Might Switch To Full EV?

[T1 Terry]

Yep!
Look at the market (& current crazy prices) for something like a 70's Escort RS2000.
An awesome car in its day. But definitely nothing to write home about now.

I converted one to the Cosworth dual cam head and fuel injected turbo charged, you had to turn your head that fast as it went past you felt it for next few days

I wonder if the conversion of that much loved classic to hybrid will become a thing. Add the Ioniq 5N style paddle shift and associated sound, and even some of the die hards will be converted.
Only the filthy rich will own ICE vehicle by that stage, be able to pay the specialised technician that can keep it running and have a workshop that can make the required parts as they wear out.
I doubt there will be many cars from after the turn of the century that would be prestigious enough to spend that sort of money to keep them in a drivable condition. There will always be museums that carry a good selection for the old times to look at and tell tall tales to the grandkids about the great adventures they had, naturally, leaving out the part about the noisy smelly things that always required working on and handing over a good amount of each pay check to fuel and service ..... ah, the good old days .... I still have 8 9 10 of them and I so look forward to the grease and oil stains and smell you don't seem to be able to wash off when you work on them

T1 Terry

 

[Biker67]

Cool!
Was it a sleeper?
i.e. did it still look like a 2.0 Pinto equipped RS2000?

 

[T1 Terry]

Cool!
Was it a sleeper?
i.e. did it still look like a 2.0 Pinto equipped RS2000?

Besides wider tyres, it looked like the factory Escort RS 2000 ..... hard on gearboxes and tailshafts, once we fixed that, the diff was the next weak link ..... Apparently Dick Johnson Racing built a diff to handle the Turbo Sierra 500hp and he sent it to Qld to have that diff installed, the workshop closed not long after that, so no idea what happened after that ....
Plumbing the intercooler was the hardest part, not a lot of room to put one without it being obvious from the outside .....

T1 Terry

 

[Biker67]

Yeah, I assumed you'd have to change the gearbox & diff.
Didn't the 70's RS2000 even pre date the 5 speed Type 9 gearbox?

 

[T1 Terry]

These were my favourite sleeper builds Fantasy Friday – Toyota Celica (Mustang) Liftback
I did a blue one just like in the photo, a red one and a silver one.
Used the original 18R block they came with in Australia, bought 2nd hand grey import 18RGU twin cam engines with the Yamaha cams, and built the whole lot into the original block so the engine numbers matched to make it an engine modification rather than an engine swap that would require an engineers certificate that was never going to happen .....

Bored to 2.2 ltr, 13:1 compression, 2 x 45mm Weber carbies and the original air cleaner housing. Under the bonnet it looked like the sports model in the owners manual, available in Japan, the engine number matched the rego papers and the standard story was it was specially factory ordered ..... had them all bamboozled: cops, EPA and motor vehicle pit inspectors. It was a '70's model car, so emissions weren't measured, the air intake looked stock when looking at the pictures and it wasn't illegal to fit extractors ......
They would rev to 13,000rpm and whip the pants on a GTHO and Chev 350 over virtually any distance.
This is a lap with Peter Wiliamson in 1979 at Bathurst, a 2 ltr stock unit, placed 9th outright, behind 8 A9X Toranas with 308 engines: Fantasy Friday – Toyota Celica (Mustang) Liftback

Peter actually came down to Wollongong to visit our workshop and one of the customers let him drive his Celica we had modified .... In his words " Brock wouldn't have stood a chance if I had one of these". The customer who owned the Celica was a lighter shade of pale when they got back after a 30 min drive

T1 Terry

 

[Coulomb]

I hate to be pedantic, but...

No you don't

 

[T1 Terry]

Yeah, I assumed you'd have to change the gearbox & diff.
Didn't the 70's RS2000 even pre date the 5 speed Type 9 gearbox?

Yeah, a Supra 5 sp handled the power, although the Celica 5 sp with the BMW front bearing upgrade I think would have done a better job because it was smaller, so didn't need the trick linkages to get the gear lever back in the correct position

T1 Terry

 

[Biker67]

From what I've read on here. Your skill set kicks mine into the weeds!
But I owned/built kit cars for more than 20yrs.
Using mainly 1.6/2.0 Pinto engines in the early days as they were so cheap.
But also a Rover 3.5 V8, 1300cc Suzuki Hayabusa & a Yamaha R1 engine.

Loads of fun & serious performance! In vehicles weighing as little as 325kg!

 

[securespark]

hard on gearboxes

Were those the ones with large knobs protruding into the cabin?

 

[Gomev]

I hate to be pedantic, but isn't that accelerating onto an island?

Oh don't hate it, embrace it, I love a bit of pedantism. My AI skills are crap.

 

[Everest]

The pedant in me suggests that at that trajectory, I'd say it's doing something over an island. But IMHO it is more likely to be decelerating, rather than accelerating due to lack of traction and the air resistance of the not-very-aerodynamic shape.

 

[Everest]

Look at the market (& current crazy prices) for something like a 70's Escort RS2000.

Sshh... you're going to make my DH even more miserable..

Post in thread 'If You Could Own Any Car Ever Produced & Brand New. What Would It Be?'

Apr 29, 2026

My DH said he'd like his RS2000 droop snoot back... similar to this one... he'd happily pay the £1500 he sold it for

• Everest

• 
• 
• 

Didn't the 70's RS2000 even pre date the 5 speed Type 9 gearbox?

it was a 4 speed box with, IIRC, a short movement gear lever. How do I know that? Well, much to my DH's (was BF back then) shock, it came right off in my hand. Only the second time he let me drive it, I went rapidly from 2nd to 3rd and ended up with the knob and shaft loose in my hand (ooo-er) having stripped the nylon thread from its housing. He wasn't a happy chappy

 

[Biker67]

I went rapidly from 2nd to 3rd and ended up with the knob and shaft loose in my hand (ooo-er)

That reminds me of an ex GF who wore braces on her teeth!
Not a pleasant memory!

 

[T1 Terry]

Were those the ones with large knobs protruding into the cabin?

Probably, but the one on top of the gearlever was still small and the stick was short

T1 Terry

 

[T1 Terry]

Sshh... you're going to make my DH even more miserable..

Post in thread 'If You Could Own Any Car Ever Produced & Brand New. What Would It Be?'

Apr 29, 2026

My DH said he'd like his RS2000 droop snoot back... similar to this one... he'd happily pay the £1500 he sold it for

• Everest

• 
• 
• 

it was a 4 speed box with, IIRC, a short movement gear lever. How do I know that? Well, much to my DH's (was BF back then) shock, it came right off in my hand. Only the second time he let me drive it, I went rapidly from 2nd to 3rd and ended up with the knob and shaft loose in my hand (ooo-er) having stripped the nylon thread from its housing. He wasn't a happy chappy

That was a common Mitsubishi Sigma problem. Turbocharged a lot of those as well, the 2.0 ltr was good for 13 sec on the 1/4 mile, the 2.6 ltr into the high 12 sec bracket ..... then back to the pits to refit the gearlever We finally had aluminium ones machined up for us, within a month, all the speed shops were selling units out of China

Our best effort was this Cortina back when he ran the 6 cyl pushrod cross flow eng, gotta love the Superoo on the sides That was street registered and he raced with the baby seat still in the middle of the backseat

It started to get too expensive to continue with it, the workshop bank interest rate was 27.5% around that time and it just broke me .... that and two ex wives .....

When I shut the workshop down, Joe went out on his own and started ProFab Race car building ..... As you can see, he really went all out with the V8 step up.

T1 Terry

 

[Bam Bam]

A mate's son recently purchased a C63 AMG Merc.
It's gorgeous & an absolute beast in terms of grunt sound & looks.
A lot of EVs will eventually out perform it. And some do already.
But I predict its value will increase, not decrease.
EVs are already quick but IMHO, they lack soul.
Consequently, there'll always be a market for ridiculously un-economical ICE cars amongst collectors.

I can understand that ICE will continue to exist for its unique features.

As an analogy, people still like steam engines, even though they are massively inefficient and electric trains (including diesel electric) have taken over.

All the noise and smoke and so on adds something.

ICE people call that thing 'soul,' and I guess I can see where it comes from. Anthropomorphising of machines, which is easier to do for clanking engines much more than silent magnets, wires and batteries.

One thing to take from that, though:
Most cars are for getting around and not making a big noise.

For people's daily drivers there is no comparison between a Mondeo diesel and an EV and EVs will dominate as soon as people realise this.

 

[johnb80]

And to be fair, I wasn't particularly complimentary about EVs before owning my PHEV.
I'll convert them to the idea of an EV/PHEV. But I won't expect any quick results

Noooooooo, don't do that, leave them as they are. They're paying good money to government, they're not using up valuable public charging space, you leave em to it and snigger when they're not looking.

 

[Bam Bam]

Noooooooo, don't do that, leave them as they are. They're paying good money to government, they're not using up valuable public charging space, you leave em to it and snigger when they're not looking.

Hah, invest in some cheap second hand EVs now before people realise they've been duped by the fossil fuel lobby!

At what fuel price per litre do anti-EV or "never-EV" people switch?
£1.50
£2.00
£2.50
£3.00?

Depends how brainwashed they are I suppose.

 

[Gomev]

The pedant in me suggests that at that trajectory, I'd say it's doing something over an island. But IMHO it is more likely to be decelerating, rather than accelerating due to lack of traction and the air resistance of the not-very-aerodynamic shape.

I'd say that is more critical analysis of the said crap AI than pedantry, I have no defence or objection to either.
I will endeavour to hone my AI picture generating skills over the coming years, and it will be years rather than weeks or months due to a total lack of enthusiasm for creating such whimsies.