do you have any good facts about gt3 cars or gt3 racing? currently foaming at the mouth for some of the cars in that class
I have a good fact about this ask! I viewed it and the notification went away and I completely forgot about it until I was brushing my teeth so here we are now!
One cool fact is the team that runs itasha liveries, Goodsmile Racing, which I mentioned in my post about itasha, which if you don't know is... well... this.
As far as the rest goes, my knowledge of GT3 cars is shallow enough that anyone invested enough in them to ask will know all I do.
But, on the off chance that you don't and to entertain the public:
This is a Ford GT.
And while it's bigger than the 1960s racecar it's inspired by and by its mid-00s revival, it's really not that big! It's under 4.8聽m (188聽in) long and 1.1m (44聽in) tall. That's about the length of a Camry and three quarters the height. Squish a Camry real hard, basically.
This is a BMW M8. It's not that small. It's a whole 23cm (9in) taller than the GT. It's a touch narrower, but its race version is instead 18cm (7in) wider than the GT's.
This creates a rather striking difference in size when they are side by side, which, given they compete in the same class, often happens.
Now, some Japanese exaggerated that size difference with image editing because he thought he was funny.
He was.
This sparked a series of "Big M8" memes that got progressively more overboard.
"But aren't these GTE cars?", you may object.
And yes. They are.
I just didn't know the difference when I started writing this post.
So that's how much I know about GT3 cars.
I guess I could tell you some fun facts about the road cars they are based on - like that the first Audi R8...
...was based on parts from both these cars!
While chassis and powertrain were heavily shared with the Gallardo due to Audi's Lamborghini ownership, the R8 also had a "base" V8 trim that used the engine from the RS4 (aka the Real Sporty version of the Audi A4 - of which by the way Father had and thoroughly loved the convertible, exquisitely competent car! Turbo issues aside I thoroughly recommend).
Links in blue are posts of mine explaining the words in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!
Today began with a 2 hour drive and the promise of a 1-owner, 27,000 mile B5 A4 in the elusive Cactus Green Metallic
It very quickly turned into a story, a vague address, and a locked garage between a pizza joint and depot, stuffed to the gills with 3 GTs, a late model Countach, 2 GT buckets, and the hint of a Diablo Spyder and a concours GT
The drive back was rounded out nicely with a charming W140 Brabus
This is the stuff of car legend and lore; this is the stuff dreams are made of
Hello! question for you? do you have a favorite car lock/unlock chime?
Hello! Answer for you:
That's a very hard opinion for me to form because here cars don't have them, we just trust car owners to be able to tell that the car that made the clunking sound and indicators flash it does when it locks its doors locked its doors.
Which is partly why this answer comes to you well over two weeks after your asked me, as I just didn't know what to do with it.
So I could answer that my favorite chime is around 6:38 in this video, which I recommend you don't skip to because the rest of the video is great too...
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...but if that feels like cheating to you, well, I'm out of answers.
So I will just talk horns and chimes some more until you're satisfied.
My mother's Citroe虉n had this seatbelt chime, which I found pretty endearing, but without the peculiarity herein described. (It should start at 11:41, just in case it doesn't for you.)
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My father's Audi had this calm, soothing chime which perfectly suited its soothing comfort, yet always reminded me of something...
2000s Renaults had a talking vehicle computer!
And if that sounds like a very 80s thing, well, you're absolutely right!
Chrysler's Electronic Voice Alert, or EVA, was an option made available in the mid-80s that used the Texas Instruments' LPC Speech Chip you know and love from the Speak & Spell.
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Unfortunately, while that was just a warnings list, many of those were spoken quite frequently, in part due to the vehicles in question being mid-80s Chrysler products, leading to the system swiftly getting on people's nerves, and in the models before a switch to turn it off was included owners resorted to pulling the fuse, which in some cases disabled the fuel gauge. Welp.
But that was not the only system nor first system of its kind: there was, in 1983, the MG Maestro's system.
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If that voice sounds familiar, its voice actress Nicolette McKenzie had starred in John Sichel's Merchant Of Venice. If you're not from that side of Tumblr, she also starred in Horizon: Zero Dawn.
A monotonous career path sure doesn't seem to be among her problems.
But this system was not the first either: some '81 to '84 Nissans (or Datsuns, as those were the very years that brand name, created for American shores, was getting phased out) used a Voice Warning system that used an even earlier technology than TI's chip (that's Texas Instrument's LPC speech synthesizing integrated circuits, not the money of trap music pioneer T.I.): a phonograph.
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This wasn't a novel approach either, phonograph-based warning systems being used in late '70s-early '80s appliances and toys, and in-car record players having been a thing even prior!
In fact, to paraphrase Dr. Doofenshmirtz, If I had a nickel for every time I wrote about in-car phonographs, I'd have two nickels - which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice, right?
Although in 1985 Nissan too went electronic for their voice warning system - here's the warnings from those systems over a bad MIDI cover of Thrift Shop.
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And that's without even getting into custom door chimes!
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And boy will I ever get into custom chimes once I get to that section of my Miata Mod Master M岽塻丧l岽塻蕠 (that's "Wishlist" upside down), which by my estimations should be about April 2024. So keep your eyes peeled!
Links in blue are posts of mine about the topic in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!
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