Can anybody help ?

PowerStorm · Post by **PowerStorm** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 12:33 pm

Many years ago when I was travelling the M56 a lot I would regularly see cars, normally dark blue VW Polo's, with a rectangular shaped piece of wood or plastic attached to the roof bars(1ft high x 3ft wide). This attachment was placed face-on seemingly to provide most wind-resistance. The drivers would have stop watches hung from their driving mirrors.
These cars would always be driving very sedately at around 60.
A couple of years ago I saw another one, this time it was a newer Polo, stopwatch hanging from the mirror, piece of wood on roof.

Does anybody know what they are/were?

PS

bstardchild · Post by **bstardchild** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 12:39 pm

They (the drivers) must have been "Planks"

Clueless as to the "real" explaination - you don't need a stopwatch to time a polo - hourglass will do

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 7:14 pm

wtf?

are you pulling our legs?

...as if a polo of that vintage could top 50 with that amount of air friction!

(that's what you get for living in the soulless void between manc and ellesmere)

which one is the driving mirror in your view - the rearview or the right-hand exterior?
maybe they were pollution control officers responsible for keeping the poisoned air moving around those parts so no-one choked, and they just liked to drive nice cars

idea: pidgeon racers?

GroovyCarrot · Post by **GroovyCarrot** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:09 pm

Performance / economy / reliability testing under load, perhaps? Although, I don't see why they'd use a plank of wood and the M56 to do that, when I'm quite sure they have a perfectly good test track and a few heavy weights at the Wolfsburg plant...

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 7:40 pm

A quicker way of running in pre-registered mk2s for easy sale at the dealerships in 1990/91?

Testing the strength of the bars?

Or maybe just a few nutters (or even the one nutter viewed many times) out on a joyride.

GroovyCarrot · Post by **GroovyCarrot** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 8:40 pm

"I'm bored."

"Yeah, me too"

"I know.. let's get an old hatchback that thinks it's an estate, complete with a lawnmower engine and no brakes, strap a windbreak to the top of it to throttle what little power it has, and cruise at 60mph down one of the most dull roads in the country!"

"Dude! Great idea! But dinner's going to be on the table in 35 mins 21 seconds, better get the stopwatch out or I might miss it!"

"Yeah, good idea. I'll just strap it to the wing mirror so we don't forget about it. Wouldn't want to miss dinner, it's steak and chips tonight..."