Every Cloud has a silver lining!

[Green74280se]

Well we finally moved south to a lovely seaside village about 45 mins from Sydney and after 3 days of getting to know the place my wife was given a pleasureable village "welcome" by being rear ended at a roundabout by a woman driving a large Nissan 4WD......  due to texting instead of driving she hit our Alfa 159 sedan at around 50kph without braking. Thankfully my wife was fine and strangely enough the Alfa looks pretty good for such as impact... outwardly only the rear valance and a couple of reflectors and parking sensors need replacement and the boot (trunk) sit opens and closes but there is a fair bit of damage under the skin and initial figures look like around $6K in repairs needed.

In any case the car was driven to a smash repair and will be there for around a week while parts arrive. In the meantime I've given my Alfa wagon to my wife to drive and therefore I'm now using Esmerelda as my daily drive..... and this is where the silver lining comes in.

After a wash and polish and fluid check over the weekend I wanted to ensure she would look and perform great on her maiden 80km (each way) journey from home to my warehouse in western Sydney.... from home i have a 3 minute drive up Bulli pass.. a steep and curvy road that takes you from the sea to the top of a range in around 3 minutes (300m above sea level)... from there it is a reasonably flat and fast run through bush / country roads and at 6am in the fresh morning air everyone sits at a consistent 100kph to hook up to a couple of main highways on the way.

All I can say is that apart from the initial sluggishness up the steep pass she went like a train on the country run and continuing on the main motorway for my 50 minute trip to work. I'm still amazed how great these cars are to drive 37 years on and even though my Alfa has all the mod cons and handles like it's on rails, Esmerelda got me to work in virtually the same time and feeling relaxed, comfortable and looking forward to the run home...... I may just have to put the Alfa in storage and use Esmerelda as my Daily for a while... I'll have to dig out some my ACDC, Boz Scaggs and Doobie brothers tapes though!

[djenka018]

strangely how comfort and stifffness are so opposite yet both are equally desireable.

My work ride is a »sporty« suspension Vectra CDXi and since I started driving this car just over a year ago, a developing kidney stone have miraclously disappeared.
While having UVP for my Brown Girl, she was driven a lot to  gain some driving experience. Having had fully reconditioned front end, she gave originnal handling and ride glide experience. Amazing hoow all the roads suddenly became smooth. She does rok and roll like a pirate ship but there is no unsafe feel.

Stiff ride is nice to have but it gets even better if one can change between the two.

[oversize]

Thank goodness it wasn't the Merc involved in the smash!!!  But maybe it wouldn't have happened as they'd be staring at your car and not their phone!

[Green74280se]

Ha ha.. Yes maybe..... and further to yesterday's story, this morning I worked out that by using the gear lever manually, progress up Bulli Pass is a lot more rapid... entertaining even!!! 

[oversize]

Like most autos, the best valvebody/ECU is the one on your shoulders!  My Ford AU V8 auto is the best I've used so far, but until an auto can see the road ahead and predict your intentions, manually shifting is the best for performance.

I drove an SLS on a racetrack in Vegas and told to use nothing but the paddles, even though it was an auto and conpletely capable of shifting on it's own