Allen,
we don't have that 'murrican way of recalling cars in Europe...
At least not in Sweden, I'm sure. Over here the service garages
gets a notice about what is expected to be done, and then when
a car of the type concerned shows itself on their doorstep they
tell the owner about it and then do the job - and the importer/
factory picks up the bill...
In the 12+ years I have had my '86 Jetta II [since new] it has
happened twice to me. The first time was when the car was some
8-10 years old when it was expected to have its heater core and
piping changed to a new type not prone to rupturing and frying
the legs of the occupants... Had happened it tropical heat they
said. The second time was this spring when they had developed a
new, better valve cover seal that doesn't leak oil on top of the
manifolds...
And in all fairness: the best fighter in W.W.II wasn't the Mustang.
It was most definitely the Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a Schwalbe.
[Remember we're talking World war here, not only Anglo-American
war.]
The 262 was faster [top speed some 870 kph - the second fastest
fighter of WW2, beaten only by the Me 163 Komet with its 960
kph], it had heavier armament [with 4 30 mm automatic cannon],
it had swept wings [5-10 years before the rest of the pack...]
etc etc. But, fortunately for all of us in the free world, the
Luftwaffe and the Germans had such problems with the development
of this splendid fighter that it entered front line service far
too late to have any significant bearing on the outcome of the war.
The P51D Mustang with its British designed [but Packard built]
engine was probably the best Western fighter of the second world
war. To that I can gladly agree... :-)
Yours
/Odd
Allen Nugent wrote:
> This thread has the makings of quite a can of worms. ...
> However, by way of quantitative comparison, it would be
> illuminating to compare the recall histories of British vs.
> American cars (does anyone have figures handy?) I don't
> think I've ever heard about British-car recalls, although
> it must have happened from time to time. As for American
> cars, just pick up a used-car buyer's guide and see how
> many models you can find that haven't been recalled!
>
> (BTW the P51 was probably the best fighter of WWII, but it was a pig until
> they fitted Rolls Royce engines!)
>
> Allen Nugent
> Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering
> University of New South Wales
> Sydney 2052 Australia
--
Odd Hedberg
Pomonagatan 4
S-74236 Östhammar International liaison secretary,
Sweden Triumph Club of Sweden
'70 Spitfire Mk3 FD82497LO Signal Red
'80 TR8 EFi DHC TPZDV8AT211468 Midas Gold
E-mail: odd@triumphclub.se / odd.hedberg@bigfoot.com
Club URL: http://www.triumphclub.se/index.htm
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