r/TheIntercooler

In Dan Prosser’s story today on The Intercooler website and app (link in first comment), Dave Richards tells the story of how the Prodrive Impreza was actually supposed to have grey wheels:

‘Everyone remembers the gold wheels,’ says David. ‘The wheel manufacturer was Speedline, from Italy, and the wheels were supposed to be charcoal grey. Peter Stevens had designed the car, and he was appalled to hear Speedline had sent the wrong colour.

We looked at the car and said, it’ll have to do. We won the next rally, and I went to the president of Subaru to thank him and apologise for the wheels. I said we would send them back to have them painted grey.

He said, “No, no, we’ve done all the advertising, you’ve got to remain with gold wheels from now on.” And that’s how the gold wheels happened. It wasn’t by design. It was a complete cock up, quite frankly.’

No-one else in the room during the live podcast interview with DR had heard this before - anyone else aware of it?

Today Ti was up in the Welsh hills for a group test you wouldn’t see anywhere else. Today’s fastest point to point supercar, the 750bhp (according to Litchfield’s dyno) Porsche 911 Turbo S takes on Britain’s slowest car, the 67bhp Kia Picanto.

Just how much faster does 11x the power get you from A to B? And just to measure progress - let’s throw in a curveball. The fastest point to point car of 40 years ago: the Audi Quattro RR.

How well does an old car hold up? Will its pace be closer to the Porsche, or the Picanto?

And here’s a quiz: for every hour the Picanto takes across A and B roads - how many minutes will the Turbo S and Quattro each take? All estimates welcome…

Likely a question more for anything remotely classic, but some of us at TI like nothing more than scrabbling around underneath a car to treat any developing crusty bits and getting feisty with the XCP. A peculiar obsession or a sensible one?

Extra points if you can guess what the car in the pics is.

Our reporter on the ground, Helen Wakerley, has sneaked into Villa d’Este this weekend to bring you this selection of wonderful pics. Yes, that’s the new BMW Alpina concept at the end.

What do you think of it?

The Maybach Excelero seems to have escaped from its usual habitat at the Loh Collection too.

Mercedes-AMG One also present - wonder if it got there under its own steam? They don’t have the best reliability record…

In this week’s podcast Andrew Frankel and Dan Prosser discuss 1970s sports and supercars, one of cars in question being a De Tomaso Pantera.

Overlooked by some at the time for having the temerity to use an American V8, it’s arguably now the bargain of the bunch.

Countachs have gone stratospheric, a Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer will cost you double of a Pantera, and even the common as muck Porsche 930 Turbo will cost you £200k if you want a properly sorted example.

So if you want that iconic bedroom wall poster car of the era - is the Pantera the way to go? Early project cars can go for £50k and up, whilst a gorgeous and super rare RHD GT5 with only 6k miles went for £161k (plus fees) at Iconics in February.

If you’re buying a 70s supercar, what are you going for? (And we haven’t even mentioned the Maserati Bora).

In Ti’s latest Heart & Soul video on YouTube (link below), Dan Prosser argues he’d rather have a Daytona than its modern descendant, the 12Cilindri.

Once optioned up they’d be a similar price – but one of them is going to depreciate rather a lot more. How important is the extra power, handling capability and refinement of the modern car? Can it beat the sense of occasion the Daytona delivers?

How about you? Any other examples where you’d rather have the older car?