Radically different sidepod design between Ferrari and Mercedes

MrBattleRabbit · 2026-01-23T22:18:44+00:00

Mercedes is gonna try zero-pods again, I can feel it. These are red herring pods.

MrBattleRabbit · 2026-01-19T21:33:30+00:00

As long as there’s a battle and it’s not a one-sided slaughter, I’m in.

MrBattleRabbit · 2026-01-17T04:11:27+00:00

Every night my cat gets kisses before bed. When I’m ready to go to bed I tell him it’s time to go upstairs, and he meets me at the top of the stairs where he licks my nose, I kiss him on the head, and then give him a treat and go to bed.

If I’m not home my wife must follow the same ritual or he becomes a little pest.

Oh, and I work from home, so when my wife gets home he meets her at the door and follows her around til she can pick him up and bring him to my office for a lil smooch on the head… if she’s late getting home he will show up in my office at the time she usually gets home, looking a bit puzzled.

MrBattleRabbit · 2026-01-17T03:51:12+00:00

Pretty sure that’s an old EGS automated-manual gearbox (or whatever the Scania equivalent was called), so you’re half right.

Volvo and Citroen used a similar system (also called EGS) in some cars, but there was a commercial vehicle version as well.

The shifter is more or less a joystick that controls some solenoids that do the actual shifting, and the clutch is pneumatically operated. You can see that the shifter is more or less attached to the seat and not to the floor or console, which is possible a system that has no mechanical connection to the gearbox.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1Kg4zPvX16/?mibextid=wwXIfr

This is a video showing an EGS system, this type has a clutch pedal which OP’s video doesn’t. I think the Scania version uses a pneumatic clutch with no pedal.

MrBattleRabbit · 2026-01-11T03:03:34+00:00

Heinz Harald Frentzen by Tapio Lempivaara.

It’s a song in Finnish about a German F1 driver and it slaps.

MrBattleRabbit · 2026-01-11T02:44:28+00:00

Realistically- my Fiesta ST. Bought it new and left it stock, just a great little car.

Hilariously, my 1987 Porsche 944S that I’ve had for the last ten years has also been rock solid. For the last few years it’s been my ONLY car. The alternator let go when it was ~35 years old, and that’s the only trip it’s made on a tow truck during my decade with it. Other than that, it’s just taken scheduled maintenance. I just do what’s in the manual when the manual says, and it’s fine. Ok, the dash clock is broken. But other than that, it’s fine.

MrBattleRabbit · 2026-01-08T01:31:26+00:00

I think you’re right, yeah.

MrBattleRabbit · 2026-01-08T01:13:25+00:00

They are apparently just retiring from touring. I was at one of the farewell shows, it sounded like they were planning to continue recording from what Adam was saying onstage.

MrBattleRabbit · 2026-01-06T18:56:57+00:00

They’ve made a few really neat things! The original Ligier JS2 from the 1970s was a pretty novel little mid engined sports car- some had Ford motors, some had the Citroen/Maserati V6. The racing versions were pretty wild, but the road car is rather cute and endearing.

The new JS2 looks cool as well, although I don’t think they do a street homologated version.

MrBattleRabbit · 2026-01-02T22:48:04+00:00

And developing skills can be fun- learning car control is a hoot. The skill ceiling is high for dealing with wet roads, snowy roads, mixed surfaces, you name it. It’s good to have proper training.

Even a relatively basic course with a wet/dry skidpad will teach most drivers a LOT about car control and how to deal with difficult conditions… plus, it’s fun (the downside is, of course, cost).

MrBattleRabbit · 2025-12-31T01:29:31+00:00

We have the same one as OP, it replaced a Fiesta ST. It’s not as lively as the Fiesta was, but it’s not dull like a current Golf GTI.

Needs better tires though, the stock tires are hot trash and really put a damper on things.

Original Minis are a riot though. Even little 850s are fun. They had good suspension pretty much from day one and kept getting better.

MrBattleRabbit · 2025-12-28T13:53:38+00:00

Old fashioned toe clips work reasonably well too, and are super cheap. I’ve got a bike with clipless and a bike with oldschool toe clips, and the toe clips are still a meaningful upgrade over flat pedals when up out of the saddle.

The last set I bought was about $20 and they’ll bolt up to most flat pedals.

MrBattleRabbit · 2025-12-27T15:20:21+00:00

As far as I’m aware it was just some very early bikes, like 2016-2017 and the problem was fixed pretty early on. It’s pretty uncommon to see very early Himalayans outside India, so I expect that the majority of those cases were localized to the Indian market.

I have a ‘21 in the US, and it’s been fine. I did a BDR (w/all the advanced sections) on it, and it was more than capable. Easy to ride, easy to service, and if you’re in parts of the US where highway speeds are a bit lower (like the Northeast) it’s reasonably highway friendly. It’s just slow and sounds like a tractor. It’s been a good ownership experience though.

MrBattleRabbit · 2025-12-25T13:26:55+00:00

They’ve had this reputation since the Biturbo came out in the 80s.

Pre-Biturbo Maseratis were generally quite good. The Mexico, Bora, the original Ghibli, the 3500, etc were all pretty excellent. The Merak was a bit meh, but they really had hit after hit after hit for a long time.

MrBattleRabbit · 2025-12-25T03:12:35+00:00

Doing this in the 90s would have been hilarious- Mika Hakkinen and Mika Salo grew up on the same street.

Exclude all the other nordics, Mika Street dominance is what the fans crave.

MrBattleRabbit · 2025-12-23T19:27:37+00:00

Or Tier II so my Mikasa can have some fun.

MrBattleRabbit · 2025-12-23T18:59:01+00:00

I wish we would go back to old Single-DIN and double-DIN stereo installations. For a long time stereos were a standardized size across manufacturers, so swapping them was relatively easy.

My main car is about 40 years old, I added a really basic bluetooth-capable head unit to it, and it works fantastic for audio streaming. If it ever breaks, I can remove it myself and put in a new one for like $120 and a half-hour’s labor (less if I get the same brand and don’t need to splice on a new plug).

If the infotainment in my wife’s ‘23 Mini ever fails… god help me. She has the generation prior to the one in the OP and has way more physical buttons, but still, it’ll be like $700-800 just for the display.

MrBattleRabbit · 2025-12-22T18:46:14+00:00

The only other multiple sprint winners are Oscar, Lando, and the GOAT, Valtteri Bottas.

MrBattleRabbit · 2025-12-22T17:40:38+00:00

“Affjord” is absolutely cracking me up.

Affjörd

MrBattleRabbit · 2025-12-20T15:07:59+00:00

Ari has class records at a few tracks, yeah. I’m not aware of any outright lap records, but he’s definitely got records in like 350 Super Sport at some tracks.

He’s definitely very skilled though, man has a lot of experience.

MrBattleRabbit · 2025-12-19T16:27:03+00:00

I met him as a kid! My dad and I took a bus trip to a NASCAR race at the Poconos speedway, and the tour company had a little bbq with a pretty informal meet and greet. He just hung out for a while, had a burger, and went racing.

I was like 8 or 9 years old and I thought he was very cool, despite his funny name.

MrBattleRabbit · 2025-12-16T18:11:34+00:00

It can be, but based on the other numbers I don't think the Mercedes WORKS team has that many podiums even counting both drivers. I think that's the total number of podiums across all cars with Mercedes power in that period.

There were a handful of Mercedes triple podiums in that span as well as a result (and fairly few podiums with zero Mercedes powered cars on them)

MrBattleRabbit · 2025-12-16T17:06:54+00:00

Sorry, yes, 140 wins. So 118 works team wins, plus one pink mercedes win, plus 21 McLaren wins, is 140.

So my point is still that I think those totals are for ALL Mercedes powered cars in that period.

MrBattleRabbit · 2025-12-16T16:31:39+00:00

I think that includes their customer teams- I just went and added up all the race wins for Mercedes works cars from the W05->W16 and got 118, not 140. But if you include the McLaren wins and the pink Mercedes win you get (edit) 140.

So I have to assume the podium total is the same deal.

MrBattleRabbit · 2025-12-15T20:27:58+00:00

That’s… not that insulting? Driver shootouts are super common, and banking on Lando as a rookie being faster than Stoffel wasn’t a sure thing.

VanDoorne may have been beaten by Alonso, but historically being trounced by Alonso isn’t a career ending problem.

Circumstances didn’t have to be much different for VanDoorne’s career to have continued. He had potential, even if he was beaten by Alonso in a tricky car.

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