User talk:Charles01

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[edit] Welcome

Hello, Charles01, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! Shoessss 21:15, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome to WikiProject Germany

Welcome, Charles01, to the WikiProject Germany! Please direct any questions about the project to its talk page. If you create new articles on Germany-related topics, please list them at our announcement page and tag their talk page with our project template {{WikiProject Germany}}. A few features that you might find helpful:

  • The project's Navigation box points to most of the pages in the project that might be of use to you.
  • Most of the important discussions related to the project take place on the project's main talk page; you may find it useful to watchlist it.
  • We've developed a number of guidelines for names, titles, and other things to standardize our articles and make interlinking easier that you may find useful.

Here are some tasks you can do:

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me or any of the more experienced members of the project, and we'll be very happy to help you. Again, welcome, and thank you for joining this project! Agathoclea 16:27, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Historical Eastern Germany

Perhaps you'd be interested in this:Talk:Historical_Eastern_Germany#Requested_move. -- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 05:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Municipalities in Germany

I don't think two entries are the answer, but I also don't think we need to get into the very thicket of terminology and use the German terms. My solution has been to use municipality for Verbandgemeinde and town for Ortsgemeinde. This may not be the best solution, but it seemed clearer for non-specialists.

Ksnow 18:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)Ksnow .

[edit] May 2007 edition of the WikiProject Germany newsletter

The Germany WikiProject Newsletter
Issue I - May 2007
From the editor

This is the first issue of WikiProject Germany's newsletter. The newsletter is intended to help all members of the project to keep up with new developments and coordinate new collaborative efforts.
Other areas where you can help
  • Assessment requests: Some open Requests for assessment need to be answered. To see new assessment requests as they come in, you can watchlist the assessment page.
  • More task forces and subprojects: As this WikiProject covers a very large topic area, it is helpful to add more task forces that focus on specific aspects of Germany. Currently, we have a Mainz task force, a Munich subproject and some joint task forces with other WikiProjects. Any project member is invited to start a new task force. Suggestions for possible topics:
    • Transportation in Germany
    • German politics (the political system of Germany and the biographies of its politicians)
    • German Democratic Republic

Be creative! If you have an idea, just suggest it on the project talk page (don't forget to watchlist it).

  • Categorization: Uncategorized Germany stubs need to be categorized
Project news
  • Criteria for B-Class status: The assessment criteria for B-Class have been changed. {{WikiProject Germany}} template now has 5 switches, B-Class-1 through B-Class-5 that correspond to 5 easily checked criteria that an article should meet to be assessed as B-Class. The advantage of this system is that now there is a clear boundary between Start-Class and B-Class articles. Authors of articles that were assessed as Start-Class now get more direct feedback what they should improve to attain a B-Class rating.

All of our B-Class, Start-Class and Stub-Class articles now need to be checked whether they meet any of the B-Class criteria. This is a major effort, and we need your help! If you want to help, but don't know how, please post at the project talkpage.

  • Cities and municipalities task force

A task force dedicated to creating and improving articles on all German cities and municipalities has been started and is looking for help.

This newsletter was delivered by Kusma using AWB to all members of WikiProject Germany. If you do not want to receive this newsletter in the future, please leave a note at the talk page of the Outreach department so we can come up with a better spamlist solution. Thank you, Kusma 11:49, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RheinNeckar S-Bahn

No worries, I've been on some German urban rail systems and there are more to be done, when I get around to them, such as Dortmund and Essen Stadtbahns.--Grahamec 10:48, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Morris Major

Too late for me to start a page as it already exists. I have put the link in to the Morris Minor entry. I am actually considering an article on the pre war Morris Major. Malcolma 17:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Yikes (or whatever), where did that come from? Looks a nicely informative entry, too. I'll look out for your article on the earlier MM. Charles01 13:22, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mini Clubman aerodynamics?!

I saw that you added that the Mini Clubman was aerodynamically inferior to the regular Mini - I'm skeptical that this has ever been properly tested. Do you have a reference for that - I've read every book in the ref list for that article and I don't recall ever seeing this. It sounds an awful lot like OR and I'm trying to keep this article's little gold WP:FA star and I don't want to lose it because of important facts going unreferenced! Thanks! SteveBaker 20:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting thought trigger, Steve. The matter of the Clubman's boxy front and the resulting adverse impact on its aerodynamic characteristics featured in press comment at the time, even though back then no one outside of the Citroen fan club (which clearly included the designer of the NSU Ro80, launched 1968) was too keen to sing from the roof tops about drag coefficients - I'm not even sure I remember anyone using the phrase back then. The most authoritative UK motor journals of the time were probably (The) "Autocar" - a sort of Brit weekly equivalent of Car and Driver - and a monthly then still, as far as I recall, called "Car incorporating Small Car". The titles (or their successors) survive today, I think, in emaciated (ie excessively influenced by their publishers' marketing departments) form, but these days both might be regarded as less authoritative. I have the old ones still, I think, in the loft, but I do not have them indexed so they're not adequately accessible for present purposes. Some of the reference sources cited in the wiki Mini article to date look to be relatively generalised publications. Something that might be more specifically Mini focussed, and have more detail on technical aspects of the design, is a book written by the late Leonard Setright round the time of the Mini's 40th birthday (so presumably published 1999) and I would expect to find the matter covered there. However, I do not have a copy. I might be able to get hold of one in a public library round here (ie in England) but if, in the meantime, you have the opportunity to access a copy first .... good. The alternative approach, of course, is to observe that the relative aerodynamic merits of the two designs are apparent simply by looking at the things - at least for anyone vaguely familiar with the issues involved - and the wiki entry entitled 'Drag Coefficients' or some such title provides a pretty clear overview for the rest of us. That the Mini was a small car and not a big car is apparent to anyone who ever saw one. That a flat fronted car cuts through the air less efficiently than a curved one is similarly self evident. In the same way, you might ask the chicken why the egg is egg shaped rather than brick shaped: her reply will doubtless be unprintable, though, so maybe you can spare the chicken from the intellectual challenge imposed by the question. On the subject of aerodynamics in general, as far as I can establish, there is no single universally accepted definition of drag, anymore than there is agreed definition of brake horse power (in describing the bhp attributrable to individual car models). There is a formula - quite a complex one - that gives you a theoretical drag coefficient and if you find some of the variables hard to determine or of dubious relevance you can adjust the formula. If you are not taken by the theoretical approach you can measure actual air flow over a vehicle in a wind tunnel, but I understand that at the margin different models do slightly less well in some tunnels than in others, and of coure most of us cannot readily access wind tunnels. BLMC never had their own, I think, but will have used the one at MIRA in the English Midlands. Presumably things like panel fit, ambient temperature and air pressure, and tyre details will also, at the margin, give you different results for similar vehicles. However, between the classic Mini and the Clubman fronted Mini, we are not at the margin. For all that ramble, it will indeed always be a good thing to be able to cite something more objectively authoritative than the fact that something is a statement of the bleeping obvious, and I trust a published source can be dug out probably by one of us! Regards Charles01 11:04, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ritmo

Hi, yeh I probably tought the pic was removed, so i removed the file name..sorry.--— Typ932T | C  12:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Triumph 2000

Thanks for your comments regarding the Triumph 2000 article. I'm sorry if I sounded a bit harsh. I will add to the article when I have time (huh!) I have a book detailing the full history of the car and also read the articles on austin-rover.co.uk which I can use for accuracy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LewisR (talk • contribs) 22:12, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Standard Pennant

The image wouldn't work at first because the image tag (with no photo info) was already in the infobox. When you added your photo the tag appeared twice and so didn't work. Malcolma 20:41, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Colt/Lancer

It's obviously the same car, whatever name it goes by. I put it in this article because there were no other 3-doors illustrated. IFCAR 22:06, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not at all...

...but there's lorra lorra articles with links left to disambig... Care to tackle a few, I've done templates, but need a break from that for a moment... PrinceGloria (talk) 20:44, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DAF

Hi, Im not sure where I got the station wagon info... It maybe be wrong, so just change it, NL wiki says: Sedan, pick-up, van --— Typ932T | C  20:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Done. Best Charles01 (talk) 20:35, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] EuroNCAP

Hi, Yes I have noticed they have those, they have also that clever show/hide more details, that could be maybe good idea to consider also en wikipedia, as this current box is quite small for all kind of info, other way to include Euroncap ratings can be seen here: Škoda Fabia, thats using Template:Rating. One current info which could be also good nowadays is C02 ratings, these enviroment and safety things are getting more and more major role in cars sale.

--— Typ932T | C  14:04, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Colt/Mirage

The picture you posted on the Mitsubishi Mirage page of the green Colt 1400 in Cambridge is of particular interest to me. Take a look at http://www.ratdat.com/?p=125 and you'll see why! Thankyou for putting it online!

Ratdat (talk) 15:25, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Is that serendipity? Not sure it is. But it must be one of those chances of 1 to 1000 against. Then again, if each week we encounter a thousand 1 in 1000 chances that end up on the side of the 999, then the really unbelievable bit would be if the 1 in 1000 NEVER came round. In the early 1980s I worked in the travel trade and a large chunk of the remuneration involved the chance to travel on (otherwise) empty seats: I had the habit, when travelling, of photographing cars. And when I came home to Cambridge, I used to cycle round at weekends, sometimes, doing much the same. It was regarded as pretty darned geeky by friends and, much of the time, me. But it's handy, now, for Wikipedia where there seems to be an abundance of car photos covering the cars from the last 15 or so years, but relatively few from the 1970s and 1980s (and, alas, even fewer from the preceding decades). As another coincidence, in 1985 my father died and I inherited his Mitsubishi Colt Galant 1.6 GL (UK nomenclature: Mitsubishi loved to confuse us by calling their cars by any one of half a dozen different names according to where you lived): thereafter I, too, for several years had my car serviced at the dealer in Waterbeach named in your webpage entry. I found them helpful and competent. But back in the earlier 1980s I didn't have a car: travel money went on British Rail season tickets for London commuting which (then as now) were horribly expensive for what they offered in terms of rail travel costs in the rest of Europe. I don't know how well you know Cambridge, but 'your' car I photographed opposite E{?m)manuel College, roughly (then as now) outside the Robert Sayle main entrance. So maybe the bus in the background has just emerged from Drummer Street, unless it has come along from whatever the road was called that back then went past Woolworth's. I photographed the Colt because it was a new model in a clean condition. The silly angle was probably a device to avoid including something irrelevant in the shot: back then it wasn't so easy to crop and clean up pictures after they came back from the developpers' lab. Hmmm small world and that. And thanks for taking time to inform me of this instance... Regards Charles01 (talk) 16:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Jaguar Mark VIII

Maybe that picture is the previous model, see http://www.motorbase.com/profiles/vehicle/picture.ehtml?i=922;p=38379437, compare to this http://www.motorbase.com/profiles/vehicle/picture.ehtml?i=914;p=-1541865511 I fixed the 10 feet --— Typ932T | C  20:31, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

On the formula, thank you.
On the windscreen, German wiki says '...die nun leicht gebogene Windschutzscheibe verzichtete auf einen Mittelsteg...' which I think means that he thinks the Mark VIII still had a divided front windscreen. But of course he could be wrong: I do not know his source. I don't think the website picture to which you send me provides decisive evidence, because I do not sense that this is notably more reliable than wiki-de. (Or do you disagree?) There are still quite a lot of these cars around here in England: they come out for Jaguar enthusiast meetings on summer evenings. Those events sound glorious though no doubt each time one of those old Jaguars moves, the sea level rises by another hair's breadth. I'll try and get to a Jaguar event later in the year and see if I can do some research involving enthusiasts and real cars....
Best wishesCharles01 (talk) 20:44, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Here is somekind of model guide http://www.big-jags.de/jagseng/jaguar_modelguide.html rgds --— Typ932T | C  20:47, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
ok, the case does begin to build! Also I just (belatedly) looked up verzichten in my Langenscheidt. I've moved the image from the Mark VIII page.
On the Mark VII I was about to start an article but I got a message stating that an earlier article on the car got deleted 2005. I couldn't work out, from the deletion log, why it got deleted. But I put a message on the talk page of someone whose name appears on the deletion log (calls himself Angry Monkey or some such) to try and find out more before attempting another entry on the Mark VII. Regards Charles01 (talk) 20:55, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the VII article can be started, there was only some junk text --— Typ932T | C  21:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] bhp

Hi check these is 190 PS around 187.416 bhp? Im not so familiar with british bhp .You can change the rounding with that 0 and 1 in formula. That Auto PS gives old US hp value and convert gives hp as PS value.


{{convert|187.416|bhp|1|abbr=on}}
{{auto bhp|187.416|1}}
{{convert|187.416|bhp|0|abbr=on}}
{{auto bhp|187.416|0}}

{{convert|140|kW}}
{{Auto PS|190|0}}


  • 187.416 bhp (139.8 kW)
  • 187.416 bhp (139.8 kW)
  • 187.416 bhp (140 kW)
  • 187.416 bhp (140 kW)


  • 140 kilowatts (190 hp)
  • 190 PS (187 hp/140 kW)


--— Typ932T | C  17:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I think probably this is going to be my answer, but I'll need to work through it for myself to be sure I've understood it! Regards Charles01 (talk) 17:38, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
This whole horsepower thing is quite complicated, as many articles here has bhp units but actually they are PS units, same goes to hp vs PS, it can mean same or then totally different ....thats why I use always PS because im more familiar with those and they arent so easily mixed with US hp. --— Typ932T | C  17:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes. That spells out the problem with useful clarity. And you sent me back to one or two interesting wiki articles on the subject. But I'm not sure how many people in Britain know what PS is. I guess they'll have come across it if they work in or near the auto industry. Otherwise ... Charles01 (talk) 18:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
So British use also bhp (DIN) as meaning this PS [YES -CH] and then there is this old bhp [sort of: elaboration follows -CH]? I have been talking this hp thing earlier also see: Talk:Alfa Romeo Giulietta --— Typ932T | C  18:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I was born in England and I live in England. But in between I lived in different places including Netherlands (where they effectively use ps) and Germany. So my understandings may be wrong. But I do read and talk about cars, in England and in English, more than average. And even though such discussion is not commonly preceded by a pause to define our terms ... here are my understandings.
Today if an Engish person says bhp, my understanding is that he means PS (even though he probably has never heard of PS).
My earliest memory on this effectively goes back to the 1960s. Back then if the car was American the Englishman saying bhp meant bhp (SAE): If the car was mainland European, the Englishman saying bhp probably meant bhp (DIN) (which I think became PS at some stage). If the car was English, you were encouraged to specify whether you meant bhp (DIN) or bhp (SAE). I think generally if it wasn't specified (1) you didn't know for sure but (2) probably you meant bhp (DIN). However, I've a feeling that advertisers sometimes continued with bhp (SAE) (without spelling it out too loudly) because it gave a higher value. And British automakers who found the US an important export market were more likely than others to have the bhp (SAE) values quoted on their behalf even in publications intended for UK readers. (eg certain British sports cars)
If that sounds confused (1) it is and (2) that maybe because the situation was confused but (3) it may just be I that am confused.
But I thought my understandings might be relevant. I'm reassured by your exchange on the Guilietta talk page that I'm not the only one tripping over these ditches. Regards Charles01 (talk) 18:38, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for leaving me a note on my talk page. It's a difficult one where it's almost impossible to create one rule that will make everyone happy. I suspect you are right about the Englishman saying bhp probably meant bhp (DIN) (=PS?) in many (but not all) cases. In fact he probably means whatever the car maker states in the owners manual.
In the case of Wikipedia automotive pages, my concerns about using these conversions is that in some cases we are creating pages with bhp numbers that won't be supported by any reference. In some cases the original figure might have been PS or bhp. Personally I think it's more important to have good references (and let the reader decide for themselves) than to try a convert everything... and I think it's bad to perform conversions without proper references or in such a way that hides the conversion from the reader and leaves them puzzled why the figures in Wikipedia don't match the ones in any reference books on the subject.
In the case of older cars I'm told that a variation of 2-3 bhp between engines off the same production line was quite common, so that the car maker might produce engines of between 78-81bhp (or CV/PS?), call them 80bhp (a nice round number), but whatever the real figure was, the difference between individual engines was greater than the difference between PS and BHP. I'm not sure if this is the case with modern engines.
One other question that I don't know the answer is motorsport. We have various pages quoting horsepower for Honda, Cosworth and Ferrari... do English racing engine builders calibrate a Dynamometer in a different way to those in continental europe and Japan? Sorry... no answers here, just more questions. Xagent86 (Talk | contribs) 01:45, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
On British usages concerning bhp thank you for broadly endorsing my understanding. It occurs to me that most conversations I have on this type of thing are with my own children which is not necessarily independent corroboration of my own understandings / usages. And of course few such discussions with any one will start off with careful agreement on the definition of terms.
On how English racing engine builders calibrate a Dynamometer, if that is what they call it, I suppose there's nothing (except the value of what better use you could make of the time) to stop you taking fifteen minutes to prepare a careful semi-standard letter (or email, but letters are more likely to get a reaction) and sending it to the press officers of organisations likely to know the answer. I'm not too much a follower of racing, but maybe an Oxfordshire based F1 Team using engines from Mainland Europe... Do Williams still use a BMW engine? For that matter, do MacLaren still use an M-B engine, except that in most walks of life the press offices of Numbers 2 - 9 tend to be better attuned to maintaining the company profile than those of Number 1. (If you don't like press officers write to the CEOs, but that increases the risk of getting a polite but meaningless reply.) Or how about one of the less monoculturally British BTC contenders. SEAT?. I guess it depends how keen you are to know and how clearly you can frame your question and (most importantly) whether your letter is opened by a bimbette or an engineer (or most likely some mix of the two, but howso mixed?). But the only certainty is if you don't ask you won't find out. (I guess the other near certainty is that if you ask me you won't find out either.) I suppose you might write to the presenters of BBC's Top Gear (who feature a lot in Wikipedia I can't help noticing) but I suspect those guys get so much correspondence that the chances of getting a useful answer are vanishingly remote. If yuo live in UK you may know whether Channel 5's "Fifth Fear" programme still exists. If they do (still exist on air), they might get fewer letters so be keener to react to the ones they do get: also I think Jason Plato, who contends rather impressively in the BTC championship in a SEAT, sometimes fronts for them.
On horse power, especially (if I might) with UK production technologies which allowed for fantastically loose production tolerances well through and beyond the 1970s, I'm sure you're right that even as cars came of the production line, there will have been a considerable variability around a mean. And while in Germany the TUV might have taken it upon itself to be aware whether the manufacturers' quoted figure was within a gnats crotchet of the true mean, I rather doubt if the Longbridge and Ryton Weights and Measures inspectorates would have been much engaged in such matters. I reserve the right to be wrong about that, of course, but I know what I think....
On horse power and wikipedia, I've stopped using the hp conversion forulae not least because I'm not sufficiently up to speed with the structures and assumptions in the formulae to get under their skin. I simply enter both values (as in the Borgward Hansa 1500 article I just (rather loosely...) translated from the German to the English wiki). If the relationship between the bhp and the kW looks dodgy I get out a calculator and check the ratio. If I have am anglophone bhp figure but not a kW (eg in the Culshaw & Horrobin catalogue of British Cars 1895 - 1975) I impute a ratio from figures I do have and trust, assuming DIN figures were used unless I have reasonable reason to doubt it. If I have reason to doubt it, I leave out the power output figure. But I think the ratio is linear so moderately hard to get very wrong (though since my higher education involved mostly political and economic history my understanding on such matters is not to be taken on trust).
Thanks again for a useful and interesting reaction. On with Wednesday. Regards Charles01 (talk) 07:39, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
One good thing with conversion templates is that vandalism isnt so easy to do (easier to see sneaky changes), the ratios are always the same and not so easy to make mistakes, the only thing is that you have to be sure what is the original standard, looks like old cars have almost always bhp even italian car resources (books etc) --— Typ932T | C  08:27, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Didn´t they use CUNA CV in Italy, which roughly is said to equal gross SAE hp? [1] Anyway, according to the latest EU standards, no more distinction between (net) bhp and DIN PS, see here [2]...--328cia (talk) 09:35, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi Charles just inform you that there is now new conversion templates available to bhp/ps/kW, you can see them on my user page where is some examples rgds --— Typ932T | C  08:52, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Yes, I had noticed. Just hadn't got round to working through them. But the BMW 501 entry probably will be where I do that (unless you already have).  ::Also thanks for the 'translated from' format. I think it works well, but one needs to be a bit careful, especially where sourcing from more than one language per article, about the wording. Plus I just failed to copy it from the BMW 501 article to the Vauxhall Velox article. But no doubt I just need to get used to it....Regards Charles01 (talk) 12:12, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Twingo

There must be some good way to find all the markets that are now right hand drive... more difficult to find out whether Twingo II is headed there. My wife is French and adores these cars. Where we live (USA) there are few if any B-segments or smaller... til we get the Smart Fortwo. We do have the Chevrolet Aveo. What to Brits think of B-segments in general? If I had to say, I'd say it's an uphill slog here for any such cars: the Aveo seems to engender a visceral aggression. I'm thinking its an ok car of modest capability and, like the Twingo, suprisingly decent packaging.

Look forward to more contribs on the Twingo -- the article seems light for a car that had as much impact as it did. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 842U (talk • contribs) 00:47, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I think European attitudes to the B segment are in practice probably more positive than in the US. Something to do with gasoline costing six bucks a gallon even in Luxembourg. It's eight bucks in England. France is between those two extremes. The good news is that it's mostly tax, and some of the fuel tax is set at a flat rate (and not as a %). So when the pretax price increases by one dollar a gallon, that takes the retail price from (say) USD 6.75 to (say) USD 8. Up 18.5%). If the pretax price was the post tax price then I guess it would take you from maybe USD 1 to USD 2. Up 100%. But overall the higher burden of taxation in Europe does clog up the economy, even if it can, where government administration is intelligently applied (so not normally in the UK) smooth out the worst of the troughs as well as of the peaks in the economic cycle.
My first car was a Renault 5 which sort of defined the B segment as we currently know it in Europe. Great fun to drive and good value. But of course I prefer to drive something a little quicker and I often need to drive something with a bit more space. That's what this Brit thinks of the B segment in general. Attention increasingly focuses on the other extreme. The fashion for Ford Explorer type vehicles has now taken off in many parts of Europe which is great for the manufacturers. You can built and fit out the things for not much more than the cost of a decent light van and price them against large Mercedes sedans. But as your wife will remember from France, European roads aren't that wide. The roads are even narrower in Britain and in the Netherlands, and the land is expensive, so you have to take care on the country roads, and at the shopping malls the local planning authorities love to specify parking slots that are smaller than the cars needing to use them. Our mpv has sliding side doors at the back, but even so I need, if using it, to choose where to shop with a little bit of extra care because of those parking issues. Your wife has probably forgotten it now, but I think the first impression Europeans have when they arrive in the US (especially if you can avoid New York and one or two other relatively claustrophobic bits on the east coast) concerns all that space...
As for Maltese Twingos, no doubt wikipedia has Maltese contributors. But there's no guarantee that any of them is a car nut, of course. Charles01 (talk) 07:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Data tables

Dear Charles, thank you for your elaborate message. Please let me finish my day´s work first; I´ll gladly come back to you in two hours or so. Regards, --328cia (talk) 19:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Just finished my (boring) work, brewed a cup of espresso, and here we go with renewed vigor.

I took the 411/412 data from the ubiquitous Werner Oswald´s standard books on German cars; in December, when I wrote that specific table, I had just acquired a set of the latest edition of that book. Apparently, I took the easy route and did not split the data completely down, for whatever reason. Of course, it is entirely possible to do just this, but it requires a bit more work. The top speed and acceleration range (Oswald uses works figures) accounts for manual/automatic versions; also the body style (aerodynamics) and the weight of the cars makes for differences here. Oswald´s fuel consumption figures are his own (but rather realistic, I must say) estimates; Automobil Revue gives estimates, if the works don´t provide figures, but usually DIN figures (a single figure measured at a constant 110 km/h or at 3/4 of top speed, if I remember correctly, in the 60s and 70s, later the complete DIN/JIS/EPA cycle figures where available). Weight figures in both cases are standardized DIN figures (with full tank, I believe; since 1995 or so including 75 kg for the driver).

The 412 had a wider track than the 411, so the second figures refer to the 412.

I´m sure alimentation is the wrong term, I mixed it up with Italian alimentazione. Aspiration should be correct, I think. The decision to convert the Citi Golf table into English and pose the whole question on en:wp was a spontaneous one, so I might have erred with the terminology.

And of course, giving readers outside of Germany German prices is nonsense. I do have sources for the USA, but not for the UK (or other countries).

I´m not sure if I understand this sentence: «I personally would prefer it if either (1) you put all the values that differ according to column together or else (2) you repeat the column headings where, AFTER having merged the columns for data concerning which all versions share common data, you THEN return to individual columns.», but I´m quite tired right now. Anyway, I´m not a PC wizzard; the table I am using was originally conceived by a friendly fellow for de:Porsche 356, and although I have achieved limited mastery in adapting it, more complicated alterations are out of my reach for the time being.

I´ll go over the 411/412 table in the next 20 minutes; maybe it´ll be more to your (and my) liking after that.

I´m watching the discussion I started with some interest, but it seems apparent already at this time that there won´t be a consensus. Tot capita, quot opiniones, or Noah´s Ark, as you so humorously wrote.

And by the way, thank you for the pictures you have uploaded. I think these are very valuable additions, and just tonight I put your Frankfurt Iso Grifo picture to good use. Also, are you living in France or Belgium?

Regards, Michael —Preceding unsigned comment added by 328cia (talk • contribs) 21:45, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Aspiration should be Fuel system? rgds --— Typ932T | C  22:11, 2 February 2008 (UTC)


Yes, I think most of my queries on the Info table with the VW 411/412 entry may have been more specific to that individual example than I'd thought. Anyhow, they have been easily addressed which is reassuring. Thanks for incorporating my thoughts so smoothly. I guess being able to hide the data table is a good solution for people who think the table over-dominates the article. The risk is that new users will never notice the table if it is hidden! So (in my personal opinion only) a better solution would, in most cases, be a fuller text, provided that can be achieved without writing garbage. (And as we know, we will all have slightly different views of what constitutes garbage.) Anyhow, you will never please all of the people all of the time, and if you try to do it too hard, you will end up with the blandest of all outcomes and progress comes to a halt. And the people will still not all be pleased.
I think I agree with Typ932 that 'Fuel System' works as well as anything I can think of for 'Carb or injection system'. I'm still surprised there isn't in English anything more obvious that any of us has thought of, but it seems there isn't.
I do not think the thing about columns is worth pursuing. If you had MUCH bigger tables it might be, but if that were to happen, my concern would become self evident. On the likely scale of the tables we're discussing, I think it is a non-issue.
And thanks for noticing the car pictures I've been uploading. So, that yellow Iso Grifo with a singular bonnet / hood was a 7 litre? I maybe knew that once but alas I'd forgotten. Looks impressive anyhow.
I've been photographing cars since my father gave me a 35 mm camera. Soon after he gave it me, I was sent from England on a three week stay with the family of one of his business colleagues living near Darmstadt to improve a little my German: I think the Iso Grifo photo was the result of taking myself off for a day trip in Frankfurt/M while the family children were still at school during the final days of the term. I've been photographing cars ever since, and in about 1982 splashed out on a much better camera (Olympus OM2) but somehow from about 1990, real life took most of my time, so in practice most of my car pictures were taken in the 70s and 80s. That seems to fill a bit of a thin period in wikipedia. (If I'd been around with a camera ten / twenty years earlier it would have been even better, but I wasn't.) Plenty of folks have car photos with no copyright issues from the past fifteen years, but the further back you go, the more there is a bit of a shortage. So a habit which friends found tantamount to barking mad ... has found a belated justification. And no, I never lived in France or Belgium, but I worked in both a lot. In fact, I often managed to have jobs involving a lot of travel, especially before I was married. And when you travel is when you have a camera in the briefcase! We did live in southwest Germany for most of the 90s, and in the Netherlands before that, but during these years there was less time for photographing cars. Now we're living in England which for me is 'back to home'. Charles01 (talk) 17:54, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the Grifos with this square bonnet scoop are 7 Litri models; judging by the pictures, the later standard Grifos with Ford engines had this scoop too, but also a longer droop-snoot with partially hidden headlights. --- Oh je, Darmstadt! I spent some time there (in Dieburg, to be exact) in the early 90s and was glad to return home (Bodensee). Have a good time! --328cia (talk) 18:15, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disputed fair use rationale for Image:Kreiskarte RP Deidesheim.PNG

Thanks for uploading Image:Kreiskarte RP Deidesheim.PNG. However, there is a concern that the rationale you have provided for using this image under "fair use" may be invalid. Please read the instructions at Wikipedia:Non-free content carefully, then go to the image description page and clarify why you think the image qualifies for fair use. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If it is determined that the image does not qualify under fair use, it will be deleted within a couple of days according to our criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you. Retropunk (talk) 05:41, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] BMW 503

Hi, did you notice my comment on 503 article?, "its debut at the 1955 Motor was the car’s sister model", does it need some fixing? rgds --— Typ932T | C  15:20, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it looks like I left out a word. Also the sentence was over-complicated. I change it a bit now. See what you think...
Regards Charles01 (talk) 15:39, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Yep its better now --— Typ932T | C  15:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] BMW models

Hi, I was just checking the timeline :), the BMW 2000 CS should maybe to change to cover all BMW E115? and yes that BMW 3.0 CS looks weird, have to check --— Typ932T | C  11:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah seems that it already covers e115...--— Typ932T | C  11:41, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 320

Hi, I tought 320/321 could be in same page, see http://www.unixnerd.demon.co.uk/history.html#320 , what you think? --— Typ932T | C  21:00, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think they are going to be better on a single page, too. As with the 501/502.
But I suppose I might change my mind? I don't have too much background knowledge of my own on cars from this far back. Till now I haven't really begun to get my head round the 320. You get quite a lot on the 321 by googling even if its mostly in Russian - more challenging than informative for me, but the pictures are sometimes interesting. But if you goodle 320, of course you get flooded with 'hits' on the modern 320. Anyhow, the 320 (old one) has its own article in Italian wiki, and that's probably the best place to start looking even if we will end up merging the two entries into a single page for the English language entry.
(Wiki-commons doesn't seem yet to have a picture of an (old) 320 OR of a 321. There must be one in a museum in Talinn or somewhere. Maybe. Maybe not. Do you ever have to go to Talinn?)
Have a good weekend. Best regards. Charles01 (talk) 21:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_1200_Sport_Coup%C3%A9

Hi Charles, this is for you. Took me some time to acquire the neccessary source books. Kind regards, --328cia (talk) 21:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

This looks good. And since it is for me, thank you!
Will you do one also on English wiki? My general German isn't too bad, but when I start looking at your tables and wondering about copying them to English wiki, I keep wondering whether the words mean what I think they mean - especially engine and suspension parts... My background, I notice, is not in enginering. Somehow when I get hold of Auto Motor u.sw I just skim over the words I'm not quite sure of, but I guess that's not quite good enough here.
Have a good weekend. Best regardsCharles01 (talk) 21:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I´m somewhat hesitant to expand my tables unto en.wp. First, it´s a heck of a lot of work to be done; second, I´m unsure in certain cases concerning the English terms (and am prone to mix up, due to my translation work, Italian terms with English ones); and third because on the project talk page there was nothing resembling a consensus as to what should be included. Let´s see. Maybe some day I´ll dare. Regards again, --328cia (talk) 21:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I went through some of these thought processes. Without necessarily reaching any very firm conclusions.
The nice thing about Wikipedia is that you are under absoluterly no time pressure other than that which you generate internally for yourself to do anything ever at all. On the other hand, if every time someone says 'boo' - even quite a long and protracted and thoughtful 'boo' - we are dissuaded from trying anything different, the project can retreat to a no novelty no expermientation mode which is only a few of notches short of ossification.
From memory five people entered a view on the Tables proposal on the Auto project page. Might be ten. It was an interesting exercise. They all have a right to their view and for the sake of argument we can advance the hypohesis that before deciding what to think, they had looked carefully at the proposal, considered the example and contempleted the alternatives. But there are, (again, the number is merely for for the sake of argument) a hundred people who regularly contribute to the project discussion page. Ninety (say) didn't enter a view because they had not had the time adequately to consider the proposal. Their opinions would have been of value, but you can't be surprised if they choose to concentrate on the day job given the limited number of hours in the day. And there maybe a further 900 who regularly consult project automobile adopted pages who never look at the discussion page. I was one of those for quite a while, before I contributed so much as a comma of my own. Might be 900: might be 9900. Maybe someone has stats for how often each page gets visited. But, to descend from the generalised and speculative to the specific, it would be interesting to know how many people look each day - more likely statistrically significant each month - at the entry on the Seat 1200 coupe in either of our mother tongues.
So there is a limit, I say, to the extent that your judgement about the wider reaction to those info boxes might be should be pushed in either direction by a discussion in which only say 5% (though possibly its 0.05% or less) of those who would be affected) participated.
Have you noticed ANY reaction to the info boxes in German wiki? If only 50 people complained, then most people didn't. If only 50 people wrote 'this is fantastic' then... But I bet there weren't 50 who opined in either direction that you can detect. Still, any reaction you did notice to the thing actually in action, would be as valuable or more valuable than discussion based on a largely theoretical understanding of what you had in mind. (Though it's interesting the way that english speaking wiki users and german speakling wiki users seem to notice - or at least to react - to quite different things from one another. That's one of the delights for us of being sufficiently multilingual to read wiki in more than one of the available languags.)
Anyhow, as you say, there's a lot of work involved even in a single table. Though obviously there's less work where it's a table you already filled and checked in German. And probably its slightly quuicker to do one table in two languages at once than ... umm ... the other way, one by one. So there's no question of a rush to anything. But if, little by little, you were to do say six over the space of six months and then stop to see if anyone reacted... Just a thought. Obviously (well, I guess...) you'd start cautiously, with low interest entries, where you've already done the research. The English wiki seems to have far more users overall than any other, but presumably most are statesiders and not all of those spend too much time thinking about European cars. Followed by German? Followed by Italian? (French language entries on cars - and other things that I occasionally look at - never look as intensively worked as Italian ones.) Maybe the place to start in English would be with the Seat 1200 coupe? Regards Charles01 (talk) 09:02, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Just for comment to the tables, just put it there, somebody will fix it anyway if there is erros and everyone is free to add stuff to wikipedia pages and reliable good info cant be removed without consensus, if people think its not suitable I think it will be taken under talks on Car project page again --— Typ932T | C  09:20, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello, you two - thank you very much for your observations and encouragement. I just added the SEAT table on en.wp, just for fun; please gloss over it any time you like and let me know of obvious mistakes. -- Of course you´re right, there´s the Sei Mutig/Be Courageous rule, no problem with that. The car section on en:wp just seems to be so much better organised with several people on patrol, so I did not want to simply go ahead adding tables (although I did add some time ago a Toyota Crown table) On de.wp there´s just a handful of (reasonable) folks and, as far as I can see, much less discussion. So far, I have encountered neither dissent nor encouragement as for the tables on de:wp; there was one case (Opel Rekord D) where someone removed the table, but that was quickly reverted. -- Yes, I´d like to have a visitor counter for all pages, that would be very interesting. According to wp, however, there is no tool available to look up the number of visitors. French, italian, spanish and portuguese car articles generally are quite poor, it seems, which is most probably due to the different, outdoor-oriented life styles preferred there. I did some scrutinizing on italian Opel entries last December and found them often to be italocentric instead of global, concentrating on Italy-specific variants and omitting models available elsewhere. -- Working out German and English tables at the same time or copying a German table for English use is not viable, mainly due to the conversion tables included in the English version; it´s far better and less time-consuming to copy an English table (Citi Golf or now SEAT) and adapt it. -- Anyway, have a good weekend and see you again. Regards, Michael --328cia (talk) 15:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A semantical problem: Gemischaufbereitung vs. Carburation/Fuel System

@ Charles and Typ 932

1. While rummaging through my piles of books I found a copy of Brian Long´s tome on the Jaguar XJ-S; there, on pages 44 to 49, there´s a technical description of the XJ-S, probably taken from an early Jaguar press kit. While for obvious reasons the section dealing with the injection is headed "Injection", the following paragraph entitled "Fuel System" consists of the entries: Type - Recirculating; Pump - Lucas electric permanent magnet motor; Fuel specification - 97 octane/four star. In other words, the term «fuel system» seems to describe, as I suspected right from the start, not the way the fuel and air are combined and fed into the combustion chambers, but the way the fuel is transported from the tank to the carbs/injection (pump, lines, filter). Or can it really be used to describe everything from tank to injector nozzle? Some websites seem to indicate such use of the term.

2. Also, looking up «carburation» in LEO (internet dictionary) I find the German equivalent «Gemischaufbereitung», which is exactly the generic term I used to use in the German tables as a heading to describe carbs/injection/turbos. I´m also sure that I have read «carburation» in this sense before.

3. Now, while «Gemischaufbereitung» can be used to describe both carburetted and injected engines, I presume that the use of «carburation» is restricted to carbs. Correct?

4. As an aside, aren´t there «naturally aspirated» engines and «aspiration ports»? There´s even an entry called "engine aspiration methods" on en:wp.

5. What about «induction»?

Being somewhat insecure as to what really is the correct English translation for «Gemischaufbereitung», I´m hoping for the expert opinion of native speakers on this. (@ Typ 932: no intention at all of embarrassing or annoying you; I´m thankful for your comments and help, but this thing just refuses to quit haunting me). I´ll look out for other English-language sources I might have.

A good day to all, --328cia (talk) 04:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

If there was an easy answer, I think we'd have found it! General thoughts only:
I agree that if I read 'Carburation: Bosch electronic Fuel Injection' that just sounds 'wrong'
I think you might well get different answers from (1) anglophones who have secondary level education (university degree) in Engineering or an allied topic and (2) the rest of us.
As you must have noticed, German is a much more literal lanugage than English. In German you can usualy tell what a word means simply by analysing it's component parts. That certainly applies with Gemischaufbereitung. You can find exceptions in German, and you can find plenty of cases of that also in English, but as a general observation I think it remains valid. There are far more words in English that do not mean 100% of what you expect them to mean!
On B Long's XJS book, and the point you take from it, I agree that 'Fuel System' could apply to a range of tangible and intangible matters as listed. But that does not rule out using it for a narrower purpose. If you say 'engine' does that just mean the engine block, or does it include all the ancuilliaries like the radiator and - excuse me - the fuel injection. When I drive into a river a few years back and had to have the engine replaced on my Seat Toledo, I discovered that 'engine' does not include a lot of things I thought it did include. If 97 octane four star is 'part' of the fuel system then 'bhp' is part of the engine. But bhp also depends on back pressure doesn't it - a function of the exhaust / muffler? Is the muffler part of the engine? My point is only that one phrase can mean more than one thing (even, I think, in German, though much less frequently and I cannot think of an example...)
'Fuel Mixture Preparation' is a very obvious translation from some other language, and anyone with a basic awareness of European languages would assume it came from German or one of its relations such as Dutch / Flemish. (Remember a language is simply a dialect with an army and a navy, per Chomsky who ought to know.) But if any English speaker who ever lifted a bonnet / hood sees 'Fuel mixture preparation' he'll know what you mean. It might catch on? If we use that, we might develop the language? I do not think most English seeing 'mixture preparation' will work out quickly what you are thinking of. Could be fuel. Could be windscreen washer fluid which most of us inspect more often than the contents of our fuel tanks. Could be a mixture of rabbit food.... (eg Because I feed my rabbit each day before I get in my car to go to work? (No, I never owned a rabbit in my life except maybe dead and cooked.))
Also, if I read a 'typical' motor magazine in English - say 'Car' or 'Top Gear' - there are fewer references to technical aspects than (1) there were thirty years ago and than (2) I find in Auto Motor u. Sport. MAYBE that does not apply to stateside journals such as Car and Driver: it is many years since I saw that one regularly.
So no easy answers. I'll try and work through some recent English motor magazines to see if that gives any ideas. And I'll try and see if I can ask people who work in more technical worlds that I habitually occupy. But I don't promise it will lead me anywhere.
Induction isn't bad. My first reaction is to think what they do to your wife when the baby is very large and but no hurry to be born. But I have seen induction used also in the context of Gemischvorbereitung. How about 'Fuel induction'? Not a phrase you see a lot, but it does sound a bit less clunky than 'Mixture preparation'.
Best Charles01 (talk) 07:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
HI, I have german-finnish automobile dictionary, but it doesnt list «Gemischaufbereitung» only Gemisch for mixture, but I think ::carburation is more engineer term and fuel system can be used to describe it also, fuel system can also be used to descibe all ::components in fuel feeding. We have automobile engine template where is fuel system see eg.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_G_engine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Windsor_engine
rgds --— Typ932T | C  08:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Good morning, Charles! Even if you don´t have a rabbit, you certainly have a habit...of quite hilarious associations. Induction...Yes, the more you think about things, generally, the more complicated they seem to grow. Obviously, even some termini technici are not quite as unambiguously defined as one might think. «Fuel system» seems to be used in a stricter sense (like Mr Long does), but in a broader sense as well, including carbs/injection, as I found out within the last hours surfing the net. So I think I´ll stay with it, considering also that Typ 932 advocates it. C/D, by the way, uses the term «fuel-delivery system». So let´s regard this question as settled. -- What you needed for your Toledo was most probably a «Rumpfmotor», one of the finest expressions ever coined by the Teutons and almost as impressive as «Selbststrafer» or «Zwangsentlüftung»; block and crankshaft only. -- By the way, what does BA/MA Hons mean? Regards, --328cia (talk) 08:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
And a good morning to you in Finland! As I just said above, I´ll stick with fuel system, as it can obviously, as you were kind enough to point out, also mean the whole shebang. And thanks for correcting the Seat tables; this copy-and-paste thing can be quite dangerous if you´re graying around the temples or lose concentration. --328cia (talk) 08:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello Charles, thank you for explaining my question. As I have left de:wp for good the other day, I didn´t see your kind response earlier. Well, I´m a M.A. phil. myself (Latin), but never having been to Britain in the course of my studies, I couldn´t make anything of the Hons part (sounds like some Dutch crook going around and stealing Toledos; or a Flamish 17th century painter). -- Started my latest translation project today, Mr Edward´s Aston Martin book, and consulted the AM website for it - wouldn´t you know, there´s «fuel system» twice on the same spec page - once for tank and fuel lines and once for carburation and induction. The book seems very well written, with a hint of humour, like, on the subject of Lagonda engines in DB2s: "The originality brigade are of the opinion that this is a sacrilege on a par with Charles V`s sack of Rome...a BMW 325e engine drops in rather nicely as well." Regards, --328cia (talk) 21:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think a bit of humour in almost any reference work helps to hold the attention, though it needs to be gentle. Humour that jumps in with both feet can distract attention from what you are trying to communicate. Trouble is, one fellow's gently wry comment can be another fellow's belly laugh. When people fell out of love with the reliability of the NSU Ro80 while retaining their respect for its brilliant aspects I think there was a fashion for installing the unlovely Ford 2 litre V4 in the engine bay. Well, it fitted in the bay relatively easily. Was that funny? After a couple of beers yes. After a few more beers, it should make you weep!
Thanks for sending me to the Sack of Rome entry. I knew Charles V and his troops were wandering round Rome in the 1530s, but am now better informed on some of the background aspects concerning why and how. (My degree was in history, but of course one only studies tiny elements in the overall picture, and history teaching is almost as nationailstic as running railways. It is UTTERLY different according to where you are. Maybe I need to try and check out the Sack of Rome in another language for a different perspective.)
Incidentally I've been trying cautiously to introduce 'your' design of info tables into (now) three little Auto Union / DKW articles I've been translating to English. I think wiki likes to retain 'info boxes' for all articles on the top right corners, and that makes sense to me - a bit like the other half of an 'executive summary' in a report (ie along with the intro para). But if you overload the info box with stuff, especially if you haven't written too much prose and there are few pictures, info box takes over. So it seems to me the job of the table is to give the info suitable for tabulation at greater length and in greater detail than the info box. And there is then a larger task to try and balance the two - plus the pictures and the prose section, so really you are trying to balance the four - without excessive overlap but also without leaving out crucial bits for folks who will look ONLY at the info box OR the table OR the prosey bit. I suppose at a detailed level I'm still working through how that balance should work in my own mind, and it will be a variable balance according to the extent and nature of available information. Anyhow, if you notice anything that can be improved (or, indeed, corrected!) in the way I've done the table on, for instance, the Auto Union 1000 (or predecessors) English wiki entry, do please insert the improvements if you have the time.

Regards Charles01 (talk) 07:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello Charles, I agree with you 100%. A certain amount of humour in auto books is acceptable to liven things up, but one shouldn´t overdo it. And certainly the interpretation of history is a highly subjective thing. --- According to my sources, the AU 1000 was never sold as a DKW, at least not in Germany. It was nearly identical to the DKW 3=6, and I have no idea why they choose to market the 1000 as an Auto Union rather than as a DKW, especially since the contemporary Junior was sold as a DKW. Maybe this had something to do with Daimler-Benz having acquired AU in 1958? In Brazil it was officially the DKW-Vemag Belcar, in Argentina the Auto Union 1000. --- Your tables look excellent; the dark gray horizontal lines are a very good idea. As a minor point, 44 PS is not equivalent to 44 hp; there´s a conversion template for PS/hp/kW. «tba» means «to be announced»? Also, I agree that if there is a complete data table included, the infobox should be shortened. de:wp seems to postulate an infobox in auto articles (at least some folks are inserting «infobox missing» tags), but there the boxes cannot be changed; so, as you say, with little text and several generations, the article looks odd, like de:Ford Capri did after I inserted the infoboxes. Friendly Mr Spurzem made a remark on that, and this was how the whole idea of data tables was born a few months ago.
By the way, please do not leave any messages on my de:wp page. I quit and will not log in there any more, so anything you´re posting there is lost on me. --328cia (talk) 18:12, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
tba = to be added or whatever, yes. I think it's important information, but my understanding of how Auto Union did (for instance) the suspension is not currently sufficient for me to attempt further elucidation. Auto Union was one of a number of companies that liked to do things … differently. Nor do I really have an understanding of how the valves would have worked in their two stroke engines. In fact, I'm not sure whether or not to leave the valve train line there. On the German article on the DKW F93 someone (might be you?) entered "Ventile ohne ohne ohne ohne" but I am too dumb to figure out how a piston engine can function without valves. So ... I don't know. I guess on this and all areas of uncertainty, my hope is that someone with better and more consistent sources will notice and come along to enter improvements / corrections / clarifications. Ditto horsepower.
Horse power (PS/bhp .. whatever) is a serious source of muddle for me with these 1950s DKWs. I couldn't get my available sources to agree completely, so I think I simply ended up copying the data from a combination of the German articles and Auto der 50er Jahre of Roger Gloor. I THINK an underlying problem may be that in English language brochures Auto Union used bhp SAE (US usage) values. The Brits generally used bhp (DIN) values which I think do equate to PS. But in the 1950s there was scope for confusion and advertisers etc were apt SOMETIMES to quote the SAE figures in English language publicity which gave a higher value. As discussed somewhere else on wiki (though I'm not sure you were involved) these to be manufacturers' values. I do not know if the TUV was testing them back then. I have seen the opinion that even if you took ten seemingly identical new cars off the production line and tested the bhp, you might, back in the 50s and 60s, have got a variation closeto 10%. These days tolerances are a bit tighter and so the outcomes should be more uniform for a single model, I think.
Mention of Mr Spruzem. That guy takes fantastic pictures. I think he must have a very steady hand or a very good tripod/ camera. But he also has a very good eye for composition.
I can easily avoid leaving messages on your German wiki user page, but other people may still follow you there, simply from the identity shown against your entries. Might it be any idea simply to set up a little message there with a link to your anglophone user page?
Happy FridayCharles01 (talk)

Hello Charles, for the PS/hp question, please see horsepower: 1 PS = 75 kp·m/s = 0.73549875 kW = 0.9863201652997627 hp (SAE). As DKW most certainly used DIN PS, 45 PS should translate to 44 hp and so on, although you´re right of course to point out the liberties works used to take in this matter.

I do hardly know anything about the technical side of two-stroke engines, but there were actually, I believe, such engines without valves in the four-stroke sense. On the other hand, this might just be another semantical problem; if Oswald writes: Ventile - ohne, it might mean the DKW engines had what is called "Drehschieber" or in English "rotary valve" - here we go again. What we need here is a DKW specialist. Also, the so-called Schwebeachse seems to consist of a simple rigid/beam axle plus the transverse leaf spring, but that´s just taken from Oswald, too.

Regards, --328cia (talk) 20:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy deletion of Reginald Jacques

A tag has been placed on Reginald Jacques requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a person or group of people, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is notable: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not indicate the subject's importance or significance may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable, as well as our subject-specific notability guideline for biographies.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. —BradV 15:30, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] production of the Panhard Dyna Z and Panhard 24

The production numbers of these two cars ar availiable on these pages http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panhard_Dyna_Z and http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panhard_24 Numbers coming from the book written by Bernard Vermeylen : Panhard et Levassor, entre tradition et modernité, ETAI, 2005 Regards Subaru-69 7 mars 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.225.23.122 (talk) 22:40, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Sir.
I still find implausible the following, selon Wiki F:
Panhard Dyna Z Production totale 28 651 exemplaires
Panhard 24 Production totale 28 651 exemplaires
I remember visiting France in the 1960s. (I am not quite old enough to remember the 1950s.) When you saw a Panhard 24 you stopped and looked. It was always quite rare. When a Dyna Z or PL17 went past you didn't. They were common.
Also, it is too much of a coincidence that exactly the same number of these two models was produced. I think, therefore, that there must have been a misprint in Mr Vermeylen's book. (Proof reading is a HORRIBLE job and these days publishers do not spend so much human time on it. They trust computers. And a computer would not pick up this type of misprint.)
BUT I do not think this conversation will progress until someone can find another authoritative source.
Bon weekend Charles01 (talk) 08:58, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Merci, Monsieur. Je rappelle bien avoir visite la France pendant les années 60. Quand on apercevra une Panhard 24 on a du s'arrêter pour le bien noter. C'était une voiture toujours rare. MAIS on y avait toujours beaucoup de Dyna (et de PL17). Pas du tout rare.
de plus, je ne trouve pas croyable qu'on a construit la même montant exacte pour tous les deux modèles. Coïncidences s passent bien entendu. Mais a ce niveau-ci, pas souvent. Ou?
Vérification des textes était toujours pour les imprimeries une tache formidable pour les gens. De nos jours cet une tache qu'on donne de plus en plus aux ordinateurs. J'estime que dans ce cas-ci nous avons une erreur d'imprimerie pour le livre do M Vermeylen. Je reste pas convaincu que l'ordinateur aurait pu l'identifier!
Mais j'estime que sans trouver une autre source du même niveau de plausibilité que le livre de M Vermeylen, la discussion de mérite pas plus de continuation!
Alors .... Saluts et bonne weekend Charles01 (talk) 08:58, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Barnstar granted

The Automotive Barnstar
I, --— Typ932T | C  17:03, 10 March 2008 (UTC) hereby award you the Automotive Barnstar for your continuous efforts to add great new automobile articles

[edit] March 2008 edition of the WikiProject Germany newsletter

The Germany WikiProject Newsletter
Issue II - March 2008
From the editor

This is the second issue of WikiProject Germany's newsletter. The newsletter is intended to help all members of the project to keep up with new developments and coordinate new collaborative efforts. If you think anything should be featured in the next issue, please leave a note at the Newsdesk
Other areas where you can help
  • Assessment requests: Some open Requests for assessment need to be answered. To see new assessment requests as they come in, you can watchlist the assessment page.
  • More task forces and subprojects: As this WikiProject covers a very large topic area, it is helpful to add more task forces that focus on specific aspects of Germany. Currently, we have a Mainz task force, a Munich subproject and some joint task forces with other WikiProjects. Any project member is invited to start a new task force. Suggestions for possible topics:
    • Transportation in Germany
    • German politics (the political system of Germany and the biographies of its politicians)
    • German Democratic Republic

Be creative! If you have an idea, just suggest it on the project talk page (don't forget to watchlist it).

  • Categorization: Uncategorized Germany stubs need to be categorized
Project news
  • Cities and municipalities task force

The task force dedicated to creating and improving articles on all German cities and municipalities is happy to announce that there are now (at least) stub articles for all municipalities of Germany. Now the task force is looking for help in fleshing these out a little bit. The current phase of activity for the task force is to copy in infoboxes from the articles in German Wikipedia. If you want to help, even just for a few articles, look at the instructions and links here

  • Article Assessment:

There are now way over 26.000 articles tagged as part of our Wikiproject and many still need either an importance or a quality assessment. Also there are many more out there that do need to be tagged like approx 8000 municipalities. If you would like to help take a browse through Articles needing Importance assessment or Articles needing a basic quality assessment.

- - Newsletter Bot Talk 14:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

This newsletter is delivered by a bot to all members of WikiProject Germany. If you do not want to receive this newsletter in the future, please leave a note at the talk page of the Outreach department so we can come up with a better spamlist solution. Thank you, - - Newsletter Bot Talk 14:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Helen Donald-Smith

This article may be of interest to you. - Kittybrewster ☎ 11:02, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is. Thank you. The best availble Charles01 (talk) 11:30, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Renault 12

Hello Charles, according to Automobil Revue, the R12 was introduced in September of 1969. Hope that helps. Regards, --328cia (talk) 19:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes: that's what I found on line, but somehow I believe it more if it is in print. So now I'm convinced! Regards Charles01 (talk) 19:56, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Whispering bells

Hello Charles, thank you for changing the formatting on the Goertz talk page. Please drop me a line and let me know how you did it, so that in further conversation with Moses I´ll be able to adjust the font size myself. Cheers, --328cia (talk) 14:38, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

PS: This guy with his heaven-sent knowledge reminds me of Mr Alfone on German wp who claimed to have been told by Peter Monteverdi that the latter designed the Volvo 740 (and the first Range Rover, too...), and similar nonsense, like the Cadillac Seville being a Pininfarina design. Obviously, once a year such arrogant morons are bound to cross my path. --328cia (talk) 14:38, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Somehow when you autosign someone else's contribution, the font size is reduced. The edit window includes the instruction . To undo it at the end of the line you simply enter . If you simply open this page as though to edit it, you'll see what I mean.
I don't really follow the discussions on German wiki. But on the subject of Monteverdis, there's a picture I took in Lenzerheide (where I washed dishes in an hotel for a ski season in 1978) of the Monteverdi Allraeder which I'm SURE shares it's windscreen with the early Range Rover and I assume it is therefore the Monteverdi Safari that was Range Rover based. But someone has 'corrected' my caption. Well, he might be right. But .... I think it unlikely. And I think Peter Monteverdi himself may no longer be alive (ok I'll check on wikip[edia when I've sent this). I used to have a friend in Binningen (where Monteverdi had it's being) when I worked in Basel, but contact lapsed many years ago.. Ho hum. Must take my daughter to karate now. Happy day Charles01 (talk) 15:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
On Goertz I feel cross with myself for caring about his title, because in principal I find that sort of thing silly (and seriously corrupting of those who take it seriously - ask that nice Mr Blair how he funded the Labour Party while loyal Helmut was doing nothing more sinister than refusing to discuss allegations of letting the French Steuerzahler fund the CDU....). They again, titles were presumably important to Goertz, so that legitimately makes it important also to us at least in the context of Goertz. Or? I know next to nothing about the subject, but I sort of assumed that the Linksradikalen who were in the ascendancy at the time when the Americans were persuading Wilhelm Hohenzollern to relocate to Doorn would have done away with the silliness of titles. From the anglo perspective, there's a pretty strong link between titles and emperors Charles01 (talk) 15:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you very much. I don´t care all that much for this topic myself, but I certainly don´t care a bit for self-serving folks uttering claims without anything to back them up; that really makes me angry. See also the BMW 507 talk page and Moses` own talk page. --- Monteverdi died several years ago, but I e-mailed the Volvo archives in Sweden; they strictly denied that PM had anything to do with the 740, and they should know. You´ll find details on that on the Monteverdi page on de:wp, in case you´re interested, although it´s not worth investigating, really. A good day to you! --328cia (talk) 16:04, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Interesting comparison

Between [3] and [4]. I wonder what it signifies. Kittybrewster ☎ 16:01, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Interesting subject for a study, I agree. Quite a long study, I fancy, since I suspect the answer would have quite a lot of points. Oder? Charles01 (talk) 16:26, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Top 10 of Europe

Hello Charles,

regrettably I am not able to help you on this. I haven´t seen such a page on de:wp (let alone it:wp) so far and have no sources of my own available. Pan-Euro figures are rarely publicized here, although you may find a notice on the best-selling cars Eurowide every now and then in AutoBild or ams, but I don´t read them on a regular basis.

As for Germany only, Auto Katalog used to print German (and many other) sales figures on a yearly basis; but all I have at hand are the ´60s editions and a single 1985 plus a 1992 catalogue; my other volumes have gone lost somewhere along the way. Automobile Revue only gives production figures.

Kind regards, Michael (new-born owner of a W126 420 SE, by the way) --328cia (talk) 17:44, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. My guess is it will sip something like 14 L/100 km, which isn´t that much more than my Alfa 164s. Anyway, I´m not racking up that many miles per year. I love Bruno Saccos W126 design (a SEC would be better still, but these command absurd prices), and this car was a) dirt cheap; b) is in excellent condition [three owners in 22 years - one industrialist and two retired gentlemen), no rust to be seen; and c) was right around the corner from my home - some three miles away! --- A friend of mine owns a 1989 300 SE with 650.000 kms on the clock - first engine, first ´box, so I`m confident this car will accompany me until it´s time to meet my maker - crazy German car taxes notwithstanding...
I´ve always liked the Polo; we had a ´98 or so SDI in office, and it was always great fun to zip through city traffic with it, and it was surprisingly agile with its 48 PS. Once I drove a rented Toledo (in ca. 2000); very pleasing looks, but the non-turbo 1.8 5V engine was rough and loud - what I would call a Bauernmotor.
That´s it for today. On my desk is Walton`s Audi quattro book for me to translate - a boring subject (for me) and the text is ever soooo repetitive.
Regards,--328cia (talk) 19:07, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiCookie

Just stopping by with cookies for those editors who started new articles. --Rosiestep (talk) 01:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Just stopping by with cookies for those editors who started new articles. --Rosiestep (talk) 01:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Thank you very much

The Photographer's Barnstar
...for the excellent pictures you uploaded. The cars are very interesting, and the backgrounds are sometimes still more interesting. Moreover: Your pictures are priceless, because you took them in the 1970s and 1980s, and in several countries. Randroide (talk) 21:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] George Duff

Can you please tell why this article starts with "captain"? Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 09:57, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed that it did, but yes. At the time of his death he held the rank of captain in the British Navy. It is because of this, and activites deriving from it, that he has had enough written about him to feed a small (but I think at LEAST averagely interesting to those who are interested in the surrounding subjects) wikipedia entry. Never having captained anything larger than a river boat for a couple of hours after lunch, I do not expect ever to merit a wiki entry on myself. On the other had, and looking on the brighter side, I don't anticipate that a large French cannon ball will blow my torso apart. I guess that folks who die violently do tend to attract more retrospective comment than they might, during their lives, have anticipated. Then again, given (1) his career choices and (2) the fact that the Brits were at war with most of the adjacent states at this time, I guess he would at least have been aware that his risk of experiencing a violent demise were above average for the population as a whole. Though probably, if you think back to the way folks thought back then, he would have said that the timing and nature of his demise were matters for God and not for him to consider.
Is there any (even) more profound concern that you have with the entry? Please share, if so. Thus the traditional dialectic. Or? (Probably more useful on the talk page itself if so: I'll copy this lot over.)
Regards Charles01 (talk) 10:21, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Auto image policy discussion

Thank you for your articulate, thoughtful, appropriately-witty comments in the ongoing discussion. Your point about IFCAR (talk · contribs) vis-à-vis Mitsubishi making it very difficult to describe their historic range coherently is a very good one. As I told IFCAR, I think probably a significant part of the perception of his behaviour is down to nothing more than the large number of images he contributes, but even though that's not entirely fair (compare the general perception of Microsoft), it is a reality and he will likely experience a good deal less friction and resistance if he will thoughtfully recognise this perception, acknowledge it, and work to ease it. —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 15:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Um ... noted. And reassuring that I'm not the only one to have gained this impression of one commendably prolific photographer. Though of course, if your theme is friction, I think you have to recognize that lots of folks simply thrive on the stuff. No further thoughts. Good weekend. Regards Charles01 (talk) 15:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] E 27

... from my talk page

I have added the link to the box for you and moved the article to European route E27 for consistancy. As for the maps, i've no idea. Try WikiProject Highways, WikiProject Europe, or the talk page of International E-road network. Jake the Editor Man (talk) 16:09, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Very many thanks. Regards. Good weekend. Charles01 (talk) 16:16, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] European route E62

Can you please provide some reliable sources for this article? Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 10:30, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes. As you may have noticed it's a translation work currently in progress! Charles01 (talk) 10:36, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Chrysler Alpine's plastic bumpers

We forgot about the Triumph Herald! Jason404 (talk) 09:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the bumpers of the Chrysler Alpine (and the Renault 5) were large mouldings, though presumaby they were bolted using steel components to the car's frame. I guess the combination of strength and rigidity in the plastics in question would be a function of developments in the materials technologies that had taken place during the 1960s and made this sort of combination available at an acceptable price for the auto makers.
I never disected the bumper on a Triumph Herald. I'd assumed they were old fashioned metal bumpers - the kind that turned up chrome plated on Ford Anglias and Morris Minors - but painted with some less expensive (and less noxious to apply than chrome) rust inhibitor and then given a rubber facing. So that in this case the structural strength would have come from old fashioned mild steel bent to shape. Pure assumption on my part, but even if I'm wrong at the detailed level, I don't think the rubber coated bumpers of the Herald really count as plastic bumpers - and certainly not in the style of those on the later Renault and Simca/Chrysler products. But I probably should stop burbling: the nice thing about wiki is the way that it has the potential to find an expert on everything, and I'm certainly not the expert on bumper design & manufacture in the European motor industry. Regards Charles01 (talk) 05:45, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] not a lamborghini jarama

Beautifull photograph of the green gt in London. Unfortunately it is not a Lamborghini Jarama. It is an Iso Rivolta Lele. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.94.43.203 (talk) 16:21, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you may be right. Who are you, please? Charles01 (talk) 17:06, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] please have a look at :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Quest stephane.jourdan gmail —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.93.76.226 (talk) 05:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you for edits to Dassow article

Charles, Thank you for editing the Dassow article. I translated it from the German to English, but still had typos. I stopped editing the article when I found out that I have a conflict of interest according to Wikipedia Guidelines because my last name is the same as the name of the city. --Dan Dassow (talk) 13:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing. It's the sort of thing one can worry away at off and on for months. That's what I did with translating Deidesheim into English. Not necessarily efficient use of time, but nonetheless sometimes irresistable. Though I've never been to Dassow: I don't have the background knowledge to worry away at that one in the same way.
Since you did make contact, I see you (at least .. it probably was you) include a red link to Moritz von Paepcke . If ever you have access to information to turn that red link blue, I'd be interested to read the resulting entry. By a series of steps, I recently discovered that I am distantly related to the von Paepcke family. (The maternal grandfather of Moritz came from England and had a younger sister from whom I descend.) Well yes, it's a long shot that you might be able to access sources on the von Paepckes. But the one certainty is that if one never asks the questions one will never know the answers.
Regards Charles01 (talk) 13:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Charles, so far I have not been able to find anything useful concerning the von Paepcke family. Unfortunately, a lot of German ancestry information was lost during the time of Otto von Bismarck. --Dan Dassow (talk) 21:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)