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possibly... something long and reasonably famous.. think it gets used for roadtesting prototypes, and was in top gears old "50 (driving) things you must do before you die"
got a sign at each end saying experienced drivers only that sort of thing (newbs should stick to the motorway and budget time for an extra 50 miles )

you mean 20mpg or 20mph? or both?

yeah my old girl struggles up the hills a bit! sounds good though with the induction kit! however the old mk 2 that i used to drive and will be driving again for a month or so (taking the mk3 off the road for some tlc) is even worse, so think urself lucky that u have injection!

something that did surprise me was i got my top speed up the other day! my car now does 105mph!

you're not on about the cat & fiddle near buxton are you?

the wha?

hey my nan's going down to buxton this weekend, with a great aunt to visit some sick distant relative i never even knew about before

(just a little trivia there )

i thought it was more northerly, sort of yorkshirish

EDIT *blush* um..... after searching autoroute... i see a big labelled Cat And Fiddle near Buxton in Derbyshire (hey, fairly close). Sorry bout that.

So where the hell does granny think she's off to?!?! Supposedly somewhere near london, on the coast! That'll be a shock for them if they end up in the peak district...

EDIT 2 --- i caved in to temptation and googled it.... there's many contenders for the crown, including a 1-in-3 s.o.b in a little village ("Bacup" - good name!) somewhere near derby (again! but a different one) and a goddamn hellish sounding 1-in-2.7 in Harlech (that area just sucks for hills, full stop) officially signed as "unsuitable for motor vehicles" despite there being three or four shops and tea-rooms on it that have to be supplied somehow (worlds most put-upon delivery boy! thats steeper than some sets of stairs!)..... my money being on a v8 landie with a well-maintained low transfer box and slicks kept purely for the purpose of delivering stuff - in the dry - and rescuing stranded tourists who sit down halfway and then find they can't comfortably stand up again
the general concensus though, and certainly the main contender for the crown of what i'm looking for, is Hardknott Pass (rings a bell) in Cumbria. Basically it's the middle part of the most direct route from Seascale to the north end of Windermere and a well known b*stard ... it also includes some bits that are 1-in-3, or very nearly anyhow. Dunno what the maximum rated grade for a Polo is, but sounds like something best attempted uphill with a runup on the limiter in 1st, and downhill also in 1st, ignition off, with the rear wheels locked (after all, drums may suffer fade, but rubber doesnt..)...


EDIT 3 --- shes going to Bexhill on Sea, like out of the Goon show

If I even sense a incline coming up, I make sure I take it on at 80mph.

Problem solved.

I went up hardknott pass in my old escort, its was lagging it down with rain (january) and the wind was about 60 million mph...half way up a tractor wanted to pass so i had to reverse back down to a passing point then i let my mate turn the car round on the edge of a cliff cos i was bricking it.

you know vehicles heading uphill have priority on single track roads right?

mmm, sounds like fun! (well, if i cant work up the bottle to go skydiving or the money for snowboarding, thats the next best thing)... a bit of the old extreme ON roading... been up/down some pretty steep ones in anglesey signed for like 1 in 6 but that takes the cake!

If I even sense a incline coming up, I make sure I take it on at 80mph.
Problem solved.

I'd love to see you tackle something like hardknott in that manner! hehehe... Rally slag..

Personally if im trying to make time on the motorway its a good idea to hit any hill at 90 odd, because i sure as hell wont be accelerating up it


Oh aye, and back to the original subject - there aint nothing to make you realise how slow your 1-litre is like a rev clock.... watching it spin pretty freely in neutral, whizzing round ok enough in 1st, but still better in the wet... dragging a bit in 2nd.... looking like its in treacle in 3rd... hardly moving in 4th - on the flat - at full throttle - at max torque (and if there was 5th... damn... but, still, 4000 at 70 just feels wrong, as does 3300 at 60 - feels like it should be a touch past the limit at those revs)

Tahrey1043 wrote:you know vehicles heading uphill have priority on single track roads right?

I thought it was the other way round. -Think about it. Which is easier? Reversing uphill or downhill?

The poor old things do struggle a bit on hills, don't they You'll get used to that soon enough, and you'll also get the hang of precisely when to shift down to keep it going properly...

Just floor it whenever you see a hill within about half a mile

and always remember if your wanting to break warp factor 9 on the motorway for some reason..... look out for the dickhead doing 61mph in the outside lane... there's always one a third the way up any significant slope, which ruins your chances of zoom-zoom either way

going down hill they cause you to scrub off any momentum you might have gained so you can forget about w00ting up a sustained 3-figure sum for a mile or more in a 1-litre

going up hill, they make you slow down to speeds where even in the lower gears, on such a bottom-end car power-wise, it'll take you forever to get back to (or past) 70 again, as you're then slogging up the hill adding tiny percents to your speed rather than zipping up it and maybe just losing a little bit of forward zoom.


i'm gonna have to check that thing in the highway code now... i think the reasoning is more like it might be someone struggling up the hill, so if you can make it back to the previous passing place without much difficulty in reverse (not much different from 1st) you should assume you've got the easier ride and give way.
they might be forcing you uphill a little bit, but you can coast from that if needs be... if you force them back down the hill, then they've got to go all that way back up again and might not have the fuel or engine power... or have to back down at 15mph but only be able to climb again at 5 or 10... and if they meet a lot of individual people coming down the hill with gaps in between and have to backup for each one, they are oh so screwed!

something like that anyway - as any road where this might apply probably has bloody steep slopes too!

and anyway a sodding tractor should have far less trouble backing up than you would even in 1st.... the things have like 12 gears in both directions with the bottom one giving you about 6mph at 3000rpm redline for mega hill climbing (or mud-inching, plough hauling, haycart tugging) ability make the buggers move out of the way of less capable machinery!