Toyota SECA 1.6 vs BMW X5 4.4i
Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2011 1:03 pm
Late at night (or very early in the morning) with some moderate rain coming in, I notice an idiot tailgating me in a white BMW X5, 7.4s to 100km/h(60mph), definitely more acceleration and aggression than my 21-year-old, one-mistimed-downshift-away-from-wrecking car. There are two lanes, but he insists on tailgating me in the fast lane, I'm at the speed-limit and just coming up to the first round-about.
Coasting at about 30km/h going into the roundabout I decide to go for it and jam it into 1st, and start the revving immediately and roar off into the distance (more like cough, splutter and stumble) I look into the mirror and see him dropping back, obviously surprised that I decided to make a run for it. I start changing the station on the radio and notice lights in my left-hand mirror and realized that he's having a go after all having changed lanes, undoubtedly hoping to match his ego to his engine size.
I down-shift to 2nd from 4th and let hell break loose, and there's the second roundabout coming, and the rain coming down harder, and Rock n Roll by KISS is playing on Classic Hits! I only glance at the left-hand mirror, I can see those annoying xenon lights growing brighter, redlining before every shift, I finally hit the roundabout, and jam it back in to 2nd revving hard to avoid flying through the windscreen.
Lo and behold, what's this? The joker has been more cautious with his airbag laden wagon (Traction control, bigger tyres -> more traction, ABS, and whatever other black magic wizardry gadgets the X5 has), he has braked hard way early into the roundabout, and was taking the turn like a schoolgirl on their first driving lesson. I'm well out of the roundabout, and I see him accelerating hard again, and I was thinking whether this guy was serious? What kind of useless driving skills are those?
By the time he passes me, I'm back into 1st gear waiting to turn right into a different road, and that was that.
So goes the story of how a 1.6L Carby in-line 4 Toyota engine (with an ancient C52 manual transmission gearbox) decimated a 4.4l V8 BMW engine with an automatic transmission (and he wasn't even using the tiptronic, just flooring it).
By the way those X5's are beautiful, sophisticated and powerful cars, you just need to know how to use it, (which is not even hard)
Coasting at about 30km/h going into the roundabout I decide to go for it and jam it into 1st, and start the revving immediately and roar off into the distance (more like cough, splutter and stumble) I look into the mirror and see him dropping back, obviously surprised that I decided to make a run for it. I start changing the station on the radio and notice lights in my left-hand mirror and realized that he's having a go after all having changed lanes, undoubtedly hoping to match his ego to his engine size.
I down-shift to 2nd from 4th and let hell break loose, and there's the second roundabout coming, and the rain coming down harder, and Rock n Roll by KISS is playing on Classic Hits! I only glance at the left-hand mirror, I can see those annoying xenon lights growing brighter, redlining before every shift, I finally hit the roundabout, and jam it back in to 2nd revving hard to avoid flying through the windscreen.
Lo and behold, what's this? The joker has been more cautious with his airbag laden wagon (Traction control, bigger tyres -> more traction, ABS, and whatever other black magic wizardry gadgets the X5 has), he has braked hard way early into the roundabout, and was taking the turn like a schoolgirl on their first driving lesson. I'm well out of the roundabout, and I see him accelerating hard again, and I was thinking whether this guy was serious? What kind of useless driving skills are those?
By the time he passes me, I'm back into 1st gear waiting to turn right into a different road, and that was that.
So goes the story of how a 1.6L Carby in-line 4 Toyota engine (with an ancient C52 manual transmission gearbox) decimated a 4.4l V8 BMW engine with an automatic transmission (and he wasn't even using the tiptronic, just flooring it).
By the way those X5's are beautiful, sophisticated and powerful cars, you just need to know how to use it, (which is not even hard)