is a picturesque small town located at the west end of the Jura mountains in the Departement de l'Ain about 50km or so from my home. The landscape is delightful in the area helped to a great extent by the lake pictured here.

So, I can hear you ask, what's this got to do with this blog? Well, sadly not much, although it does concern cars at least. I was in Nantua to meet a bloke concerning some possible work and the occasion was an English car show or more properly, gathering.

On arrival I saw plenty of Jaguars as the French have a great affection for these - yes even including early XJ6s! However there were one or two more recherché items, for example the bizarre Ghia Austin-Healey 3000 and the stunningly lovely Swiss-bodied Alvis:

I was introduced to an Englishman (who like me has a French name) resident in Switzerland, who had arrived in a splendidly restored 1953 Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn, quite a rare car in England - the Bentley version, the Mk VI being much more common. Incidentally I have read that R-R marketed the Bentley in the UK as at the time there was a "strong wind" blowing from the left in England and it was thought that the Bentley radiator grille was a little less "obvious" than the Rolls one.

The chap was very friendly and invited me to sit down with him and share a pleasant lunch and an excellent bottle of wine, which I did. Later we drove together up to the prize-giving where my new acquaintance received first prize for his car - deservedly so in fact.


















However, for the Italian car fan, all was not lost; any of you who go to these kinds of event will know that the car park is often as interesting as the event itself. On this occasion, I found a delightful Ferrari 250GT, that I would very much liked to have driven home!

À bientôt

It's Been a While Hasn't it?

Sorry for the silence; apart from the fact that I have had no inspiration, I have been rather busy with various things, and in particular my computers...

Anyway an old friend sent me a link which I was delighted to receive. It concerns my boyhood hero, Mike Hawthorn, Britain's first Formula 1 World Champion.

Hawthorn won the championship, by just one point fifty years ago in 1958. After winning the championship he immediately announced his retirement; he was killed in a road crash in January 1959.

In those days Grand Prix drivers did a lot more than just F1 racing. Like most of his contemporaries Hawthorn raced sports cars and also saloons. On his day (and it must be admitted he was inconsistent) he was awesome in the D-type Jaguar - fastest lap in a D-type at the terrifying Dundrod circuit in Northern Ireland is just one example of his talent and bravery - and he was one of the very few who could go really quickly in the tricky Ferrari 750 Monza (Ascari died in one of these).

Anyway, here's a delightful video, made in 1956, where Hawthorn equipped with microphone takes us on a lap of Le Mans in a D-type.



Given that it is the fiftieth anniversary year of Hawthorn's success and that the Le Mans 24-hour race is in progress as I write this, I think that this post is really jolly appropriate - as Hawthorn himself might have remarked.

As a parting shot, I think I should add that Hawthorn - and his father Leslie who were based at Farnham in Surrey, were great Lancia fans; Chris Nixon tells an hilarious tale of young Mike's adventures in an Aprilia, and Leslie Hawthorn's Aprilia EYE 606 was at dear old Harry Manning's garage until the end.

À bientôt

Speed test

Well as you can see above, I have now added a new speed test. It is not the one to which I referred the other day, but unfortunately that one cannot be made to work with Blogger.com. Still, it doesn't look too bad!

À bientôt

Internet Speed Test

Sorry about the delay on the super new Broadband Speed test, I am trying to find a solution - I have the code uploaded but it doesn't work and the instructions are no help at all. I am, in the words of Lou Reed "Waiting for my man" - in other words it is NOT a "Perfect Day."

The test can be seen here - car enthusiasts will appreciate the design.

The company offers an Internet Speed test too. Well worth a look.

À bientôt

Didn't see the joke...

Picture source here

Now this chap knew exactly what to do with his £50 banger when some obnoxious official clamped it... Read all about it here.

I once bought a Fulvia for £50 - and drove it away, but that was a long time ago!

À bientôt

Back

Hello all; yes I am back home in France after my spell in England, much of which was spent in front of a computer and a bit underneath a Land-Rover about which, more anon.

I have been away about five weeks in which time the price of a barrel of oil has increased by about 32%, with Goldman Sachs now saying that the barrel price could reach $200 in six months...

So how topical is the idea pictured below?

Picture: Gizmodo

Yes, it's your own fuel-producing plant; it makes ethanol from sugar, water and yeast, or stale beer amongst other things. It can produce 35 gallons (US) - about 132 litres - of 100% pure ethanol in a week. Yes it costs $10,000 but with the way prices are going it will start to look like a bargain. The full story can be found here.

Ethanol does not have the same specific heat as gasoline, so your Fulvia would require some re-jetting to run the richer mixture required, but ethanol has a Research Octane Number of about 110, so pinking should be a thing of the past.

Of course this is another example of dynamic American enterprise, a commodity conspicuously lacking in certain other countries. I can imagine that anyone attempting to make his own "environmentally-friendly" fuel would quickly attract (in England) the attention of HM Revenue and Customs and most likely, the anti-terrorist squad as well (28 days in jug, possibly rising to 42). In America, according to the article, tax breaks will be available.

That's progress.

À bientôt

A bit quiet...

You will have noticed that things are a bit quiet hereabouts. I do have an excuse: I am in London at present and rather busy helping a friend out.

As soon as I have a chance I will try to write something new, so in the meantime, thanks for your loyalty.

À bientôt

A Model Nation?

The question posed in my headline refers to La France, but as you will see I was not using the word "model" in the sense of "perfect"...

Source: L'Internaute

Consider the photograph above: M. Gerard Brion spent 14 years building an exquisite model of the whole of Paris (inside the Peripherique - i.e. all 20 arrondissements) in the garden of his home near Montauban in South-West France. There is more information - and pictures on this site.

M. Brion regularly updates the model to include significant events and the model is open for public viewing.

This piece was prompted first by discovering the amazing model described above which in turn reminded me of another extraordinary French model maker, M. Pierre Scerri of Avignon and his wonderful model of a Ferrari 312. Many of you I am sure, will have heard of this staggering achievement, but if you haven't, prepare to be astounded. And if you have, I am sure that you will agree that the project is worth a second look:



So if you are agonising about say, rebuilding the brakes on your Fulvia, respect this man - he even made the tyres - and spark plugs and the 48 valves and the fuel-injection and the instruments AND the fully operative six-speed transmission! More information on this site.

Unbelievable!

À bientôt

Er... Modifications

There were some dark mutterings in the Lancia fraternity in England when I first appeared with my rather modified Fulvia:

However I now realise that I was nowhere nearly radical enough: consider the special pictured below from this Gizmodo report:

Source: Gizmodo

Now this owner really did try hard didn't he?

À bientôt

Eiffel Tower New Update

Source here

I have often referred my readers to CM's blog Jour Après Jour ("Day after Day").

Appalled by the proposed modifications to the upper part of the tower, she has followed news developments closely as may be read (in French) here.

After a lot of fuss and, I should think a certain amount of embarrassment for various newspapers - The Guardian included - it seems that the whole thing was a plaisanterie - a joke.

However it seems the Eiffel Tower Company has not ruled out action on this matter!

À bientôt

An Anecdote

About twenty years ago I made the acquaintance of a delightful chap, a partner in a firm near London that specialised in restoring classic cars and at that time in particular, Lancias. This chap was a fine race driver at club level and campaigned in a variety of cars including a Stratos and a Ferrari 308; he had a very attractive, smooth style.

Well I was told, actually by a mutual friend, that some years before the chap was on holiday in France, driving his 1300HF. Being somewhere in the south he decided to have a go at one of the Monte Carlo Rally stages (driving was fun in those days!).

He was delighted to have got within five minutes of the time achieved by Sandro Munari in a works car on the rally.

I should say "was delighted" until he realised that, whilst he was enjoying his summer holiday in his Fulvia, Munari had set his time in the snow!

I have always found these types of story very sobering, in making me rather humble about my own modest abilities behind the wheel.

Sandro Munari in action - and obviously trying hard!
Picture source: here

À bientôt

Scrapbook - V

Here's the next instalment of my scrapbook series, from early last year. Many of the photos are from the Fulvia Engline Developments series I wrote.

Click to enlarge

It seems incredible that as I write this, it is snowing heavily outside; here's a snap I took yesterday morning: so much for Spring in Haute Savoie!

À bientôt

On Second Thoughts...

Don't bother driving over to see the Eiffel Tower as suggested in my previous article - better take the train.

This article from the BBC reports that the long arm of the busybody, interventionist EU is after you motorists. They even say that speeding is one of the "principal causes of death on the roads."

Specious rubbish but what can one do in the New Total Euro State?

À bientôt