DaveL485
Staff member
Went of a trip to Wales with some of the Pistonheads folk yesterday.
I did well over 400 miles in close to 12 hours. The Quadra was just astonishing, for want of a better word. I put a hundred and forty five quid in in fuel (!) through the day and probably have half a tank left over.
I met up with Mark and some of the others at a Tesco filling station in Reddich at 0645 in the morning and filled the 21 up to the top with 99ron super. They wandered over and I think were shocked by the 21, in the "What the hell is this old heap doing here" kinda way :biggrin:
Bear in mind these guys are standing next to-
An Ariel Atom
A Ferrari 360 Modena
An RS4
A V8 Vantage
I kinda looked around and realised that each and every single private plate on these machines is worth considerably more than my entire car. OK. This should be fun....I know I don't mind being the underdog but jesus, this is silly!
Off we went. I didn't open it up too much to start with due to new brakes and tyres but we were travelling a fair lick on empty roads. Snatched a couple of pics on the way to Hereford to meet some others.
All these motors are mint. I mean SPOTLESS. I hadn't even washed mine :biggrin:
We met up at Hereford and a Celica and a V8 Kompressor AMG Merc joined in. We sped off and stopped at the first waypoint and I grabbed some piccies of the hardware.
Atom-
With the 2.0na VTEC i'd hoped to at least match this thing for straight line speed. If I caught Mark off guard I wasn't far off but if this thing is on cam it takes off like a scalded jackrabbit with a firework up it's butt. Throttle response is epic.
Merc-
After the first stop, the owner of this was grinning at me strapping myself in and preparing to leave as he flicked his massage seats on while watching the Dave channel on the satellite TV.
Bastard :wink:
Deep sounding growl to the exhaust and huge amounts of torque, it's like an intergalactic warp cruiser lol
RS4-
The V8 flavour I believe. Sounds stunning, looks stunning. The owner was very complimentary about the pull on the old 21 at the first stop, I got the general impression everyone was shocked by it's pace. When an RS4 and Ferrari driver walk over and comment 'It shifts this thing, don't it?' you kinda get stunned into silence!!
You all know this one. Rather fittingly, parked by the bin LOL
360 Modena-
Sounded like an angry wasp. Sticky tyres that shot blasted anyone driving behind it lol. You can't deny the pedigree in something like this and it was just a beautiful machine.
Celica-
I think a VVTi, this is another one that got the life wrung out of it trying to keep up with a quarter mil's worth of supercars.
Finally, my personal fave (other than my car of course!), the V8 Vantage.
The look, the noise....just everything about this car tickles my tastebuds. Automotive pornography.
We made rather good progress toward the Welshy bit of the UK, and the roads just got better. And better. And better.
We did a hill section purely because it was an epic road. We set off up it with the Atom leading and me second....Mark is a quick driver and I took huge pleasure in pursuing him over the twists and turns. The Quadra was on a real mission and we actually left the pack behind as we screamed across the twists and turns with massive roadside rocks and huge drops ready to punish any errors. I was about flat out as far as road driving goes- Marks passenger even threw his hat and sunglasses at me as they tried to escape (lol)
We pulled up to cool off everything before returning down the hill and 2 huge palls of smoke were rising from my front brakes- bit hot then!. That caused huge amusement as everyone rolled in :wink:
I think this summed it up-
We chilled for a bit, I checked everything over and decided that I liked this. A lot.
On the return down the hillside I was behind the Celica- the airflow coming off it must have been just wrong cos the engine started heating up. I decided instead of slowing down I'd just speed up and coming off a hairpin, downhill, the road went down and curved left so I could see there was a chance to pass- and did. Missed a gear, but got through. This gave rise to another thing i'll remember for a while- flat out down a twisty hillside chasing a fezzer and a Vantage. Granted, they were probably tootling down without paying attention listening to Des o'Connors greatest hits but in my mind it was a flat out frantic game of catch-me-if-you-can. Loved it.
That pretty much sums up the rest of the day. More experiences like that, over and over again. I think i'd have gone back to the start and done it again if someone had offered lol
Took this at the Lunch stop. It's just comical to me, the massive mismatch in every aspect from ?, to technology.
On the way home i'd split off from the group at the last checkpoint. Home was still 107 miles away and making the finish in Hereford was quite a few extra miles. The Fezzer followed suit so we were barreling down the A roads toward the M54. I latched onto the back on a Jag XK which took a dislike to that fact and even more of a dislike to the fact I stayed right up his arse despite his best efforts to run away lol
In the end he pulled over and then back out behind me and sort of fell in convoy with us until I suddenly clocked the SatNav trying to let me know the next junction was mine....when I clocked it I was past the last l/l sign and did a swift exit! Even after the days shenanigans I pushed hard all the way home and the car just did as asked.
The Quadra is resting out back now, having completed it's allocated task in such a way that shocked even me. I'd like to thank the other guys for their comments on my heap, it just topped off the day for me. The RS4 owner made my year in fact when commenting on struggling to keep up with the 21 that he thought "....it defied the laws of physics".
Can't wait for the next one, even if the fuel cost does require a remortgage!
I did well over 400 miles in close to 12 hours. The Quadra was just astonishing, for want of a better word. I put a hundred and forty five quid in in fuel (!) through the day and probably have half a tank left over.
I met up with Mark and some of the others at a Tesco filling station in Reddich at 0645 in the morning and filled the 21 up to the top with 99ron super. They wandered over and I think were shocked by the 21, in the "What the hell is this old heap doing here" kinda way :biggrin:
Bear in mind these guys are standing next to-
An Ariel Atom
A Ferrari 360 Modena
An RS4
A V8 Vantage
I kinda looked around and realised that each and every single private plate on these machines is worth considerably more than my entire car. OK. This should be fun....I know I don't mind being the underdog but jesus, this is silly!
Off we went. I didn't open it up too much to start with due to new brakes and tyres but we were travelling a fair lick on empty roads. Snatched a couple of pics on the way to Hereford to meet some others.
All these motors are mint. I mean SPOTLESS. I hadn't even washed mine :biggrin:
We met up at Hereford and a Celica and a V8 Kompressor AMG Merc joined in. We sped off and stopped at the first waypoint and I grabbed some piccies of the hardware.
Atom-
With the 2.0na VTEC i'd hoped to at least match this thing for straight line speed. If I caught Mark off guard I wasn't far off but if this thing is on cam it takes off like a scalded jackrabbit with a firework up it's butt. Throttle response is epic.
Merc-
After the first stop, the owner of this was grinning at me strapping myself in and preparing to leave as he flicked his massage seats on while watching the Dave channel on the satellite TV.
Bastard :wink:
Deep sounding growl to the exhaust and huge amounts of torque, it's like an intergalactic warp cruiser lol
RS4-
The V8 flavour I believe. Sounds stunning, looks stunning. The owner was very complimentary about the pull on the old 21 at the first stop, I got the general impression everyone was shocked by it's pace. When an RS4 and Ferrari driver walk over and comment 'It shifts this thing, don't it?' you kinda get stunned into silence!!
You all know this one. Rather fittingly, parked by the bin LOL
360 Modena-
Sounded like an angry wasp. Sticky tyres that shot blasted anyone driving behind it lol. You can't deny the pedigree in something like this and it was just a beautiful machine.
Celica-
I think a VVTi, this is another one that got the life wrung out of it trying to keep up with a quarter mil's worth of supercars.
Finally, my personal fave (other than my car of course!), the V8 Vantage.
The look, the noise....just everything about this car tickles my tastebuds. Automotive pornography.
We made rather good progress toward the Welshy bit of the UK, and the roads just got better. And better. And better.
We did a hill section purely because it was an epic road. We set off up it with the Atom leading and me second....Mark is a quick driver and I took huge pleasure in pursuing him over the twists and turns. The Quadra was on a real mission and we actually left the pack behind as we screamed across the twists and turns with massive roadside rocks and huge drops ready to punish any errors. I was about flat out as far as road driving goes- Marks passenger even threw his hat and sunglasses at me as they tried to escape (lol)
We pulled up to cool off everything before returning down the hill and 2 huge palls of smoke were rising from my front brakes- bit hot then!. That caused huge amusement as everyone rolled in :wink:
I think this summed it up-
We chilled for a bit, I checked everything over and decided that I liked this. A lot.
On the return down the hillside I was behind the Celica- the airflow coming off it must have been just wrong cos the engine started heating up. I decided instead of slowing down I'd just speed up and coming off a hairpin, downhill, the road went down and curved left so I could see there was a chance to pass- and did. Missed a gear, but got through. This gave rise to another thing i'll remember for a while- flat out down a twisty hillside chasing a fezzer and a Vantage. Granted, they were probably tootling down without paying attention listening to Des o'Connors greatest hits but in my mind it was a flat out frantic game of catch-me-if-you-can. Loved it.
That pretty much sums up the rest of the day. More experiences like that, over and over again. I think i'd have gone back to the start and done it again if someone had offered lol
Took this at the Lunch stop. It's just comical to me, the massive mismatch in every aspect from ?, to technology.
On the way home i'd split off from the group at the last checkpoint. Home was still 107 miles away and making the finish in Hereford was quite a few extra miles. The Fezzer followed suit so we were barreling down the A roads toward the M54. I latched onto the back on a Jag XK which took a dislike to that fact and even more of a dislike to the fact I stayed right up his arse despite his best efforts to run away lol
In the end he pulled over and then back out behind me and sort of fell in convoy with us until I suddenly clocked the SatNav trying to let me know the next junction was mine....when I clocked it I was past the last l/l sign and did a swift exit! Even after the days shenanigans I pushed hard all the way home and the car just did as asked.
The Quadra is resting out back now, having completed it's allocated task in such a way that shocked even me. I'd like to thank the other guys for their comments on my heap, it just topped off the day for me. The RS4 owner made my year in fact when commenting on struggling to keep up with the 21 that he thought "....it defied the laws of physics".
Can't wait for the next one, even if the fuel cost does require a remortgage!
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