The two cars built to go round Rockingham were very much in the Locost vein. The one with the pinto engine conked though. Their head man didn't think 2mm wall tubing would be strong enough. I see some cars now use 18g RHS for the spaceframe. The Skoda front didn't look too bad either with the VW bonnet covering most of it. Who thinks the stuff they find is planted for them?

yours, Pete.

The stuff is obviously planted for them...

How often would you find a load of solid fuel rocket motors in a scrapyard full of car junk? (from an earlier series...)

for sure. there's a lot of scrap scrap, then some stuff that seems like it's been added for each challenge

The story goes that the "experts" meet with the producers to explain their ideas and then plant stuff accordingly.....

Troubles is though on one epsiode the team leader disagreed with the expert and wanted to do something differenent....but, of course....there were no parts and then consequently humiliating defeat followed........

Definately agree, how many times do you see the scavengers looking in the strangest places for bits to build their machines.......and 2 minutes later......oh look what i have found!

Also the number of times someone comes back with a perfectly straight piece of steel 20 feet long is amazing.

Still 2 well constructed motors in 20 hours i would say, shame it didnt give any stats on the speeds they were achieving though.

Got to be planted - there can't be many helicopter frames in scrap yards. What happened to the rest of the chopper?

I went scrapyard hunting on saturday, (see engine about the merc 190 rad). There was about 3/4 of a wessex mk1 air frame in the yard, full honeycombe and all - could not believe it

What about the time that they built steam cars and just happened to find two working steam engines and boilers lying in the scrap heap.
Also if they fail to complete anything or it is not good enough there is a day between building and testing when a team of experts finish the job for them, or so i am told by a mate who was on the series.
Paul

quote:

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Originally posted by Metal Hippy
The stuff is obviously planted for them...

How often would you find a load of solid fuel rocket motors in a scrapyard full of car junk? (from an earlier series...)

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I've walked around the scrapheap challenge scrapyard, the stuff is definitely planted. I didn't see anything good while I was there, I was looking for some steel to practice welding on, best I found was a 2' square bent rusty sheet of 3mm and two 2' lengths of painted rhs with some crap welded to them. There was a distinct lack of engines, wheels, compressors, turbines, pipework, barrels etc etc that they always handilly find.

and the bloke charged me £20 for them (this was when I was a sucker and didn't know the price of steel, and hadn't raided the steel stockholder's scrap bin)

couldn't help thinking if they 'expert' had only pulled that damn awful air filter off the pinto it would of won.......(it was only a few laps after all !

funny how they said the parts were from a jeep - pinto with type 9 box, sierra rear end and prop..... that'l be a sierra then ?

And whilst i'm venting my spleen - what was all that crap about calculating the angle of the wing (when one wasn't even aerodynamic) - totaly pointless

I got the distinct impression that the cars were speed-limited. Both had the engine and transmission to easily reach 100mph minimum, but they didn't seem to be going very fast (maybe 60mph).

Mind you, I doubt whether the rest of each car would have been safe at 100+ mph!

DJ

Correct, I read an interview with Robert and the producers once. Stuff is planted, but only the strange stuff like the steam engines, pumps etc. The Scrapyard they use is a set build next door to a working scrap dealer, most of the stuff in the yard is taken from there and yes the stuff that magically appears is taken from the working yard when required.

The thing I found most interesting was that the teams actually get 11 hours (1 hour extra to make-up for the filming interuptions) and after there 'one hour tinkering time' the shows own engineers are given the machines before they race. There only ment to be fit safty gear and redoing dodgy welds, etc , But etc and cover alot.

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funny how they said the parts were from a jeep - pinto with type 9 box, sierra rear end and prop..... that'l be a sierra then

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I came across an interview on the channel 4 website, with the old series female presenter.

She said alot of the stuff was planted for the teams, she also said about the engineers making the cars safe before they are used.

Not entirely unreasonable that they called it a jeep rather than a Rickman Ranger - probably only 1% of the viewers would know or care what a Rickman Ranger is/was. Fewer still would notice. Jeep isn't an unusual name for a generic 4x4.

The problems that the producers face is that they've got to keep coming up with different challenges, while not making a challenge that can't be finished within the alloted time. Both teams have got to have a semi working device - no race, no interest, no viewers, so I'm not suprised in the slightest that they help them out along the way.

Incidentally, why did the original woman leave and get replaced with some air head who pretends to understand, but pretty obviously doesn't. They should have got rid of that bumbling buffoon who played Kryten and replace him with someone a bit less irritating (how about Craig Charles? hahaha).

Ooh, think I got a bit of a rant on there, sorry folks

Kingr

Rickman Rangers were Cortina based, not even 4 wheel drive and nothing like a jeep, they would have been better off just removing the fibreglass bodywork but I think they did a decent job of making a car in a day, one locost style and one rear engined.

yours, Pete.

quote:

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Originally posted by kingr
Incidentally, why did the original woman leave and get replaced with some air head who pretends to understand, but pretty obviously doesn't.

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Hmm - an old school friend is now the producer ....... gay as a bag full of monkeys . nuff said

When I say friend obviously I mean ... errr aquaintance - errrr ... Hey i passed the 'Gay Test'......

[Edited on 2/12/03 by protofj]