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True. Forgot about RD's silencers. Two carburettors is news to me. I didn't know that. Were RDs common in Kerala in 90s? I don't have any memories of seeing even a single RD350 during my school days.

Some more from my side

• Mitsubishi Lancer ad said you could not find the difference between the petrol and the diesel. The diesel was so quiet. or was it that the petrol was noisy ?
• The difference between the Zxi and Vxi Swift in Kerala ex showroom was only 15K when it was launched in Dec 2005.
• Maruti 800 could brake even when the engine was turned off. Not so with the new gen cars (except Nano, I think). Many people used to coast down the inclines in kerala with their engines turned off.
• People predicted the end of Maruti sedans (1000 at the time) when Tata launched the Tata Estate. Poor fit and finish easily killed the Tata estate which otherwise was a very nice car and ahead of its time.
• Tata Sierra was acknowledged by DC as the 'Best car to Mod' in those years.
• The First gen city (1.5l) was the first car to produce 100bhp in the sub 10L category. can sombody confirm ??
• Because of the accidents that were so common on RD350s. It earned the nickname 'Yamaha+Rajdoot'= 'Yamdoot'
  Till the 1950s, most of the lorries were Gasoline powered.

Enfield Mofa (launched circa 1990) was a gasoline powered moped that don't require registration and driving license to ride on public roads.
IIRC the fuel tank is about 1l capacity and inbuilt with in the tubular frame.
One can disengage the transmission and pedal it like a bicycle.

I haven't tried the experiment when moving, but for sure the brakes stop my car (Punto, 2010) from rolling when the engine is off. The real story seems a bit more complicated. Previous thread here .

It is true that power steering in many cars fails to work with the engine off. I know some people who were in an accident because, the driver said, the engine stalled and the steering stopped working.

I feel the Czechoslovakian made Jawas with their 250 cc engines were quite popular with bikers back in the 80s.Entering the 90s, I remember Suzuki Shogun to be an enthusiasts absolute delight as it had a 15 bhp power output much before the Pulsars.

The ones on the early Marutis were "all glass sealed beams", with no separate bulbs that could be replaced.

Ambys never came with such all glass sealed beams, although technically the term 'sealed beam' also applies to headlamp units where the glass (or plastic) lens is cemented to the (metal, nowadays plastic) reflector, but a replaceable bulb is used for illumination.

There is residual pressure in the brake lines that enable hydraulic brakes to work with assistance for a couple of presses. After that, they still work but are MUCH harder.

Awesome thread. Can anybody throw some light on the car Sipani Rover Montego? As far as I remember it was sold in India for around 11 lacs in 1994. I had seen one in Bangalore.


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There was also the Dolphin from Sipani, the only fibre-glass car in India. That car was a blast to drive and was much better than the Maruti 800 at that time.

Cheers

1) It was Rover Montego, was available in sedan and Station Wagon format. The running cost was claimed to be less than Kinetic Honda at that point of time.
Power was from a 2.0 ltr. diesel, the car was pretty fast for those days, I think the output was 81 bhp which was much more than another 2.0 motor prominent at that time from Tata (68 bhp, thought TATA was NA and Montego was Turbo ).

2) Tata Sierra, just before being discontinued, was available with 4X4 and Turbocharged motor (90BHP). I wish Sierra could be launched again, it would certainly do well. Sierra is one of the few Tata cars which is still very talked about.

3) When Indica was launched, it weighed in more than Cielo. Probably it was the first car developed mainly in India considering crash norms of Europe ( prevalent at that point of time ). Read this in ACI and other news media.

4) Tata is one of the few firms which has a nice sound testing lab ( or similar set up ).

5) Before Sumo came into the market, Mahindra Armada had a nice run.

6) I think this is well known, just adding it here : Scorpio was initially available with 2.6 ( 2609 cc ? ) ltr. diesel engine which was derived out of tractor engine. The engine was very heavy, around 350 kg, which did result into not so good dynamics. On the other hand, that 2.6 Scorpio is known to run a couple of lakh kms. without any problem.

7) When MPFI motors were getting common due to emission norms, FIAT used 32 bit microprocessors where prominent competition were using 8 bit and 16 bit.

8) Fiat UNO's FIRE 1.0 ltr. motor weighed in 1 KG less than G10 of Zen. Uno motor was 69 kg and G10 in Zen was 70 kg. The modern K10 motor from Suzuki weighs in at 47 kg dry.

EDIT :
9) Tata briefly launched the Indica with 1.4 ltrs. MPFI petrol motor ( probably 16 valves and 16 bit microprocessor ), just cant recall the name.
This motor was tested to run on kerosene also, such was the harsh testing done before they brought in the car.
Another interesting thing : Tata 1.4 ltr motors were 1405 cc, but this petrol was reduced to 139Xcc for tax benefits in EU.
Tata Indica was exported to EU under CityRover name.

Tata was using a Hitachi engine for its petrol indica.
Suzuki shaolin was the first bike with 5gears in India.
Mahindra jeeps had 3 forward gears for a long time. And the reverse was where you'd expect the first gear and first gear was where you would expect the second gear. People not accustomed with the pattern would slot it in reverse instead of first and what followed was roars of laughter mostly.

SST, I do remember some of our Ambys (we had several from the '60s and '70s) had sealed beam headlamps. Whether these came as such from the factory or were replaced by us I am not sure. I'd suspect though that we wouldn't replace a standard non-sealed headlamp with sealed units just because a bulb blew.

Mate, If I recollect it was the Enfield Fury which came with the 5 Speed Gear Box. This bike also came with disc brakes as standard and electric start. It was ahead of its time in terms of technology but came with poor reliability. The Gear box was its Achilles heal. It was very fragile in its build of gear selectors and had to used with exact precision. This was a bike that came with sleeveless cylinder.

Yes the brakes will work for a few presses (max 5)then the pedal will become rock hard and will hardly move even a centimeter. I have tried this in my Innova when parked. also yes same thing with the steering it will become absolutely hard to steer with the engine turned off(this I haven't tested).

Mods sorry for OT.

I think it was only a Hitachi ECU that they used not an entire engine! lol: