So much has happened since my last post. My oil cherry has been popped and I now own a 1988 Toyota Corolla SX Twin Cam AE82.
There’s many things that need attention (eg wheel balance, gear oil change, new seat [current one comes off it's hinges under left hand g-force] new steering wheel etc), but I got it for under three grand. While the power is low and economical, it has a modified exhaust system. There’s no conventional radio, so the music volume can be set by altering the height of the windows and the length of my right leg. Although I haven’t heard it from outside being driven by someone else, it is however a little embarrassingly loud.
With it’s stiffened suspension however, it’s cornering ability is surprising. When cornering, it grips really well while braking, but like all front wheel drives, it has some understeer when the power goes on. A lack of power steering gives my arms a bit of a workout when parking, but the feeling from the road when at speed feels connected and in control. The 16V 4AGE engine’s been replaced with a 16V 4AGE engine with TVIS (Toyota’s equivalent of VTEC), which gives it a bit more lower down torque.
I haven’t taken my own photos of it yet. On reflection I had a few good opportunities today, for example on Montacute road there’s a small lookout just past Corkscrew road that would have provided the perfect backdrop - blue sky, green forest background, red car. Did I mention it’s red. No I didn’t. Red. It’s red. I would have never thought that my first car was going to be bloody red. Perhaps if Ferrari never existed red might be a popular colour. Alas, it’s red. The only reason I like it is because other people stay away from it. Blood is red, so red can mean danger! Perhaps that’s why one of my Japanese friends has a red car; his middle name is Danger.
I managed to drive one of the new Subaru Imprezas (non turbo) the other day thanks to a friend, and in comparison, I can’t believe how heavy and sluggish it is! Although it’s a good car with lots of room, I found the throttle response to be so slow as to even be called a safety hazard. I would touch the throttle and the engine would start revving between a half and full second later; I would throttle-off and the engine would start lowering it’s note in the same time. Perhaps the Subaru’s electrical throttle buffer may have been increased for ’safety’, to filter out rough driving and making any driver a smooth driver. Smooth is comfortable. Smooth is efficient. Luckily the Subaru’s brakes didn’t appear to suffer from the same lag problem.
Although I have a small problem with the throttle body in my AE82 with the throttle sometimes sticking in idle, I’d take near instant throttle response over a buffered throttle response any day. Hmm, I wonder what the throttle response is like with the Bentley W12’s…
Today I decided to drive into the Adelaide hills, and gradually found myself once again at Lobethal (I’ve been through there twice in the past month, one was driving with Mum and another I think for spectating the Classic Adelaide Rally). Now about two years ago (when I was in Japan) I tried researching about the past Grand Prix circuit at Lobethal. I managed to stitch a high quality satellite mozaic of it via Google Earth with the aim of recreating it in Bob’s Track Builder. Things got busy and that project got put aside. Anyway I instantly found the roads on the street directory, and did two laps (dodging the dead kangaroo twice [100kmph zone]). It would have been quite something to race there in 1939, where the fastest lap had the car maintain an average speed of 150.5 km/h. That’s the average for the whole lap! To put that into perspective, the fastest average speed around the Nurburgring in 1939 was around 135 km/h or so. For example, ‘Straight.. a little left.. bridge.. a little right.. straight.. a little left.. a little right.. straight.. a little ri-SH** IT’S A RIGHT HANDER’ or something along those lines. The 90 degree corners at the end of the jagged straights can indeed take you by surprise.
It turns out there was a celebration of the circuit last year, and it seems to be an annual thing now. Will I be in Adelaide in October for the next one? I’m not sure.
[...] AE82 and Lobethal [...]