An estuary near me.

Cool this morning.

The Citroen CX was in many ways ahead of its time. Just look at it for a start.

It was aerodynamic before that was really a thing and it had self levelling suspension, almost fully powered steering and a weird but seemingly wonderful (to Citroenistes at least) dash and control layout.

Not everything was modern and high tech though. Having acquired your first CX, you'll need to start it. If you have a fancy injected one, you just turn the key. If you have a diesel, more time is involved. You turn the key and wait. And wait, until the glowplug light goes out and then you can try starting. I can't actually see the light on what is claimed to be the dash from a diesel but never mind.
More likely you'll have the ordinary carburettored model. Take a look at the dash.

See anything different? try zooming in.

Still no? Try again.

Yes, that's it. What Citroen called un starter and we call a choke, or more correctly a choke knob. For the benefit of the youths, a choke is a flap in the carburettor which partially chokes off the incoming air so as to richen the mixture. To start from cold, you haul the knob out and hope that the engine will start. In that event you then have to put the knob back part way almost immediately and then nurse the car along until it'll run without the choke. Even at the time an automatic choke was commonplace but that wasn't the Citroen way.
Also, you had to cancel your indicators yourself. Citroen were ideologically opposed to self cancelling indicators, fearing that they induced laziness.

@farscythe
That looks like fun. I love really hard work and could sit watching somebody doing it all day.

Honda Accord estate. Accords are no longer sold here so won't be seeing many more.

Or, the Big Bang Theory.

Here we have, almost overwhelmed by its necessarily complex exhaust system, the noisy part of a Honda NSR500.

The NSR500 was Honda’s GP racing bike of the 1980s and 1990s and was master of almost all it surveyed, giving Honda ten championships from 1985 to 2001. It would have kept on mastering a bit longer had the rules not changed to penalise two strokes.

Honda didn’t achieve all this success by just leaving things as they were so most seasons a few more bhp were squeezed out. By the late 1990s and just before the elimination of leaded fuel the NSR500 produced about 200 bhp. That’s 400 bhp/litre which is really quite something for a NA engine more than twenty years ago.

There’s a downside to getting this much power from a two stroke. Ridden slowly the NSR was relatively docile and unthreatening, right up the point where it would actively try to kill you. It was said, at least in the early days, that it would go from 50 to 150 bhp within 100 rpm. That’s exciting, and not in a good way. Honda decided to try and improve things, partially to make it easier to ride and partially to give the tyres an easier time.

Enter the Big Bang Theory.

It’s in the nature of a two stroke that each cylinder will fire once during each revolution. The NSR had a V4 so you’d expect one cylinder to fire each 90deg or so. This means that power is being applied to the rear wheel on a continuous basis. Honda’s idea was to give the wheel a little break. They therefore arranged the crank and the V angle so that all four cylinders fired within about 70deg, leaving about 290deg of a pause. It worked, albeit at the cost of some power as initially a balancer shaft was needed. Not all were satisfied though. After a couple of years their star rider, Mick Doohan, had a request. Could he go back to what was now termed the screamer (because it did) engine please? He found that he could get more out of it and was well aware that he was about the only person who could. And so it was done.

The screamer/big bang argument has been going on ever since.

Stag! One of two I sometimes see. The other seems in almost daily use, which is impressive for a 45 or so years old car in this climate.

*Down on the pier. Bonus and matching dog, also parked.

You don't see these any more, except this is the second in three days.
I don't think cropping the picture has done anything for its proportions..

@pip-bip
They exist? We get only EVs and PHEVs.

@taylor-martin
That's nothing. Back in the day it was not unknown to keep at least one spare engine in your Trabant just in case. They were simple enough that you could change the engine by the side of the road with basic tools.

@pip-bip
Thought EVs were not a thing in Australia.

@snuze
Muesli. It's new to you?

@adamftw
VDO make things like this? I've only ever associated them with dashboard instruments on German cars.

(Googles)

Indeed they do. Instruments, seemingly not so much.

(Googles some more)

Separate site, vdo-instruments.com

@rallydarkstrike
Well, just go to donedeal.ie and see!
I wouldn't be quick to buy one myself.

@pip-bip
Not for €8,000 thanks

@mr-ontop
Yes. AZ will never be approved in America.

@ttyymmnn
Had one Astra Zeneca to date. No issues except some minor pain in my back the first night.

@mr-ontop
Had my first Astra Zeneca jab the other day. No issues except a slight pain in my back the first night