LovinMercedes

My car has been built and has now entered a 6 day testing period upon which time it will be put on a plane and flown to California.

I am almost done with my driveway so I can get the car up to my house.

Here are some pictures. This is half of the driveway. Once we test it we will complete the other side.

Getting close now.

vraa

So far it's looking really nice.
Might want to leave it like that and just get some kinda 4x4!

StephenK

You have to leave it to him, he thinks it all out, down to the driveway. I am excited for you, can't wait to see that new car.

vraa

That new car of his.

I'm afraid he'll have so much fun that he'll stop posting here

mick1

the term "the machine" reminds me of the salesman who sold me the bmw. he would always refer to the car as "the machine"

nice place you got

vraa

The Machine knows what you did last summer.

tiggerfink

Looks like the drive way has a steep entrance. I hope you do not scrape the bottom of your bumper.

LovinMercedes

The first 5 feet is completely flat.

MJ1133

Love the entrance to the house, tastefully done

Evil Duffman

That bobcat looks pretty lonely, you should take that baby out for a spin!

tear some **** up..... or down for that matter.

Patrick1990

Whoa nice house! It ain't every day you see such one, in Scandinavia!

Reno

Is there some way to delete the curb? I suppose water may wash onto your driveway but at least it won't freeze over where you live. I have a gutter at the bottom of my driveway and I am reminded amply of it every time I drive over it.

BTW, I love the way you put so much thought into your passion. I'm looking forward to learning about your new Vanquish S ... and driveway.

LovinMercedes

Tested a Vanquish on the driveway today and it went up with ease and room to spare.

Started the other side and hope to be ready early next week for the final pour on both sides.

The curb is being redone as the angle of entry is now off. It will also be flattened a litte with additional drainage put in.

Reno

I am more than entertained by observing the progress on your "civil engineering" escapades ...maybe I should fix that gutter at the bottom of my driveway. I trust you have an appropriate itinerary planned for the "machine's" break-in period.

Reno

LovinMercedes

The break-in on the Vanquish S is very different than Mercedes. These cars actually learn your driving style so the more you "baby" the car in the beginning the less it will perform later on.

The break-in consists of taking it easy by not going over 6,000 RPM or 135 MPH for the first 1000 miles.

After that you can do what you want.

During the break-in period you do have to make sure you "run" the car in an aggressive matter so it learns that you are going to push performance. The car will respond to your driving habits and ultimately your acceleration will be superior if broken in this way.

Reno

Well, that *is* quite different. That definitely warrants planning the break-in with your "machine".

This brings up some musings I've had. It might be be nice if carmakers provided an extra set of driver-modifiable performance settings (on EPROMs I presume). That way you can train the car to a customized performance profile and set aside another profile you may wish to set up differently. A lock-out feature might also be good for those occasions when you want to protect your settings from being "contaminated" by someone else's driving habits or prevent abuse of the car by toning down the performance when you have to hand your keys to a valet, mechanic or someone whom you'd only grudgingly allow to drive the car.

Another really neat feature might involve a lockable flash memory interface using compact flash or similar memory cards to exchange performance settings which can then be accessed on your Macintosh or Windows PC using proprietary software to ticker with the car's features. The more complex cars get, the less sense it makes to have to sit in your car in order to grapple with the features. I'd rather do that at leisure in my study or on my couch using my IBook.


Reno

Scruffyone

It looks like 6"+ of concrete ya got there. How much steel is going into it?
BTW, take that Bobcat for a spin. Those things are a hoot to play with, especially when you stand it on end with the bucket full. Ask me how I know.

LovinMercedes

Hi Steve,

6 - 7 inches of concrete with #4 steel 12 inches apart. You could land a plane on it.

OK...how do you know?

Scruffyone

Scoop up a full bucket and raise it to 4 feet or so. Nail reverse and gravity will do the rest, you will be looking straight down almost. Make sure you are on level ground.

VinceB

Lovin,

Did you tear out the old, pour/stamp half of the new, test drive on it and tear out the upper portion again? That's what the pictures make it seem like?

Well, you can't let the new one scrape, can you? Did the 600 make it no problem? It still looks beautiful.

I can't wait to see pics of the Jag, I think that will also be a sweet ride.

Cheers,
Vince

LovinMercedes

Hey Vince,

The driveway entrance was only done once and has been tested with a Vanquish. It makes it no problem straight in.

The SL600 made it with the car raised the 1 inch. It would not make it if you didn't raise the car.

Hopefully the Jaguar will be here shortly. The dealer really doesn't know exactly when except that it is September/October.

Below is the finished driveway now undergoing landscaping.

vraa

Try to line the driveway with soft stuff.
I learned it the hard way when we had all those beautiful flowers.. but I ran over them whenever I had to get out of the driveway in a flash.

Scruffyone

I think Lovin is setting up his drive for full power exits, full drift entrances.

LovinMercedes

Driveway finished with the exception of flowers...

vraa

Not anymore with what looks like a concrete mail box on the edge.

A few inches off, and it could be disastrous!