Who else liked Cathy Rogers better before she got the haircut and the tan?
I’d like to see some of the more recent British versions. IMHO, the first season was the best.
I have incredible predictive powers for this show. I have rooted for the winner in every single show but one, the river crossing one with the contraption on the bicycles. But it worked very well for those whom you would have thought were going to lose, like the coffee grinder, the catapult, the rocket, the plane and the dune buggy.
The only one I full out knew the outcome before hand was the rocket episode. I said to myself ‘oh that cone is going to cumple’ and it did and spun out of control.
I love to give it a try, although I’d need to know some mechanics but I think I’d make a fine designer.
My only question about Junkyard Wars is… what the hell is that skirt/apron sci-fi thing Cathy Rogers is wearing?
Yeah, she should take it off. My gawd, she’s a cutie.
All of these things are discussed in loving details at the web site of The Nerds, the MIT team that competed in the second season of the British version.
Apparently some of the junk is rejunked, some the contestants take home with them. “Crash” reported that Nosher from the Megalomaniacs has the walking jeep at his home.
The yard is salted, with items the teams’ experts have put on their shopping lists. The experts don’t go on the scavenging runs, though, for the sake of good TV. “Gee, I wonder if there might be a roll of mylar in that locked car boot, eh?”
Enola, I’m sure you’re right about importing junk. Why else would one find Oldsmobiles with left-hand drive and 6x12 inch license plate brackets in London?
Did anybody else feel that the Americans (and maybe the Brits – I’m not sure if they did this) cheated a bit in Megawars by making their vehicle modular? Although it wasn’t explicitly excluded, I expected them to have to make a single vehicle that could accomplish all three legs of the race. They should have had to keep the flotation gear attached even during the speed and overland legs. At the least, the issue should have been discussed as they did with the Brits’ ramp.
And anybody say anything about Cathy Rogers’ fashion sense – watch it, you’re talking about the woman I love!
Absolutely. I felt that only the Russians embraced the idea of the versatile vehicle. As such, they’re the ones that won in MY mind. 
Cathy Rogers… oh my god. Such a cutie. I want her in the weirdest way. If I was a contestant, I’d lose big time. I’d be too distracted.
My gaydar’s going off, though. I wonder if she’s gay?
I know we’re veering off-topic here, but I just had to chime in and say yes, IMHO. OK, the rules allowed detachable components, but rigging floats is pretty simple, really, and the competition would definitely have been more interesting if at least the floats had to remain fixed throughout the land events. It would have reduced the horsepower advantage in the speed trial and if the teams had to worry about bashing their floats off on the rocks, the hill climb would have been more even as well.
While I’m ranting, twenty hours to do little more than strip a Blazer of its bodywork and weld on a couple of cross pieces for the floats? And I was howling with laughter over the fact that none of those aerospace engineers anticipated that taking the fan off the engine during the water leg might result in overheating.
Doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the show, however.
Also in the Bloopers and Trashy Outtakes episode, they revealed that a costume designer custom makes the colorful team uniforms and also Cathy Roger’s outfits.
Cathy doesn’t always wear her outfit… in the torpedo episode, she wears a skin tight scuba outfit. In the outtakes, she was doing a lot of showboating in the water and they said she was disappointed that none of it aired.
There was also a scene that showed Cathy having trouble with the spring lever that drops the metal ball to start the event. The lever was stuck, so Cathy wiggled it and it came unstuck fast and banged her on the knee.
Interesting choice of words, since Cathy was in the cutie pop band Heavenly, who’s first two albums are top notch. Although Cathy only features on the second one : )
-fh
Are you talking about the Americans, or the Brits? The Americans had a Chevy truck. The British team had an old (pre-'94, I think, because they mentioned “V6”) Jeep Cherokee. By the way, the Cherokee did get hung up on some rocks, with its street suspension. But did ou notice how well it powered over the rest of them – with its street suspension? Yup. That’s a Jeep, all right! (I love my Cherokee – and now that we have rain, I’ll have to take it out and get it muddy.)
Actually, the fan was said to have come off of something else, wasn’t it? Not the Chevy. Else, how could it not iverheat in the rock crawling or salt-flat race? For the lake, why not just yank the hoses off and put them in the water as Hail Ants said? It worked for my dad when he put a blueprinted Olds V-8 in his boat back in the '60s!
Oh, yeah you’re right. It was a short-bed pickup, now that I think about it. Same difference. Point was, they seemed to take an inordinately long time to finish the relatively minor modifications. Well, they did have to make a few mechanical repairs. Maybe that’s what ate up the time.
Re: the fan, my impression was that they used it on the engine during the land runs, then transferred it to the driveshaft as their propeller during the water run.
Concerning the Cherokee, I was impressed by how it stood up to the flogging administered by those Brits.
Whoops. Make that “pre-'87”. The 2.8L V-6 was in the 1983 - 1986 Cherokees. From 1987 - 2001, the 6-cyl. option was a 4.0L straight-6. 2001 was the last year for the Cherokees. It was replaced by the Liberty, which has a different engine. Reports I’ve read are that the Liberty has less power, is less capable off-road than the Cherokee thanks to its independent front suspension, has less room, and the ones I’ve seen look more like a “sport-cute” than a “sport-ute” (I find them rather ugly – too tall and too short); but the Liberty does have a larger sticker price.