[SR] Pablo (he has actually got the tag in his username)
No that is not correct, the main driver has to be the main driver, if a young driver gets a policy with a parent (who owns the car) as the main driver who isn't they will be done for fronting.
Obviously it is a production block with totally new internals, but still like the production engine, big, long stroke and not as high revving as the race engines. There was a cover feature about last years car in Racecar Engineering, may still be on the website.
No from what I gather it is the petrol car that ran in a semi-works team with a production based engine, I think it was competitive against the race derived petrols last year. Will be interesting to see how it does against the lot this year, should have reliability on its side.
Enough of the diesel fad! It'll be the most attractive and best sounding works car if nothing else 
You should be sent a full copy of the terms when you take out a policy, they're long winded and hard to read though so most people ignore them and make wrong assumptions. Or like you try to justify what is really deliberately fraudulent.
Jack you haven't posted the insurance terms, you have posted a (very) brief summary of the insurance policy, which is more a sales pitch of what the policy offers than anything useful, other insurers neglect to mention the full terms of the insurance policy such as the age cut off (trust me I've looked). If you can't get written confirmation of exactly what you want to do then forget about it.
If you really still believe it is legitimate then write to them explaining your exact circumstance, explain that you will be the main driver on an uninsured high insurance group car owned by a family member. Make it very clear that you intend to do 10,000 miles a year in said car and the insured car will barely be used. If you can get written confirmation that you will be covered then go for it, you know you won't be though and you know they won't pay up.
No, we looked at getting me a policy on the Focus and adding my Dad as the named driver to build up a NCB, despite the fact I wouldn't have been the rea main driver (doubt even insurance companies would try and do you for that
), but getting named driver experience and paying less at the time worked out better.In the UK a form of third party insurance is required, the legal level is slightly less than a standard third party policy, but it is not commonly sold by brokers. It is possible to self insure, and there are companies that let you insure yourself to insure yourself, it gets confusing but generally only worth it for companies or individuals with unusual collections of high value vehicles.
Standard policies in the UK are third party, third part fire and theft and comprehensive. They pretty much do what they say on the tin, extras are available (personal injury cover, legal assistance but not required). Our insurance is done on a per car basis, each car needs one and the policy holder must be the main driver, additional drivers are allowed but must not be the primary user of the car. Policy holders (and not named drivers) build up a no claims bonus which significantly reduces the insurance premium.
There is a common clause that the policy holder may drive any other vehicle that has its own insurance policy, basically on the grounds that they didn't invisige using it as a routine form of transport, if your car breaks down, you want to borrow someones car because it has a bigger boot or drive them back from the pub that is fine, use as a daily driver is not. Given that Jack intends to do 10,000 miles a year on a car that no one else would be insured to drive I would just love to hear the explanation he gives.
This clause was pretty much universal to all policies but in the last few years has been removed from most, some still offer it as an optional extra and a few offer it as part of the package, but mostly only to certain customers, certainly not high risk young males.
Given that they write pretty much anything off regardless of how repairable it is I don't think parts availability is much of an issue for them.
This is a very common form of insurance fraud which the companies have got tight on recently, expect no payouts and possible prosecution for trying this. It is no better than having no insurance, if you're not going to insure your car legally don't bother, you have the same cover deserve to be locked up and at least you aren't committing insurance fraud, which can carry worse penalties than having no insurance.
Tesco did not list a minimum age in any of the online policies they had when you get a quote (which are usually stripped down generic versions). The full policy that you agree to has lots more clauses, one of which on the Tescos was that there was a minimum age cut off for the any car cover. I should add I have never heard of a policy that allows you to drive an uninsured car (with the exception possibly of specialist ones) and it will soon be illegal, and checked digitally to have an uninsured car that hasn't got a SORN, making it illegal on the road.
Insurance companies will go a long way to void a policy if they can, this is clearly in breach of it and the typical insurance payout buys a lot of legal power...
They would then do everything in their power to find as much evidence as possible that the insurance had been misused, normally the third party any car is often described as being unplanned/emergency/short term use only, the idea is not that you regularly drive another car on it, and if there is no policy or indication of use by the keeper on the other car then it will soon become evident that all is not right. Using the third party clause of a regular insurance party in this way is in serious breach of the policy. Using trade (or domestic equivalents of) insurance is very different, it is specialist insurance that offers proper cover for driving any vehicle, it comes at a large price though and restricts young drivers to smaller cars, normally under 1600cc for under 21s, to prevent young drivers getting in high risk cars they can't drive.
I am a bit lost at why Jack thinks he needs a 180bhp hot hatch though when his greatest issue with his current car is fuel economy. The Seat will be very fast but soft and boring to drive and most likely understeer like no tomorrow even without the power. A less powerful better setup car would be far more enjoyable on the road, plenty fast enough for a new driver, deliver better fuel mileage and be insurable (for very good reason!).
Damn it Tristan sneaking round with the camera 
His work day involves giggling for 9 hours!
His work day involves giggling for 9 hours!
Price of repairs will have no effect on it and value of the car will have little effect. Actual comprehensive claims are a low cost for insurers now, especially with young drivers/cheap cars (hence why the difference in price between policies is usually small). The real cost is third party personal injury claims, which can be huge, therefore the premiums are most likely largely biased by the statistical risk of a driver in a particular group crashing.
Thanks again Tristan for a great day out, would be good to do it again sometime.
Group entry for LeMans maybe?
Chris I have to say I really liked you're car, even if it is a front wheel drive impostor
Oh and Fletch remember to collect your pot, I think it might look good as a bonnet mascot on the San Remo
Group entry for LeMans maybe?
Chris I have to say I really liked you're car, even if it is a front wheel drive impostor
Oh and Fletch remember to collect your pot, I think it might look good as a bonnet mascot on the San Remo
Should you make a claim they will do anything to stop it, working out how you obviously have been lying with back tracking previous polices and old MOTs and the millage listed on the V5 isn't hard and will be found out. Whilst they probably won't bother if you're a few miles over if you have been blatantly lying and vastly exceeding it you may as well not bother insuring it, you'll probably get less trouble than should they try and chase you up.
Ah yes we thinking about the Mk1 ST, which IIRC had about 170bhp and no LSD. A 1.8 or the less powerful 2 litre are probably quite nice cars, although I don't really see a lot of advantage in having more power.
You said it would 'barely' raise the premium, I say it would go through the roof and be very hard, if not impossible, for a 17 year old to find a company willing to take them.
Find me a quote for a 17 year old with a Fiesta with a 2 litre engine for less than other standard 2 litre hot hatches then (which will be orders of magnitude greater than an old Fiesta). Quite what you did I don't know but it is simply impossible to work out insurance groups based on engines, because the same engine can be used in a whole range of vehicles. Typically engine swaps for another standard engine that was put in the car originally (ie. Minis) will carry a premium slightly higher than the standard car with that engine, I've got a couple of mates who have done this, it is realistically insurable but a lot more than the original car. Putting an engine that any insurance broker will instantly recognise as being silly into a car, like a 2 litre Fiesta will not be taken so easily at the very best you may be able to convince them that it is only a similar risk to other 2 litre hot hatches, but even they are not realisitic propositions for young drivers.
I'm not certain about that, it is free advertising a no cost for a car company really and they can often save the cost of developing their own sim for PR work as a result. I don't think an E92 M3 road car would really be that good though, an E36 or E46 would be much prettier nicer to drive and have a better engine. The cars are only really interesting in racing spec, personally I think a wingless Group N spec E36 M3 adjusted to race with the XFR/UFR would be a good edition. As would a full GTR, possibly with the E92 V8 in a E46 or E36 as the factory built for its works Nurburgring and semi-works AMLS cars (and supposidly built the homologation road cars as well), would be quite a lot quicker than the current GTRs though, to get a 6 to compete with the LFS GTRs wouldn't be possible in an endurance spec engine. I can't see a car company being interested in having old models or models that don't resemble anything they've sold in a game though.
That single seater thing caught my eye at Autosport, nicely styled, not naff and bad retro from a distance but then again clearly not trying to pretend it is the genuine article up close. I think it is reasonably priced and presuming its reasonably well setup I can see a market for it, just loved that exhaust and the pipes running along the outside of the car! If you have that kind of money to spend on a trackday car, and is very good value for what it is, and a desire to own something historic and interesting I can see the appeal of this bastard child of arguably the finest, but very short lived periods of Grand Prix cars (so very little chance of finding a car even with a 6 figure budget) and a F5000 car. The only thing that I didn't like about it was the Momo steering wheel.
I think describing the engine as a Vauxhall V8 is a bit of rather tenuous patriotism seeing as it had Chevrolet embossed on the oil filler
What about using a controller without a return spring, either use a joystick with a throttle slider or take a servo out of your pedals/any old game controller and turn it manually to get the right amount of throttle for what you need? So long as the servo works and doesn't spike about (like old dodgy old ones tend to) then you should be able to hold revs constant at roughly the right figures, if you really need exact rpm values then you'll struggle with accuracy doing it this way (although the actual values should be irrelevant for sound samples).
If you haven't got a long commute and don't have to drive up and down the country on a daily basis then fuel consumption really isn't all that important, people often spend silly sums of money, even purchasing expensive brand new cars over second hand ones because along the way they have omitted the fact that fuel consumption is only one of many costs associated with vehicle ownership. To be honest fuel consumption wasn't a major worry for me, ironically I think my car gets better miles being thrashed on back roads or going round town than cruising down the motorway at 80, which gives plenty of excuse to take a more interesting route. It will take a long time for me to rack up the extra thousands that something more modern and economical would have cost to purchase, tax and insure. You're right about being able to pick up bargains though I've got a mate who drives a 7 series, bought for £100 running but in need of piston rings, after inexpensive tinkering he has got a lot of car in good condition for less than a shabby hatchback, if you can pay the fuel bill then it can be a lot more appealing than spending the money on a more conventional car IMO
One of my co-workers told me a story today of a time when he woke up in the middle of the afternoon after a good night out and rang up his boss to appologise about it. When he told his boss what had happened he replied 'yes I know I sent you home this morning because you were too hung over'
Right where do we start? He is concerned that his small Korean car is impractical, consumes to much fuel, isn't nimble enough and he is worried about brand name on his current car, how on earth do you propose anything that came out of America in the 1980s is going to help with any of that?
You've missed the point, having rear wheel drive in a light low power everyday car makes them more fun to throw around at low speeds, high speed behaviour isn't an issue, a typical old rear drive saloon will still be better behaved at speed and far less likely to loose control at speed than a short wheelbase front drive box. Rear drive is the best solution mechanically, front wheel drive cars are cheap to produce and allow easier packaging for overweight modern cars but are far harder and more expensive to work on than rear wheel drive cars which allow much easier servicing of engine, drivetrain and suspension components. Given the current economic situation and environmental paranoia it would be far better to build cheap rear drive cars that are built to keep on going forever at minimal cost and expertise. Instead we have a generation of cars that are have been produced with lots of features, far too much electronics, cosmetically high perceived quality trim that disintegrates as soon as you try and take it apart and lots of security fixings to try and stop any DIY work, not to mention the deliberate locking and control of the electronic systems. It just isn't possible to keep these cars on the road as old bangers and sadly most of them will make their way to scrap yards before their predecessors because of the costs involved in keeping them going.
What?
It doesn't work like that, modifications are done on an individual basis and an engine swap and a young driver is a pretty scary prospect as far as an insurance company is concerned, if you're putting in a bigger engine that was actually fitted to your car you may be able to talk them into it (although finding a chassis number for it would be an easier option). Putting a totally different engine in will make them worried, putting a 2 litre engine into an old hatchback will just have you laughed out the door.
A very good suggestion, my dad's 1.6 Zetec is great fun to drive cruises effortlessly and has a good gear shift, pedal and steering feel for a modern car. The handling is very neutral and it was great fun on trackdays, easy to induce oversteer. My dad reckons it is the best handling front wheel drive he has ever driven, but we disagree on one thing, he reckons it could handle more power and is talking about getting a 2 litre, personally I think it is the relative total lack of power that makes it so fun to drive and giving it more power (and a heavier engine) would just turn it into a typical overpowered hot hatch which is just frustrating at low speeds and too fast to be fun on the road. Never heard there was a difference between the models though.
Wet layed sheets of carbon fibre that are used for non-structural purposes in race and road cars are normally weak and fairly pointless, they have little advantage over other much cheaper composites or sheet aluminium other than they are a little bit lighter and look like carbon fibre (the real reason they are used so often), sometimes some strength advantage can be gained but if the component is intended to be stressed in any significant way it is not a suitable composite to be used. Carbon fibre has some disadvantages, it costs a lot more and is harder to lay in order to get the weave to look right, for the same reason anything left as bare weave can't really be repaired. The end result of this is that the cost of using senseless carbon fibre is huge, we produce are own GRP airboxes for approximately a tenth of the cost of buying an off the shelf carbon fibre one, and personally I think that when painted they look better anyway, most customers would rather put a couple of grand to better use than having a bit of bling nobody can see.
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG