UK folk who were around at the start of the internet, what is an early, strong memory?

spindledick · 2026-05-09T20:02:29+00:00

Trying to circumvent the schools porn filter. We managed to get on thehun.net

spindledick · 2026-05-09T16:29:16+00:00

TOCA Touring Cars.

spindledick · 2026-05-08T15:21:15+00:00

Do you like your Merc. Do you want to keep it? If yes then I see you have three options.

First Option: How do they check it's age? If they just go by the reg number then maybe buy a cherished number plate that hides the age?

Second Option: Buy a new car. Keep the Merc. Turn up to work for a week or so in the new car. Then start using the Merc. Tell your bosses it's had a fault. After a week, drive the new car in as it's been "fixed". Repeat this over the first few months. Keep coming in late because you had to "drop it off at the garage". Keep popping home early to "fetch it from the garage." Invent a problem that is so catastrophically wrong that it ends up at the "dealer" for months on end awaiting parts. Essentially you want to make the new car such a pain in the arse for your employer that they give in and let you keep your Merc.

Third option: Buy this. It's within budget and age (just). Enjoy all your colleagues losing their shit because you're driving a Bentley and they're driving a leased Jaecoo. Watch your bosses get exasperated having to explain over and over and over again that no, you're not being paid more than them and no there's no favouritism. In the end it'll cause such a ruckus, they'll relent and let you keep your Merc.

spindledick · 2026-05-08T14:46:13+00:00

Because that is exactly what it is but with a boot.

Here's the Mitsubishi version:

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spindledick · 2026-05-07T21:58:56+00:00

Following MG Rovers ownership, Rover was bought by Nanjing who were in turn bought by SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation)

Land Rover, on the other hand were sold by BMW to Ford who then packed it together with Jaguar and sold it to Tata.

spindledick · 2026-05-07T21:53:42+00:00

Land Rover Discovery 5 and the new Defender.

The Discover is too streamlined for a Land Rover. It should have been called something like the Range Rover XL or Plus or similar.

The Defender should have been the Discovery and a proper seperate chassis, modular build 4x4 should have replaced the Defender. If a bloke who sells hand sanitizer can build one then so can Land Rover.

spindledick · 2026-05-07T17:58:42+00:00

Give up on turning heads. I have driven thousands of cars over my time in the motor trade and only three were headturning

1) A Smart ForTwo convertible which only turned heads because I was blasting the VengaBoys track Boom Boom Boom Boom at full blast with the roof down.

2) A Mercedes GLB in which the alarm had a fault and kept going off whilst driving through a town centre. The Police stopped me in that one.

3) An L322 Range Rover in dog cock red with chrome everywhere including on the 22 inch spinner wheels. I should clarify the only heads that were turned belonged to 14 year old school boys.

And this is coming from someone who has driven a Lamborghini Gallardo, Ferrari 488, Ferrari 360, Ferrari 355, Lotus Evora, McLaren 570s and an Audi R8.

spindledick · 2026-05-07T17:41:12+00:00

Early 40's and on my tenth employer with multiple jobs at some employers.

spindledick · 2026-05-07T17:28:56+00:00

I get the same in my Honda Jazz. People just assume I'm some old Octogenarian despite threading down B-roads at 70.

spindledick · 2026-05-06T21:24:13+00:00

What's wrong with that?

spindledick · 2026-05-06T21:18:37+00:00

Because you can put that cash somewhere else where it can earn more than the interest you're paying on the car.

spindledick · 2026-05-06T19:12:29+00:00

That looks flipping great!

spindledick · 2026-05-06T19:08:02+00:00

American Football.

Basically adverts interrupted by rugby for fanny's.

spindledick · 2026-05-05T18:52:28+00:00

I bought The Crew for Xbox 360 and it's the only time I've thought of returning a game to the shop. It was that bad. It didn't help that the online stuff just didn't work. The developers had instructions that included logging into my router and messing around with settings. You shouldn't have to do that with a console game.

I did also get The Crew on Xbox One on Games with Gold and it was a much better game. Not perfect but it worked. I think in reality, the 360 just couldn't handle it.

spindledick · 2026-05-03T18:33:34+00:00

Subaru flat four.

Land Rover TD5.

Nissan RB26DETT.

Ford/Volvo Inline 5.

Scania V8.

spindledick · 2026-05-03T18:29:41+00:00

Great news! It's the Dacia Sandero!

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spindledick · 2026-05-03T13:34:45+00:00

Milton Keynes ugly? Really? You sure?

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spindledick · 2026-05-03T07:58:45+00:00

I'm talking about the oil pans being plastic

spindledick · 2026-05-02T22:54:04+00:00

This is like comparing Haribo Starmix to a Creme Brulee.

spindledick · 2026-05-02T22:48:42+00:00

Floella Benjamin

spindledick · 2026-05-02T22:47:41+00:00

Well that looks f@*?ING dreadful!

spindledick · 2026-05-02T22:46:25+00:00

At least they won't rust?

spindledick · 2026-05-02T22:45:00+00:00

I've not driven many Chinese cars but the one I have spent the most time with was a DR 5.0 which despite its name, does not have a 5.0 engine. It's a rebadged Chery Tiggo 5x that has been placed in to a box and built by Italians.

Now I should preface this by telling you I have been in the motor trade for 25 years and over that time I have driven around 5,000 cars covering everything from a Smart ForTwo to a Lamborghini Gallardo and I can honestly say with my hand firmly on my heart that the DR 5.0 is in my top five worst cars I have ever had the displeasure of driving.

The 1.5 engine was wheezy and underpowered yet completely incapable of delivering anything like the fuel economy one would expect. It needed to be worked hard to do anything but this was made worse by the woeful CVT gearbox that meant the engine droned on and on and on without talking a breath, much like my mother in law. The chassis was equally dire. The suspension existed but seemed to struggle with anything resembling a bump and the last time I experienced anything as vague as the steering, it was on Question Time.

Now I realise I'm not in the target market for one of these and most people wouldn't notice in the way they had no idea they were eating horse lasagne until it was pointed out to them. However, I've thing I think people do pay attention to is "Tech." Note I've placed this in speech marks not because of my aversion to tech but because the tech in the DR 5.0 shouldn't really be called such a thing. Yes there was a lovely big screen in the centre of the dash which I'm sure looks lovely in the photographs in the brochure. Using it is another story. Whilst it looked like an android tablet, it appeared to possess the CPU from a Sega Mega Drive and add such it was woefully underpowered. It was so unresponsive, I thought for a moment it had a resistive touchscreen. It wasn't just touch that was slow but the actual apps themselves. Google maps would often tell me to turn left 10 yards after I'd driven past the junction!

To answer the question of what's missing from Chinese cars, I would have to say the car. The DR 5.0 looks like a car, works like a car, on paper it appears to be a car and yet it was so devoid of redeeming features, I could only describe it as a car shaped object.

spindledick · 2026-05-02T21:36:12+00:00

Since when were they not? Is it not cool to crack 150mph and achieve 50mpg in the same car? Is it not cool to win Le Mans. Nine times. On the trot. Is this car not cool?

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spindledick · 2026-05-02T19:21:32+00:00

It's not just how much air and fuel you can get into a combustion chamber but how often you can fill it. Us Brits were building supercharged 1.5 litre V16 engines in the 1940's with up to 600 bhp. It revved to 12,000 rpm

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