Someone mentioned a 'sleeper' car they saw / raced at Santa Pod here in the last few days.
When i was a regular at the Pod - i used to come up against one of these too. This was a MK2 Astra. Dead stock outside [Not even a GTE]. But had a V8 under the hood and was obviously RWD. Although i was close'ish to it - i never once beat it. This thing back then was running high 12's i guess ?
Anyway. A story for you about sleepers.
Yesterday i was installing a huge set of entrance gates we'd made for a major Quay in Great Yarmouth. I'm working away facing a largish road and i hear a car coming upto that- and towards us - from a side road. The car was obviously Turbo charged and sounded like nothing on Earth. A whir of Turbos, the chattering of waste-gates, the cheep of tyres fighting for grip etc. Utterly gorgeous and clearly very powerful: and the way it sounded like it was going through the gears....seriously quick.
I moved myself slightly so i was dead opposite the end of this road and waited for the car to come into view. I was expecting something modern and possibly pretty exotic. What actually appeared was an A registration shit-brown Sierra Estate !
It stopped at the junction a while waiting for passing traffic. Paintwork was very clean, i could see no headrests - they looked like standard 1980's flat as you like seats. Wheels were possibly widened (banded} steelies on the rear. Looked thin standard jobbies at the front. But from the side it would have looked pretty stock. Maybe bar some slight lowering.
He blipped the throttle from the other side of the road. It nearly took me off my feet. Literally !
The traffic then cleared and away he went. I can only describe it as if you had a 200mph car - but geared it to do 100mph. This thing went through the gears and upto 80 (?) mph so quickly it was ridiculous. And completely amazing....
No doubt it was a serious cossie lump under there, but all wrapped up in a brown Sierra estate.
I smiled for a long while after seeing that......
When i was a regular at the Pod - i used to come up against one of these too. This was a MK2 Astra. Dead stock outside [Not even a GTE]. But had a V8 under the hood and was obviously RWD. Although i was close'ish to it - i never once beat it. This thing back then was running high 12's i guess ?
Anyway. A story for you about sleepers.
Yesterday i was installing a huge set of entrance gates we'd made for a major Quay in Great Yarmouth. I'm working away facing a largish road and i hear a car coming upto that- and towards us - from a side road. The car was obviously Turbo charged and sounded like nothing on Earth. A whir of Turbos, the chattering of waste-gates, the cheep of tyres fighting for grip etc. Utterly gorgeous and clearly very powerful: and the way it sounded like it was going through the gears....seriously quick.
I moved myself slightly so i was dead opposite the end of this road and waited for the car to come into view. I was expecting something modern and possibly pretty exotic. What actually appeared was an A registration shit-brown Sierra Estate !
It stopped at the junction a while waiting for passing traffic. Paintwork was very clean, i could see no headrests - they looked like standard 1980's flat as you like seats. Wheels were possibly widened (banded} steelies on the rear. Looked thin standard jobbies at the front. But from the side it would have looked pretty stock. Maybe bar some slight lowering.
He blipped the throttle from the other side of the road. It nearly took me off my feet. Literally !
The traffic then cleared and away he went. I can only describe it as if you had a 200mph car - but geared it to do 100mph. This thing went through the gears and upto 80 (?) mph so quickly it was ridiculous. And completely amazing....
No doubt it was a serious cossie lump under there, but all wrapped up in a brown Sierra estate.
I smiled for a long while after seeing that......
