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| 22nd March 2010 |
| New 144 heads NW |
The 144 we bought in Sweden had its first real outing since we sorted her, in brief...
- We plan to drive from Westminster to Cape Town in her
- Bodywork issues sorted
- Roof painted white to improve the occupants' humour as we cross the Sahara
- Engine rebuilt
- Retaining the Scandinavian spec single HS6 carburettor
- The first outing
- On Thursday morning I drove from Suffolk to Heysham (Lancashire), to catch the ferry to the Isle of Mann
- I made the fuel consumption to be 36mpg
- Then drove from Heysham back to Suffolk on Sunday
- Fuel consumption approx 39mpg
- On the motorways I was running at 3900 rpm, which was almost exactly 70mph, at which speed the car was pleasingly civilised (remembering that it has no carpets, mats or insulation)
- Increasing revs to 4200 to pass slower vehicles became rather more noisy
- Fault list from this first excursion after the major renovation
- 2 of 3 heater control illumination lamps seem to be dead - although this is often a simple (?) matter of cleaning the terminals rather than replacing bulbs - but they're moderately irritating to get to!
- Did the heater fan die on me in Heysham last night? It's working okay today, so it might have been another dry terminal, this time on the fuse...
- I should have fitted the Bosch intermittent wipe switch - on the M6 it would have been superb.These are the original switches that Bosch produced, and unusually have the full wiring diagrams for fitment to all the OHV Volvos.
- The seats aren't as good as the Amazon's, somehow I still got a muscle twinge from above my hip after 6 hours of driving, whereas in the Amazon I have done over 8hrs continuous and been happy to contemplate 2 more hours in the seat.
We need to call up Dave and take up his offer of a pair of Recaros, which are as comfortable as the Amazon seats, but offer a little more side support which I'm sure will be welcome on the West African roads.
And why was I going to the Isle of Mann?
Paul B (who also owns a 130 Amazon) invited me to navigate for him in his 1974 Porsche 911 2.7litre.
I have to confess that it was not my best performance, as I made the same silly mistake twice on the Friday, and almost a third time on the Saturday which really meant that we were out of the running; however 3rd in a class of 7 911's was respectable, and 17th overall beat our seeding of "22": you can see I'm trying to put a positive light on my performance!
As for Paul (the driver) and the car - faultless and hugely entertaining - both were prodigiously accomplished, and set fastest time on one test, failing to set fastest on another since we sadly clipped a cone. Having never been in a 911, I was looking forward to the experience, particularly since I spent my schooldays effecting an ill-educated disdain for Ferdinand's Stuttgart product; I can now say without too much embarrassment that it really is a superb bit of engineering, and I loved every minute of being in the car.
That said, things happened a little faster than they do in Emma's PV544, and that, perhaps, could be my excuse. Go on, be generous!
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