Upper Middle Petrol Head:

Finding a suitable adjective for this 1986 Zimmer Quicksilver is proving to be harder than I thought it'd be.  I was considering "villainous" and possibly "sinister," not because it's reprehensible, but because it strikes me as a having a sort of shady Manhattan vibe about it.  I mean, if you were waiting for Lou Reed's man, "... all dressed in black, beat-up shoes and a big straw hat," this is what he'd be driving, right? ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yPXBjVYLYA .)  Anyway ... .   According to a handy plaque the car's owner provided, the Quicksilver is powered by a mid-mounted 3.8 litre V6 which car guru Graham M tells me is the same Buick-sourced engine that powered the Commodore range from the VN to the VZ .  He also explained that the Zimmer Motorcars Corporation belongs to the same family that  manufacture the eponymous  walking frames.   Live long and prosper The underpinnings are based on a  lengthened  Ponti...

My 2.0 litre, 5-speed hardtop. Any Holden Commodore forum you can find will explain how rubbish standard VN to VP series' brakes are.  Even the anchors fitted to the 5.0 litre V8 variants cop a bollocking for having under-sized rotors, coupled with puny single-piston callipers, neither of which is anywhere near being able to bring GMH's finest to a quick stop after a sustained hammering. I couldn't resist a squirt of calliper paint! Everything's relative, though!  What's underwhelming on a 1,300 to 1,500 kg Commodore turns out to be pretty trick on a 970 kg Galant hardtop, especially when they're coupled with a set of beefier rear drums from a Galant station wagon.   The maths are pretty simple: a VN's 290 mm vented rotors, matched with finned alloy calipers and largish pads, versus solid 230 mm Galant discs with callipers of heat retaining cast iron and medium sized pads.  It was never really a contest!  The wagon drums out back are similarly over-spe...