Cars and bikes I’ve come across in my travels

I bought a wheelchair adapted Citroen Dispatch off a guy in Taunton who had imported two SMs from the States. He was making one good one out of the two, and was doing an excellent job despite his disability.
 
Alzero said:
It combined the simplicity of French Hydraulics with the reliability of a Maserati engine. Best of both worlds really……
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Not really.
It was a Maserati V8 with 2 cylinders lopped off. Rumour has it that it wasn't very reliable.
It does however epitomise an era when French cars and Citroën in particular stood out.

It's all over now baby blue.

Paul
 
Paul Marx said:
Not really.
It was a Maserati V8 with 2 cylinders lopped off. Rumour has it that it wasn't very reliable.
It does however epitomise an era when French cars and Citroën in particular stood out.

It's all over now baby blue.

Paul
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Did Peugeot use the same engine in some of their cars?
 
my brother in law (a Michelin starred French chef/resauranteur/hotellier) had an SM for a good few years, about 20 or so, it was a superb car, not entirely practicle but a seriously exciting car to drive especially before the daft 80KPH limit on ALL non motorway French roads unless a lower limit applies, bleeding bloody hellishly fast, revved like a two stroke, not the easiest thing to change manual gears in, not particularly good vision especially rear quarters, I am so glad he owned it, because i wanted one for years before him, but never did, the MASSIVE complications of the car cost Christian a fortune in just normal maintenace. partly because of my earlier desires and Christians more recent SM ownership, in 1991 I bought a brand new BX19, it was a nightmare, plent of months off the road under warranty, falsy accused of damaging courtessy car (twice) and sold when at its second birthday, replaced with a two year old 450SEL.
CLEM
 
Paul Marx said:
No.
The engine used was the V6 PRV, PRV for Peugeot, Renault, Volvo.
Paul
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... & Delorean! o_O
But the PRV engine was totally different to that of the Maserati / SM, even though it shared the 90deg angle.

There's an SM that always shows up to our local Italian car/bike show day and parks among the Maseratis, that confuses a few punters. Wonderfully weird thing the SM, Citroen at their best.

By the way, a 90deg v6 is desirable from a balance perspective since you end up with three 90deg v-twins which have perfect secondary balance. The 120 degree crank gives decent primary balance but has a slight rocking couple but in a car engine (or longitudinal bike engine like a Lav) with it going forward-backward that's not significant. The typical 60deg format for V6's was mainly advantageous because the even-fire made ignition parts simpler. I guess it's also more compact (a plus or minus, depending on how much carburation / inlet port you're trying to stuff in there), but the payoff is poor secondary balance (think 60deg v-twins which have some nasty vibration modes which require balance shafts and the like).

Remember the hoo-hah about how problematic the Desmosedici was after Stoner had left? Much journalistic hypothesis about the 90deg vee angle making it too long and cumbersome, hence the rubbish turning. Suzuki had a 60, then 75deg V-4 at the time, and the later Honda RC212 was something like 80. Ninety degree vee was clearly the Ducati issue! Meanwhile along came the 1000's and with it the RC213V, initial versions of which hit the sweet spot in 2011 and 2012. Ducati can't win until they build a narrower vee angle they all said. It was half way through the year before some bright spark journo simply asked the big man at Honda what their vee angle was - the answer was 90 degrees and there was much furore. Ducati sorted their 90deg bike out, Suzuki widened theirs to 90 (later an inline), Aprilia came along and started with narrower angle vees and widened to 90, KTM made theirs fractionally narrower at 86deg, deeming it the smallest package while being at the limit of what does not need a balance shaft.

So anyhow, a long rambling digression! But the 90degree V6 is not simply an economic decision or due to trying to re-use a V8 design.
 
These two Morgan Plus Fours were parked up at Doolin Cave in County Clare. Sorry about the photo of my finger!IMG_0832.jpeg
IMG_0834.jpegIMG_0833.jpeg

We also saw this next to our lunch spot, looks like someone has picked a side! By coincidence the UKR colors are the same as Co Clare and you see them everywhere.
IMG_0837.jpeg
 
CLEMTOG said:
my brother in law (a Michelin starred French chef/resauranteur/hotellier) had an SM for a good few years, about 20 or so, it was a superb car, not entirely practicle but a seriously exciting car to drive especially before the daft 80KPH limit on ALL non motorway French roads unless a lower limit applies, bleeding bloody hellishly fast, revved like a two stroke, not the easiest thing to change manual gears in, not particularly good vision especially rear quarters, I am so glad he owned it, because i wanted one for years before him, but never did, the MASSIVE complications of the car cost Christian a fortune in just normal maintenace. partly because of my earlier desires and Christians more recent SM ownership, in 1991 I bought a brand new BX19, it was a nightmare, plent of months off the road under warranty, falsy accused of damaging courtessy car (twice) and sold when at its second birthday, replaced with a two year old 450SEL.
CLEM
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Stupid really isn’t it? Throw a few tyres on a bonfire and you get a cooking award, named after the tyre.
 
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