Welcome to the ride, my friend.
This page wants to be a small personal tribute to the 4-wheels revolution of this century. Cars have changed this world in many ways, some good and some not; anyway they meant a quantum leap for civilization and individuals alike.
As you can see by the pictures around, my love in the wheeled universe goes to a little city car, one of the first ever (if not THE first). As many of you will already have guessed, I'm talking about the legendary Lancia/Autobianchi Y10, still the most beautiful of the pack IMHO. This little cute car is my riding choice in every possible environment (yes, I also tried with a bit of snow).
The nice specimen I'm now using belongs to the last series of the Y10, marked Lancia after the 1992 restyling. While at the time I had been not very happy with the restyling (I felt the car was being too much Lancia-ized), I have come to like it, as it adds her that little "aggressive" edge without diminishing her elegance. For the sake of precision, the car is a Junior 1.1 bought in the first days of 1996.
Apology of the City Car
Little cars also deserve respect. In the traffic there's on way a big station wagon can outride this agile bullets.
City cars are less expensive, make less traffic and can easily walk around little traffic jams without adding more cars to the chaos. They speed up traffic and better our life quality, in the end. They can face long trips without the need for going slower than 110 Km/h with no compromise about passenger comfort. They are also very fast at the traffic lights, being low-powered but also very light; and they often turn out to be capable of carrying much more than you can think of.
Y10 as a minivan
My standard Y10, without any configuration change (not even lowering the second row), succeded in carrying some loads I would have thought as impossible:
Heavy Metal Band: 4 people (me and three others), 3 backpacks of equipment, 2 guitars and 1 electric bass, 1 guitar amplifier. And it still drove nicely.
Tourist ensemble: 4 people (driver included again), 2 backpacks, luggage of 2 people for a full week. Tested it on the highways, and it was firm on her path at near maximum allowed speed.
Christmas Carrier: 2 people (on front seats) and a 1.80m high christmas tree. My girlfriend had it coming out at her side, but it fit.
So now you can scrap all those legends about citycar tumbling around as soon as there are two people on it; well, the bright side is that with the driver alone the little baby can outrun almost everyone at traffic lights and in the city turns (sports cars often included). Sounds incredible? Not that much, if you think this car has much more power than needed for its dimensions.
AUTOSPORTS SIMULATORS
What you see on your left is the Lancia F, a Grand Prix 2 skin I created to have my own team. I love virtual cars also, as you can guess, and my playing time is filled with virtual races - to be true I stopped for some time and went back to this passion after buying my ThrustMaster Nascar Pro wheel. It's nothing like true driving, but it's a good challenge, and always useful.
By the way, you'll be interested in knowin that you can find some nice "skins" for Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 2 in the next page, as well as some personal advice about other games (like the legendary Pod, for example). Click on my virtual car to get there.
HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED...?
There have been several car changes in my family, and here you can find some thoughts about those vehicles, thanks also to the contribution of my father (also driving mentor & trainer) and my brother. If you find something nice or useful in his contributions, thank him with an e-mail.
