Nicebiscuit

It'd always be Per Eklund's red and white Toyota GB livery on those for me (showing my age...)

You're right. Found them now. Quite wide though - shame they don't do them nearer stock size.

Aside from the wraps though - what about the retro wheels? The red one is presumably on Watanabes or some similar knockoff, but what are the white and yellow ones wearing? I like the seventies cast magnesium vibe of those (but they'd be even better without the shiny rim). Anyone know?

You'd have to arrive in Sainsburys car park sideways... :-D

Yes - that's the issue ultimately isn't it? Like all those blue and yellow liveried Imprezas ten years back... I quite like the tiger print one (not sure what that says about my fashion sense :-/)

They're lovely. They ought to offer those...

I had a Puma. Lovely car, and although quite different, it's the gap I'm trying to plug with the GT86. Fun at sensible speed, just practical enough and not daft running costs. The gearshift is the one area the GT86 doesn't trump it. I actually thought long and hard about buying another as they go for pennies now, but they're all rusty, and they don't really wear miles... The amazing thing about the Honda n/a engine outputs is not that they could do it, but they could do it at production volume and apparently without trade off in reliability. The Yamaha tweaked engine in the Puma was fun, but only 125bhp from a 1.7 and they only got 155bhp I think even out of the 'racing' limited edition. Just shows how far ahead Honda were.

Those Honda engines are amazing. They're the only (sensibly priced) cars I've heard on the road that actually sound like racing cars straight out of the showroom. Actually our old Abarth 500 sounded quite nice in tunnels but that was the only good thing about it (other than getting to look at it...)

Was on holiday in the Loire valley last week, and stumbled across the Matra factory. Interesting company, and as you're all aficionados of small lightweight sports coupes I thought I'll post a few photos. I'll spare you all the people carriers though :-) Oh, and there were a whole host of Le Mans veterans, and Jackie Stewart's '69 F1 car too...

I had heard they came in Orange, but was expecting something more subtle...

Thought this'd be interesting... Couple of thoughts... Although the new Renaultsport Clio is a real let down, the cooking diesel model is a decent little car. Torquey little thing with 'wheel at each corner' handling - if you get offered one as a hire car take it. The sin of the Renaultsport is it barely feels any more special. As for the admission of MG ZT ownership - I've always thought those underrated, and still catch myself looking at them on Autotrader - particularly the daft RWD model with the Mustang V8. Now there's a muscle car... For me though it'd have to be the rarer retired-vicar Rover version. V8 powered sofa...

Oh, the 911 thing still annoys me. When you think what you could buy a chrome bumper 2.4S for in the late nineties.... Never mind - onwards and upwards :-D

Agree on the Renaults, but just as I got in the market they really dropped the ball with the new Clio. Playstation car. Last Japanese metal I really coveted was Honda mainly - liked the Accord type R particularly - looked like a minicab - made an epic noise. As for Americana - got a thing for Madmen era mid sixties stuff at the moment. It's really cool, but can't quite shake the feeling that if I owned one I'd have to get into guns and line dancing...

Wow. Where do you get THAT body kit?

Sticking with 4. Although I like 3 too, though think they'd look better with only the rim picked out in yellow. The inner highlights look too fiddly. Not sure the label thing works in 5 and 6. Remind me of my habit of wearing new pairs of trousers without remembering to take the labels off first... ;-)

:-D. Wasn't there last year. There's nothing stopping THAT is there?!

Think it was Cholmondely Pageant of Power if my memory serves. Always some good stuff there, including some fairly mental Aero engined pre war specials.

Ah, now I've heard a BRM v16 in person.... :-) And here is a Matra V12 - they had a few nicely displayed (including a flat-12) looks almost as good as it sounds.

That's glorious! Thanks for posting - I've bookmarked that :-D

Oh, ok - maybe just one people carrier...

57Getters. Depends what you want - I think your car has a look along the lines of a factory model Toyota haven't produced yet - the more subtle wheels would keep that OEM feel. The other ones would look good too (yellow detailing, not red IMO) but would look aftermarket. Oh and the floating spoiler/black boot idea does work, although I was properly convinced by this when I saw it in the metal. Needs to be seen in 3d!

I'll see how I go. Thanks for the tips. Sound's such a subjective thing. I've ripped out standard systems cause they irritated me, yet kept a bog standard Ford one for years because I liked the way it sounded. Have also had alleged 'premium' systems I inherited which were awful. One thing's for sure, nothing but nothing can be as bad as the standard system you used to get in BMWs circa 2010. That was embarrassingly poor for a nearly thirty grand car. Thrown into sharp relief by the eleven grand Hyundai hire car I was driving whilst waiting for delivery... ;-)

I generally prefer not to swap factory head units, but sometimes like to give the system a bit of a boost. Plus I have a reasonable powered sub knocking about that I could stick in the boot. So my question is there a way of getting a line level signal out of the stock head unit to route to an amp, or would I have to use the speaker outputs? (not the end of the world, but not usually as good...)

For what it's worth, I really like it on the painted standard wheels. Amazing how much better they look in a single colour.

Hmmm. Had hoped to leave the head unit alone. Oh well. Is there room for double din, or is it the usual single din in a trim panel that doesn't quite look right?