"briannutter1" (briannutter1)
02/21/2015 at 01:55 • Filed to: None
2
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"briannutter1" (briannutter1)
02/21/2015 at 01:55 • Filed to: None | 2
| 2 |
No trip to China is not without a fatal flaw. In this case, I screwed up my rental car reservation. No others were available during the busy Spring Festival weeks. I called upon my good friend Tommy Cheung at SCT racing Shanghai for a rescue. We pulled out my not-quite-legal-to-drive BYD F0 (pronounced F-Zero because calling it a F1 got them in trouble) racecar to drive the family around for a week. Passenger side door handles didn't function and we all had to enter from the driver's side, so I can only imagine it's been in some on-track shenanigans since my last visit. No GPS and limited roadsigns in English means I feel like the dog in the Beggin' strips commercial where the dog is thinking as he sniffs.....Bacon Bacon Bacon BACON...what's in that bag?...I CAN'T READ!!!!!!
They BYD was a complete knock off of the Toyota Aygo. They threw out the variable valve train mechanism as the most obvious transgression. Probably more important is they substituted for an actual Toyota Aygo in Chinese crash testing when their own became Swingline stapler raw material in testing. Then there's the BYD's limited accommodations for the 6 adults and 2 toddlers as I ferried them around Shanghai, Suzhou, Yan Cheng, and Cheng shu. That said, everything went pretty well in my book. The car wasn't confiscated or anything like that....because that's what happens when there are photo cameras every 100 yards that read your license plate and cross reference to a database that knows your plates are two years out of date. Luckily there are no cops to pull you over. I flirted with the the toll booth operators to distract them (both male and female just in case), but they were likely too busy with Spring Festival traffic to have me pulled aside. In the end.... no accidents and no more than 10 close calls...really that's GOOD for China.
Not to be confused with many nice roads in most larger cities, the road to my mother in-law's place is about as dangerous as I've driven. I call upon race car driving ethics and reaction times regularly to keep from loosing it...because the Chinese don't do Road Rage. That is to say 1.) Don't hit anything that will disable your own car. 2.) A good pass is one where everyone survives.
On this particular stretch of 2 lane road, it's lined with deep ditches and trees every four feet. Each tree is multitudes stronger than the unibody of a BYD F0 in a 2-70mph crash. It's dark. There's no lights. Tiny villages and unmarked driveways. There are many produce stands that have strawberries so good that everyone MUST pull over for a 1 kilo bag. The road is riddled with patches and potholes year around. The electric E-Bikes don't run lights at night to save precious battery life. Safety vests or brightly colored helmets are ten years in the future. And most of all,.... the Chinese are missing the self-preservation gene.
There is a hierarchy on this Devil road that goes something like this: Pedestrian, Bicyclist, Scooter rider, 3 wheeled cart driver, Byd F0 driver, Iron Horse tractor/truck driver, medium sized 3 wheel car driver, 2/3'rds scale 4 wheel Smart car ripoff driver (really), Chinese automobile driver, Large 3 wheeled Chinese truck driver, Western automobile driver, Chinese ripoff Iveco truck driver, Commercial bus driver, Semi Truck driver, and finally at the very top of the Food Chain; -we have the 80lb 60 year old heavily tanned and wrinkled man wearing clothes that are 8 sizes too large with a walking stick and cigarette that easily passes for 135 years old. This guy just walks directly out into traffic without looking because he doesn't give a fuck anymore about the capitalists that have taken over his county. Yes, that was a run-on sentence and I was literally squeezing within 3 inches of that guy and 1.2 inches of the car in the next lane over at 50kph. I fully expected to run over his foot....which was luckily size 6 instead of 10 thanks to a lack of meat in Chinese diets in the '50's.
There are a few other technical problems with running the Byd racecar on the street. New it was $6800 without the option airbags or cigarette lighter (really). Tommy and I spent another $3200 and adapted BC coilovers with 8k/6k spring rates, cigarette lighter, welded plate twist beam rear axle, spherical bearing suspension, and relatively huge and overboosted vacuum can Ford Focus brakes and race pads. 10 lbs of pedal pressure (about 1/10th of what a normal driver applies in a panic stop) will cause it to nosedive and completely lift the back wheels off the ground and rotate around on you. Even a rear brake bias valve fully closed, it hasn't alleviated the problem on the short wheelbase 1950lb car with 195/15 RE-11's on all four corners. I (at 6'2") literally must brake with my big toe. Like driving a drum brake equipped muscle car of the 60's....it just adds to the adventure.
The next issue is passing power. 1950 lbs is great, but the 1 liter 3 cylinder only makes 70 horsepower as measured at the wheels on my Tommy's chassis dyno. I'm completely equipped to do battle with Gary Kasparov in Chess now as the result of the intellect required to pass other cars with this little guy. The 195/15 tire diameter is a little oversized from the 155/13, so it might hit the factory claimed 150kph; but I never saw more than 140kph....even keeping it floored for several kilometers a a time. Still, it's a great little car...just not for driving on anything other than the Tienma circuit because of "other cars"...which I'll detail in the next paragraph.
In China, I'm the only one that drives a BYD. The million others produced every year go onto barges and float around between ports to convince Warren Buffet that everything is "going just fine". Other than a dwindling few Mitsubishi powered Delica mini vans and VW Santana black ex-taxi's; - "average folk" drive new Audi 6 or 8 (L) series, Buick Regal, Cadillac SRX, Nissan Versa, BMW 7 or X series, or Range Rover. Not an exaggeration to say that in the downtown of larger cities like Shanghai and Suzhou; there are more Ferrari's, Porsche Panamera, Rolls, Lamborghini Aventadors, than anything like a BYD F0. Having a "L" behind the model number is of all importance to denote a Long wheelbase. And buddy...they are long. Every.damn.car is available with a Long wheelbase now.....And oddly, the french poodle population is exploding (except Guangzhou perhaps).
So here's my advice if you have to drive in China someday. Like Ping Pong, the Chinese have raised the game of Chicken to a high art. Never EVER look over and acknowledge another ( opponent ) driver when you're both aiming for a somewhat open spot because they will spot your weanie-ness. You might as well pull over, tear up your green foreigner drivers license;- and call a taxi.
When in Rome, you must do as the Romans do. I had one BMW X series and two Audi A8L's determine that they could pull directly into me because they had five inches (not exaggerating) of a fender on me at 130kph. They'll run up on a semi-truck in the next lane doing 50kph faster and just.not.give.a.shit about making you slam on the brakes and take evasive maneuvers to avoid collision as they pull into you. Luckily for me (and taking a lesson from New York cabbies), I've learned to play hardball as I had this happen in Suzhou three years ago. My BYD's wide ass front tires leave huge awesome Nascar-like tire rubmarks on the side of their vehicle. The two toddlers are enthused with my behavior. Others (the wife, her brother, her sister, my other brother in law, and the grandmother), get a little freaked initially, but enjoy "sticking it to the man" if we don't end up in a flaming scrap heap. .
pip bip - choose Corrour
> briannutter1
02/21/2015 at 03:32 |
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Toyota Aygo knock off.
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briannutter1
> pip bip - choose Corrour
02/21/2015 at 03:36 |
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very. Everything except for the VVT. Let me amend the article.