rev 3 turbo vrs M5 V10

[JJ]

Vauxhall is owned by General Motors - Americans.

And General Motors has a share in what massive car manfucturing ?! :TOYOTA !

[matt_mr2t]

Do they?

Never heard that one before. I thought Toyota and GM were two competitors vying to be the biggest manufacturer in the world.

[JJ]

IF you look to the far east and austrailia area... remember the old Vauxhall Carlton ? They were branded Toyotas in some countries !!

Lets think performance :

Lotus were once part of GM, the underpinnings of the Lotus Excel were in fact the Mk3 Supra !! Toyota gearboxes / diffs / suspension.

Handling by lotus - take your hat off to toyota engineering !

GM bought part share of Toyota to attain their technology... multivalve engines etc... Toyota wanted part of the GM sales market too... so benefited both large scale multinationals.

[matt_mr2t]

As far as I was aware Vauxhalls in the US are re-badged as vars other marques. For example the Monaro over there is a Pontiac GTO or something.

Never heard of Vauxhall's badged as Toyota's though.

In fact the only link I can think of is the MK1 MR2 being "possibly" based on a Lotus but no one actually knows for sure if that's true or not.
And Lotus have been owned by many different companies over the years inlcuding Proton at one point.

[JJ]

I'll see if Ive still got a couple of australian exchange and marts... my auntie brought them over which I laughed when I saw some of the vauxhall "badged" toyotas !! The Carlton jumped out at me as I thought it was a misprint... and yet quite a few adds ! If I paid attention to the actual name of it.... I'd google it !

Oh.. I did international business at uni... so instead of the usual bluurb worldwise ice cream manufacturer... I focused on something of interest !

[matt_mr2t]

http://www.lotusespritworld.com/EHistory/ToyotaGM.html

Bit busy to read all of this so just scanned through. It says that in the 80's both GM and Toyota had interest in Lotus but eventually Toyota sold out making GM the majority share holder. It lists Toyota and GM as rivals.

When did GM aquire Vauxhall? Perhaps, seeing as you're talking about the Carlton (an old obsolete model) Toyota were linked with Vauxhal as oposed to GM?

[matt_mr2t]

On a related note, my dad had a Rover in the late 80's to early 90's.
It was either a 216 or a 416 (boxyish saloon) which was identical to a Honda. Nearly every single panel was the same.

IIRC it was the Japs way of invading Europe and getting around import laws at the time or something.

[Lauren]

In fact the only link I can think of is the MK1 MR2 being "possibly" based on a Lotus but no one actually knows for sure if that's true or not.
And Lotus have been owned by many different companies over the years inlcuding Proton at one point.

It's not true. Lotus may have driven the car around a track, or possibly looked at it. That is about it.

[Lauren]

When did GM aquire Vauxhall? Perhaps, seeing as you're talking about the Carlton (an old obsolete model) Toyota were linked with Vauxhal as oposed to GM?

GM aqquired vauxhall I think in the mid 70s and basically Opel upon which Vauxhalls were based on. Think Cavalier and Chevette.

I had a 72 Firenza which was before GM got involved with Vauxhall.

[Ekona]

Scarily enough given their relatively tiny size, Lotus are one of the very few car companies still making very healthy profits due to the engineering side of the company. IIRC there's well over 100 companies that use Lotus for that side of the business.

[Tasty]

Cheers Matt , it was early ,han`nt been up long

[fizz]

On a related note, my dad had a Rover in the late 80's to early 90's.
It was either a 216 or a 416 (boxyish saloon) which was identical to a Honda. Nearly every single panel was the same.

IIRC it was the Japs way of invading Europe and getting around import laws at the time or something.

All the way into the late 90's mate.. my 2000-X plate Honda Civic VTi was identicle inside to some dodgy rover i rememebr sitting in once...

[matt_mr2t]

The early 90's ones had the same bodies too.

Also, any one seen a Mazda 121?



There were some wierd things going on with Euro cars badged up as Japs.

[BarronMR]

In fact the only link I can think of is the MK1 MR2 being "possibly" based on a Lotus but no one actually knows for sure if that's true or not.
And Lotus have been owned by many different companies over the years inlcuding Proton at one point.

It's not true. Lotus may have driven the car around a track, or possibly looked at it. That is about it.

I thought the generally accepted view was that a lotus engineer (Roger Becker) was a consultant for the suspension and thus handling.

There was a part official toyota website detailing history of popular toyota models, someone linked to it not so long back had celica, mr2's supra etc... I'm pretty sure they mentioned the lotus consultant link in the mk1 write-up.

So they probably more than looked at it and drove it around a track.

[steve b]

I thought the generally accepted view was that a lotus engineer (Roger Becker) was a consultant for the suspension and thus handling.

There was a part official toyota website detailing history of popular toyota models, someone linked to it not so long back had celica, mr2's supra etc... I'm pretty sure they mentioned the lotus consultant link in the mk1 write-up.

So they probably more than looked at it and drove it around a track.

Yep spot on it says the same on toyotas website

http://www.toyota.co.uk/cgi-bin/toyota/ ... ritage_MR2

[Lauren]

I thought the generally accepted view was that a lotus engineer (Roger Becker) was a consultant for the suspension and thus handling.

There was a part official toyota website detailing history of popular toyota models, someone linked to it not so long back had celica, mr2's supra etc... I'm pretty sure they mentioned the lotus consultant link in the mk1 write-up.

So they probably more than looked at it and drove it around a track.

I think it's a tenous link that toyota are trying to play on for their benefit. It is clear that toyota did all the design work. I think about the limit of the involvement would have been in fine suspension tuning as it is obvious that lotus had no involvement in the suspension design.

[Ekona]

I think that Toyota should probably have re-hired Lotus to work on the mk2 as well, in hindsight.

[Lauren]

I think that Toyota should probably have re-hired Lotus to work on the mk2 as well, in hindsight.

DING to that!

[Burger]

Those 530d's have shed loads of torque iirc. Once moving i bet they can really push on.

Yes they have, I was behind one yesterday coming back from Dumfries, he probably though "ah a kidd on ferrari here we go ). He floored it (I take it), I was at the way he dissapeared. I though fk it and pulled in ....no contest.

[mr2nut123]

Those 530d's have shed loads of torque iirc. Once moving i bet they can really push on.

Yes they have, I was behind one yesterday coming back from Dumfries, he probably though "ah a kidd on ferrari here we go ). He floored it (I take it), I was at the way he dissapeared. I though fk it and pulled in ....no contest.

They're nippy but come ooooon, a standard rev3 tubby would see it off. They have 258bhp and weigh a lot more.