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evotell

The Mussel Car

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I think I've got the Mussel Car thing.

1st you get an old boat that is great for going down the highway, (well maybe not great) then you strap in a honking big V8, remember when designing and American Car you 1st start with a V8, add the cup holder and then move out from there. Getting distracted here, back to the enlightenment. So now you have the big V8, lots of wonderful noises, then you add chrome, lots of it if possible more the better particularly the wheel, its essential they are as tacky as possible (sorry shiny) , no point making a half hearted attempt, sounds good, looks great, (well depending on your taste of course) Now its time to drive it. Holly crap this thing is quick, holly shit it doesn't stop..... and my god is that corner....., call the national guard, still, I could always park it at the show and shine, boy it does sound good.

Maybe I don't get the Mussel Car thing probably for the same reason that most north Americans don't get the Caterham; in the end my conclusion (misguided as it may be) is north Americans buy cars by the pound, so the big boat is obviously much better value for money than the stupid little Caterham.

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I think you got the gist. Only we call them muscle cars. A mussel car would be a vehicle used for transporting fresh shellfish. :)

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My Peugeot 404 has far larger drum brakes than most muscle cars from the same era!

I remember well being in Germany in 1980, driving the Autobahn from the Ruhrgebiet towards the East German border. Three mid seventies Corvettes passed us at about 190 km/h (we were doing 145 in the Renault 5). My buddy Bruce said, watch this, they won't be ahead for long. Sure enough, about 20 km ahead there was a Vette with the hood open, steam pouring out of the engine, the other two cars parked on the shoulder nearby, we honked and carried onto Berlin. The tortoise won that race.

Aside from going and not stopping, they were built for acceleration, not sustained high speeds.

This carried on into the 1980s and even the 1990s. I recall when we had a small auto parts export business, our customer in Germany told us that a lot of US military personnel would drive their Dodge Lasers and the like at top speed on the Autobahn, the transaxle oil would boil due to overheating and the bearings would fail catastrophically at speed. We sent a few used transaxles over for just that reason!

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