I'd recommend a 106 as a first car - I had one as my first car, and am currently enjoying my 2nd They're cheap to buy - for £1k you will get a decent condition reasonable milage 1.1 late model, if you look about. Insurance is cheap, even for my 1.4 in the first year of driving its not exactly a killer (well, it would be if i still lived up north). Fuel economy is good..230 mile trip recently, about £20 fuel.

Downsides, parts do cost a couple of quid more than the equivlant fiesta bits, it does have a "french car" reputation, and its not an entirely un-deserved reputation. Noticed the alternator belts started slipping when the engines cold today, and for some reason the stereo goes on strike when the lights are on.

Citroen C4. You know, the car that dances and skates stuff. Except this one doesn't. Maybe its broke.

Thanks Dan, you got PM. This thread is making me feel more motivated to get out and do something right now

Currently have two project vehicles, ones a HPI Savage 1/8 truck, which I've converted to run with a brushless electric motor, as opposed to an IC one.

The others an AE RC10GT, which started out as an IC 1:10 truck. It uses a similar setup to the Savage, but doesn't get used much at the min as this size car was never designed for the level of power in it, it'll lift the front off the ground at 40mph if your not careful.

I enjoy modifying them as much as driving them, but I don't see buying bits off the shelf as modifications. There's a lot of hand-made parts on these vehicles, making them true one-off's.

Wow, what you've achieved is pretty impressive, I'm at roughly the point where you started 18 months ago. Any advice you can offer?

Good luck with the training, sounds like you know what your doing.

Traditionally, GTA's are released for console in the 2nd half of their financial year, and announced for PC at the start of the next. But they're breaking trend this time, as the conosle release got pushed back so far. Wonder what they'll do about it.

I'm waiting for GTA4 & Burnout Paradise at the moment.

Last book: Red Dwarf - Backwards (Rob Grant)

Current: Clarkson - And Another Thing...

Next: Clive Cussler - The Chase

Got to love Christmas, I get enough books to last me a good couple of months. Mostly in shiny hardbacks too. I only read in short bursts (30 mins/day typically) so I don't tend to read any fiction thats too deeply involving.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Put the roof down and you have 63,000,000 miles of headroom (assuming no passing moons, satellites or birds. Or pylons).

But yeah, those long of leg might need to get an S2000, which is similar (but a bit less fun, and not quite as good at handling) but a big bigger. And I think Mk3 MX-5s suit a longer person.

Indeed, I can fit into a current MX-5 without problem, but the wheel is in the way of my knees on the older ones.

Only problem is, don't try and fit in one if your 6ft 5

360 wins out for me, every time. At the moment, it has a better game selection, cheaper games, better online service, better periphals, and more people own one, so its easier to find a decent game online. I can't see any of this changing over the next 12 months. Oh and its cheaper, £180 will get you an Arcade pack with a couple of games, inc one of the best driving games/sims released (IMO).

Its not perfect though..the units are built to a budget - the DVD drives don't have safety pads to secure the disks that even most basic computer drives do, I lost my 1st Forza copy to this problem (permanent fix - £2 and a couple of bits of adhesive foam). And they stop working a lot, although it seems the recent re-design of the cooling, and a switch to 65nm may sort this. The 3yr warranty for this bug is nice, but it shouldn't be necessary.

I've found it higly addictive, I found it via PGR4 - an arcade machine in the virtual garage has geo wars: waves on. Now I think i've spent more time playing geo wars than PGR4 itself. Vaguely recall a similar thing in PGR 1 or 2 on my old xbox as well.

Got given a promo "Live Unplugged" disk which has it on, sorely wish there was a way to play it from the HD with this, annoying the disk has to be in to play.

Do whatever you feel like, when you feel like doing it. There's no time constraints or pressure in LFS. Its not going to suddenly go away tomorrow (We hope!).

Personally I do a little of both - I race till i can't be bothered or I start to get frustrated, then change server and relax a bit sliding about. I don't take any of it too seriously, I get the most fun out of it that way.

Bloom/HDR seems to be seen here as a negative thing, even when its used correctly (not to say this title does, can't judge that on a couple of screenshots).

Forza 2 & PGR4 make use of similar lighting methods, and IMO they both look fantastic, as its used correctly. Unlike CMirt, which is terrible, in every meaning of the word.

Here's to hoping its Worms, or Geometery Wars.

The visual quality does look very nice, I hope one day LFS will reach that level of quality. The lighting & reflections look brilliant.

Physics wise, I expect it'll be 2nd rate as usual, but still fun.

Agreed, I wasted time downloading the demo and thought it was rubbish. The visuals aren't even all that impressive, apart from the lighting, which is quite nice.

Thinking of buying it for the 360, enjoyed Call of duty 2 & 3 quite a bit. Apparently its multiplayer is up there with Halo 3 and the like.

IIRC, the Drive FX has "fake" FFB, generated from the vibration data? But the force does act as a bit more than vibration.

IMO there's no decent wheel for the 360 at the min, apparently theres now a new version of the MS wheel with revised internals though.

I was a bit nervous ordering stuff from amazon before christmas, but was pleasantly suprised. Ordered some bits, delivered 3 days later, with the free delivery.

OT, suprised to see the G25 price has actually gone up slightly from its release, remeber paying £140 pre-order inc delivery.

I wouldn't risk riding a bike around here, sometimes its bad enough in a car.

I got a Sharp 26" LCD for my bedroom last month, and can't fault it. Its a regular 1360x768 resolution, but has a 6ms response, and better contrast/viewing angle specs than my pc screen. Hooked it up to my video cards 2nd DVI output a couple of weeks ago, LFS is quite impressive on it. At this size, the resolution is acceptable, the picture is impressive both via PC and Xbox 360

Wanting to hook the PC up to the 42" 1080p telly in the living room, not sure if my video cards powerful enough to run that sort of resolution at a decent frame rate though (7600GT).

One cat - Donut, and one dog - a labrador. The pic of the cat is actually him yawning (unedited, strange eyes) And the dog ones about a year old, shes a lot bigger now.

Studied IT, then mechanical engineering for a couple of years at college, and somehow ended up as a supervisor in a shop that has nothing to do with either

Quote from Eleanor SpeedGT :

Well i know many people who have registered themselves in UK and it works fine. But what i know is that there is two places under memberships to enter redeem code, in one place it works and in other it doesen't (says that it's not valid code or smth).
So maybe try again and tell me step by step of where you entered it, and if any error comes, write what it said to here, too.

Free XBOX Live FTW!!

Just wanted to say thanks, after reading your comment I tried it again in the marketplace tab, and it works Free stuff FTW Till payday anyway.

Rtsbasic

Currently playing Forza 2, PGR4, Halo 3 & Call of duty 3. Can't always play online as I'm using trial subscriptions at the min.