the wheelie world
The 33p new car
The Wheelie person-of-the-month award goes to the six-year-old boy who tried to buy his dad a new car for his birthday… by posting 33p through a Mazda showroom’s letterbox.
The delightful story, reported by Ananova.com, came from a dealership in Essex who found the mysterious coins on the door mat with a note saying: “I want to get my dad a car. He wants a car from you please. My mum has got a car so I want my dad to have one. When is my dad going to get it?”
The garage boss said: “At first we couldn’t understand it. But we guess the boy and his dad must walk past the showroom regularly and maybe his dad said he liked one of the models.”
Five millions pounds of torque
The world’s most muscular engine has been revealed but it's no good trying to buy it to replace the 1.6-litre unit in your 1990 Ford Escort.
The gargantuan 14-cylinder unit has a mind-boggling 25,480 litres, produces 108,920 bhp at just 102rpm and, wait for it, torque of 5,608,312 lb/ft at 102rpm. Yes, that’s right, you could press the innocuous Ford accelerator pedal and unleash more than five million pounds of torque. That should get the kids to school on time.
We're talking about the Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C turbocharged two-stroke diesel engine built at the Aioi Works of Japan's Diesel United Ltd and designed for very large container ships. Even at its most efficient power setting, the big 14 consumes 1,660 gallons of fuel an hour.
