Beauty in Metal

One of the nice things about owning a car is being able to fiddle with it at the weekend. Even a simple job like an oil change can be stretched out with a few mates, some tea and a lot of nodding. Regular readers will know that up until recently my cars have fallen into the ‘fix it at home with a spanner and a hammer’ school of motor repairs, indeed I have spent many a happy hour on the drive with a few like minded mates offering advice while a stubborn nut refused to come undone due to years of inactivity.

My new car is a wonder, but half of the fun has been stripped away, and for all its newness and clever computery bits it cannot make up the fact that Ford have denied me fifty percent of what owning a car really is all about

First off, it was made in 2006, so most of it is still screwed together in a reasonable state, strictly speaking this is not Fords fault as on the whole Ford cars are well put together, and if you look hard enough can be great fun. Secondly and most importantly, opening the bonnet reveals acres of plastic with all the moving bits and bits that could potentially break hidden out of sight under a ton of yet more plastic covers and computer sensors. Where is the fun in that?

When I was a kid (some would say I still am) one of my joys were discovering that the Dinky or Corgi that my Mum periodically bought me had opening doors and bonnet and I would yank open the tiny door and marvel at the tiny gearstick and even nano sized pedals that they had some how managed to craft from plastic, but not even Corgi’s clever and almost magical lighting system that worked if you covered a small section of the rear window…

(Look, if you are too young to know what the hell I am talking about then get on to the interweb and Google it. Frankly, like not owning an Alfa, not owning a Corgi or Dinky toy makes you less of a petrolhead, I suggest Ebay, and for the cool lights try searching for Corgi’s Buick Riviera, Rover 2000 TC and the best one of the lot, the VW ‘Toblerone’ van)

… Not even witnessing the lights coming on could take away my disappointment as I prised open the often painted shut bonnet and found that the engine detail was basically a die-cast rectangle with a lick of silver or black paint. Memories of those heady childhood days came flooding back as I peeked under the bonnet of my new Fiesta and found that yup, plastic covers as far as the eye can see, all the interesting stuff hidden away.

The more astute of you will say ‘Just take them off then you idiot!’ but I did that and what do I find underneath? Mogadon in metal. It was so boring under there that if I ever get hit by a bout of insomnia, all I need do is open the bonnet of the Fiesta and I’m heading for dreamland. Engines are wonderful and exciting things, they make a lot of noise and best of all can make you throw up with excitement if fiddled with in the right way. They are alive, things of beauty that should not be reduced to skulking under plastic covers and designed to look like parts from a washing machine. Honestly the 1.6 Duratec I have bolted to the front wheels of my car is a technical marvel, it pulls me along at 70mph, giving me 60mpg all day long. It starts everyday on the button, it sounds like a cement mixer at idle, but by some sorcery its virtually silent when the car is moving and generally does what its meant to do perfectly, but oh dear god is it boring.

Have a peek under the bonnet of a V12 XJS, or a Corvette and you will find something astonishingly beautiful, if not exactly economical, but beauty and economy can go hand in hand. Honda make some stunning engines, their B16 not only looks great but sounds wonderful and things get even better when you find one nestling comfortably and sexily in the chassis of an EK9. Staying with Honda, their amazing K20 with its red painted cam covers shout that if mixed with a large dose of Nurburgring and skilled driver it will turn excitement up to 11 and your bowels instantly to water. From the first time you see it you know this engine will go as good as it looks. Moving away from Honda, but sticking in Japan, Toyota make a wonderful engine that it uses in the MR2 and the legendary AE86 called the 4A-GE, its beautifully crafted and just revs and revs and revs…

All of these are small, powerful and economical but can be worked on with normal tools, there is not a plastic cover in sight, all of their raw beauty is on display, making you want to open the bonnet as much as you open the drivers door and invite your mates to look inside and take pictures.

Buses. A FANTASTIC Idea!

Some Buses, yesterday

Fully loaded they can carry over 90 people, removing the potential need for 90 extra cars on our roads, cutting down on pollution, congestion and harm to the environment.

A recent column in my local paper, written by a gentleman of advancing years if his picture is anything to go by, advised his readers by the medium of the headline ‘Quit moaning! There’s always the bus’. Intrigued by this, I read on and discovered how fed up he was of motorists moaning about potholes, parking, fuel costs, congestion etc. And how he “Does not drive a car or motorbike, neither does he ride a bicycle or any other wheeled personal transport aid” he is a pedestrian that uses the bus.

He then proceeded to inform me that the potholes that smash my suspension to bits, the congestion, the huge amount of tax on fuel and the fact that car parks have license to print money are all my fault because I drive a car. Also, he told me that its assumed that everyone who owns ‘a bigger and flashier vehicle, the richer (and by association, the more important) the driver’ and best of all the freedom driving gives is all an illusion because (as he puts it) he feels a great deal more freedom than the frustrated motorist behind the bus he is sitting in, as the car cannot overtake due to the volume of traffic.

I think we need to help him and others like him understand a few things, eh?

Ah the children of today...

Lets take this slowly and one point at a time. Buses ARE wonderful, the 90 people on the bus are either students, the unemployed, school kids drinking cider or the over 60′s All of which are either too poor, too drunk or too old to be behind the wheel of anything, and for this reason I love the jolly ol bus. Imagine if all those students had to drive, we would be choked with uninsured 2cv’s and Beetles, spluttering along gasping like a metal asthma attack, trying to avoid the eye of the law and not paying attention to you because the plump girl from the union bar copped a lift and was wearing that top thats two sizes too small… Then there is the danger of 90 more Rovers on the road, all gleaming like they were made yesterday, straw hat and tartan blanket on the parcel shelf, driven at a top speed of 28mph by a man who’s reactions are so slow, continental drift overtakes him while Doris points out interesting trees.

We pay road tax so the roads are maintained and safe for us to drive on. Well thats not quite right, we pay road tax and the government goes and spends it on a war, moat cleaning, duck houses or its mistresses. We do our part and then get nothing in return apart from wonky suspension, so I feel we have a right to complain. Fuel is expensive, but again the fault lies not with the motorist as he suggests. We didn’t decide on the rate of tax, nor did we decide to smash up the countries that its pumped out from. Even so I think that the cost of fuel is a price worth paying for the next point, Freedom.

When the transport minister parks a bus on my drive that will be ready for me anytime day or night, with my own private cabin with comfy bucket seats and a nice stereo, space for me and my family to sit and a nice space to put our weekly shop to go door to door, exactly where I want to stop, and then is capable of a putting a smile on my face as I swoop through some of the prettier parts of Europe on my way to a trackday, then happily go round the track for several hours at high speed and drive me home again, then Ill take the bus.

The idiotic suggestion that motorists get frustrated in towns behind buses is just laughable. The speed limit in town is 30 MPH and most buses can do this. Most bus stops in towns are layby types, so the bus soon gets out of the way, and in bigger cities there are bus lanes,all geared to keeping things moving. Any motorist that wants to drive through a town during the day at 60 is an idiot and deserves to be forced to take the bus with the students and other loonies.

Im not going to even address the ‘big car=big man’ thing as you and I both know that its total garbage. Cars, no matter what, are wonderful things. Its not the price tag, its how it makes you feel. I drove a bus for a long time. I was yelled at, spat at, shot at and moaned at all day long so I can talk with some authority on the subject.

Our friend here by his own admission doesnt drive anything. Someone needs to take him out for a spin.

Just in case you need any further reason to stay in your car and not take the bus, let me introduce you to your fellow passengers…

Wow! It’s a Peugeot Focus 318i RS VXR!

I’m very rarely surprised these days, I seem to have contracted a  state of mind that has grown over my psyche, encompassing it in a hard shell of cynicism and grudging acceptance. Sex, violence and swearing on TV hardly raise an eyebrow, but I remember back in the 1980′s when Channel 4 tried to advise the viewer that their late night movie might contain a flash of breast or the odd profanity, by putting a little red triangle in the upper corner of the screen. You can imagine how the ratings soared when that little symbol flashed up. I am even more accepting of other peoples terrible driving and terrible car choices because I really dont think its their fault. I think its just acceptance of the inevitable. Channel 4 took away their triangle as tv got more and more ‘edgy’ and boobs and swearing gradually became acceptable.

I was driving along the other day, minding my own business, when I noticed in my rear view mirror I was being tailgated by a black car. Thinking (foolishly) that he was up for a little fun I sped up slightly and flicked the car nicely through a rather jolly set of ‘S’ bends. Nothing fast, nothing dangerous, all under control and under the speed limit. A glance in the mirror shows our friend had fallen way behind so I thought better of it and fell back to my relaxed way of driving, right up until we hit another straight bit where Mr Black Car resumes its position 3/4 of an inch off of my bumper. I looked at my speed, thinking I was inconveniencing the poor guy by driving at 28MPH in a 60 zone (this will be punishable by public flogging when I run the country) but no, I was chugging along at 55. More bends come up so a nice swoop, linking them together and another glance in the mirror shows Black car way off in the distance. I’m by far not the best driver in the world, but I love to drive, this guy seemed to be perfectly capable of welding his foot to the floor in a straight line but totally fell to bits when presented with a set of curves. Any idiot can go fast in a straight line, when I went to Japan the plane I was on did over 500MPH for 12 hours straight!

Now I am really puzzled. The problem is not that the driver cannot take a corner unless he is doing 3mph. The problem is I cannot tell what the car is.

I remember a time when I could tell you what a car was, and probably what level of trim it was with just a glance, but now I am wracking my brains and loosing concentration on the road ahead because of this totally new emotion of surprise. Is it a Renault? Well it looks like a smallish hatchback but the headlights are not quite right. By this time, my passenger has roused himself from staring gormlessly out of the window,you know the look, the one only a teenager could muster, and realises that something is going on. “Whats the car behind us?” I ask, “Pug I fink” comes the muted reply. Its not a Peugeot, and this worries me even more. if  the young and trendy don’t know their cars or don’t see cars as interesting then the future of motoring looks very bleak indeed, and cars slip into the same value level as a biro.

The agony of not being able to identify the badly driven black hatch was solved moments later when the road straightened out and it bowled by me, valve gear screaming in submission, revealing that it was indeed a 2010 Fiesta Zetec S (and we all know what Zetec means, right? ) I was pretty amazed that I had totally failed to recognise who even made it, but very happy to see a nice Mk2 Golf GTi pass me on the other side of the road and give the Polo a big thumbs up.

You can’t fuel me!

I have said in the past that owning a car and then moaning about putting fuel into it to make it work is proof enough of the stupidity of some people. Its like buying a cat to keep you company and then being astonished that it needs feeding and taking to the vets once in a while. Since the dawn of time (well since I started driving) people have been moaning about the price of petrol. I remember when we all went nuts as it hit 50p a litre (yes I AM that old) and again when we all fainted as it tipped then infamous £1.00. Now its heading for £1.50 and I think all of us will just keel over and die.

Hateful, but a fact of your motoring life.

Im not saying its not fair, the government rubs its greasy little hands together every time the Arabs decide they need a change of Ferraris and put the price up on a barrel of crude, because to Dave and Nicky its a free stream of money. The amount of tax doesn’t change its just that we pay more of it. Think of the poor chancellor, he would have to put tax up and down like a yoyo each time Ferrari changed the options list and Sheik Abdullah Lotsofoil needed a bit more cash! The poor lamb would have to work for a living!

I am not immune to the price at the pumps. The VW drinks like a drowning fish when I put my toe down, so I find that I’m not doing that a lot and that bothers me a bit. Money is tight across the board and as I STILL haven’t landed that regular paid column on Top Gear, putting  petrol in the car is beginning to hurt, as I am sure you are all aware. The downside to all of this isn’t the fact that its costing more money. The downside is that the tax man is stopping me from having fun and enjoying one of the greatest inventions known to man, while he gets fatter, fiddles his expenses and buys a new duck house. Still, if you own a car you are dedicated enough to realise, even if you are not an enthusiast, the advantages that being able to drive gives you. What other invention gives you as much as a car does? It allows you to go where you want, when you want and with who you want at any time of the day providing you can afford to fill it up, and if you cant, then being able to drive opens doors to employment that non drivers just cannot aspire to. Imagine the thrill of being qualified to join the elite that is ‘White Van Man’. All you need is an ear ring  and a mobile phone glued to your head, or perhaps a Bus Driver? The joy of pulling out into traffic and not caring what hits the damn bus as they will come off worse, and anyway if the bus is injured, the company have a dozen more waiting back at the garage.

There are a few things that you need to consider and will maybe make you re think your whinging and proposed blockade of the fuel depots around Britain, the first one is one of perception. When you go to the pump, how do you put your fuel in? Do you do it by volume or cost? Chances are you ‘stick in a tenner’ well guys things have changed, back in 1999 when the summers were always hot and the girls always smiled and wore short skirts,  a tenner got you a lot further than it does today because it bought you more fuel. Nowadays, £10 is the new £5 and £15 is the new £10! The sun shines less and the girls all wear ‘trakies’ to hide their blotchy legs. There are those of you fetishists out there that just fill it to the top every time. Guys, my thoughts are with you, as I bet the hike you have seen over the years to fill your pride and joy scares the crap out of you.

Second. Relativity. Do you have any idea how much a bottle of Perrier Water is? Well I’ll tell you, its £1.30 at Sainsburys right now. £1.30 for something that falls out of the sky everyday, somewhere in the world. If your car does 40MPG then you can go about 10 miles on a litre of petrol (half that if you are driving with ‘spirit’) 10 miles is three quarters (or a spirited third) of the Nurburgring (or NüroDisney as it seems to be turning into, but that’s another story) What does a bottle of French fizzy water give you for the same cost? Gas.

Third is the most important, at £1.30 a litre its horrible, but think of what value for money your car really is. All year it sits out side and apart from the odd service and maintenance it asks nothing of you other than water, oil  and fuel. It always starts and gives you total freedom. I assume you are a driver, as you are reading this blog, so in addition to freedom it makes you smile as you flick through the S bends on a sunny Sunday in July. It takes you to work all week, where for the small sum of a tank of fuel, you earn a nice wedge. The simple test is this. Ditch the car for a month, go on I dare you. Take a bus to work, try and get those shopping bags through the doors of a number 31. Go out till 3am then try and get home. Wait in the rain and cold as the bus fails to arrive, then stare at the sign outside the Shell garage and see how small £1.30 really is.

If you really want to get mad, get on to the bastards at the highways dept that take our road tax and give us a lunar landscape to drive over and bugger up our cars, then fine you if you pay late!

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 20,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.

 

In 2010, there were 7 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 29 posts. There were 42 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 12mb. That’s about 4 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was March 23rd with 160 views. The most popular post that day was Keijidōsha, surprisingly fun..

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, google.com, zxoc.co.uk, search.aol.com, and twitter.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for nissan skyline, japanese cars, nissan skyline gtr, suzuki cappuccino, and skyline gtr.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Keijidōsha, surprisingly fun. April 2009
3 comments

2

The Air Facts September 2009
1 comment

3

Stig quits, Clarkson hurt and TopGear Damaged! September 2010

4

Music, driven to distraction. April 2009

5

My Cars January 2010
4 comments

 

 

On a personal note, I would like to thank all of you that have supported and followed the blog and my rantings over the past year. There are lots of plans for 2011, including a trip to Japan and a race around the Isle of Wight! I have a number of motorsport events pencilled in as well so there may be a lot of exciting posts coming. Or there might just be a year of ranting as petrol hits £1.50 a gallon and people still drive at 28mph in 60 zones…

Happy New Year!

Vive La France!

You need to prepare a little for this blog entry. A deep breath is a good idea and maybe a big pinch of salt. I need you to try and forget any prejudice you might have, loose any brand loyalty and  blot out what you consider beautiful. Done that? Got your pinch of salt? Tongue firmly in your cheek? Good because today we are going to talk about ‘France’ and ‘interesting’. I want to talk about what makes a car interesting and why.

I have been looking at a Citroen 2CV, and have to report this is one of the most interesting and clever cars I have come across. For years, like you I have seen them as a hilarious mode of transport for hippies and French peasants, laughed at their bicycle like tyres and tiny 600cc engine, but if you have the smallest interest in cars and how they work, and view your car as something other than a means to lug your subwoofer about you will take my advice and have a peek at this amazing little car. I will put some links at the end for further reading, I have neither the space or the authority to talk in detail but I have picked up some interesting titbits. Did you know there was a production model with twin engines and four wheel drive? The suspension has always been soft enough to drive over a ploughed field and not break the eggs but do you know how it does it? It has independent suspension to all four wheels but only uses two coil springs, the front and rear suspension are connected and work together. This gives a smooth ride and, despite its tiny tyres, decent handling. There are so many  clever things designed into this car, things that keep it simple and practical, the entire body shell can be lifted from the chassis if you fancy it, and the engine is so small it can be picked up with just the use of a few burly peasants. Its economical too, it will give you 60mpg and trot along at 50mph all day long, and when the sun shines its canvas roof rolls back to let the rays in.All of the above must seem like an advert for 2CV’s, but its not.

I am trying to draw attention to cars that you might have missed out on because it wont do 0-60 in under 4 seconds and wont make girls (or guys) swoon with envy as you swish by. I really believe  there are cars out there that don’t need to be fast and powerful to be interesting. Have a look at the Citroen DS, it was just slopping over with innovation, headlights that turn as you turn a corner? WOW! It only took Vauxhall a decade or two to copy it. Peugeot 504, Renault Alpine, Renault R8 are all examples of a long list that I’m sure you could add to. The thing you will notice is that there are no modern day cars that I have listed as interesting, this is a fault of mine and despite what I said at the beginning I cannot shake off the feeling that modern day cars are ‘white goods’ a bit like washing machines, useful and clever in their own way but oh so utilitarian in their conception. Its left up to the French again to save the new generation as they give us the 106 Rallye and the Megane loony machine for the speed freaks and  the oh so sexy Citroen C6 and the interestingly styled 406 Coupe from Peugeot.

Regular readers will know of my love of Japanese cars, but the land of the rising sun has done nothing to peak our interest lately, with the exception of the R35 Skyline and the 350/370Z all from Nissan, owned by Renault.If you own a utilitarian car and are reading this, it must mean that you have some petrol slopping about in your blood somewhere otherwise you would be reading a DIY or worse a gardening blog, so do yourself a favour and get on Ebay and find something  interesting to play with over the winter. Take it to bits, marvel at how its made, annoy your spouse by dismantling the valve gear on the kitchen table while it belts down in rain outside. And next spring, when its all mended, take it for a drive but make sure you  listen to some Matt Monroe as you swoop through a sun speckled lane toward a secluded café for lunch, and leave the brown 4 wheeled box for the weekday grind

Further reading, all from Wikipedia I’m afraid, but  if there is a particular car that gets you interested, get Googling and find an owners club.

Citroen DS

Citroen 2CV (Check out the Safari one!)

Renault R8

Peugeot 504

Ugly as hell but don't you just want a Renault R8 Gordini?

Stig quits, Clarkson hurt and TopGear Damaged!

Ah the Stig, cornerstone of Top Gear

Now that summer is over and we have all had too much sun, spent too much money and only have the damp short days up to Christmas to look forward too. What a miserable way to start this entry. Doom, gloom and sadness.

Our Jeremy, hero to all

Well perk up readers! If you want to laugh then look no further than our own self appointed guru of cars, Mr Jeremy Clarkson! How I laughed when I read how the ultra secretive, key stone of Top Gear, beloved by all, Stig had finally been unmasked! Just in case you don’t know who it is, I wont spoil it for you. Just get on Google and have a poke around. You wont be that surprised because most Petrolheads had their suspicions anyway, and most of them were right.

So what of the fallout? Clarkson spat dummies, threw toys and gave interviews on minority TV stations* (Show 17 fast forward to 27:10 to skip the Belly vs Morris dancing…) saying how hurt he was, how he and the Stig had drinks together, only to find out that crazy Stiggy had been writing a book. Greed is bad said our  Ferrari driving star to camera in the piece, before heading off into the night back to his tiny house.

If you like Top Gear, you will be horrified to know that Clarkson feels that its been ‘damaged’ by this, and he has been doing nothing for the past three weeks except thinking “what on earth to do.“ Well I can see his problem. Good old TG haven’t had a decent fresh idea in the past 3 series, Stig was fun and all that, but did we really care if he didn’t know anything about ducks? Or that his nipples were shaped like the Nurburgring?

If you were over seven years old and actually enjoyed cars and driving, you probably couldn’t care less who he was or what shape his nipples are. As long as he got that supercar around the track as well as he could, and as fast as he could it didn’t matter. An hour long show held together by a minutes worth of  track time by a bloke in a Simpson helmet listening to Morse Code while and old bloke tries to do funny commentary? Really? Is everything else filler then?

I used to love Top Gear, some of the films that were made were very good. The Vietnamese trip springs immediately to mind. Even if it was all scripted, the fact that you saw the country as a place and not a war was a brilliant bit of TV. But now it seems that its being hosted by people more at home on Saturday morning TV for kids, Timmy Mallett would be a refreshing change.

James? The Stig?

Even James May, my favourite presenter has fallen foul of this insane thought that the show is ruined because we all know Stig’s name. May has suggested that one of the shows next stunts should be “driving to the Stigs house and nailing his head to the table.”

Really James? Well I hate violence in all its forms but when it comes to stuff like this there is only one solution. GOOGLE FIGHT! As you can see from the results, Stig kicks May’s arse all the way back to Top Gear Towers.

The show is weak because of the content around the minute or so of track time. The car is what we all want to see, not the driver. Yes he is very talented, we all applaud that, and root for him to smash the times on the board. The reason we love the Stiggy bits is that we see a car we will never afford driven to the limit. Even if we COULD afford any of the cars he drives there is no way we would be brave enough or talented enough to drive it to that extreme.

So what’s going to happen to old Top Gear? The diehards will still watch it endlessly on Dave, the first episode will have them glued to see what Clarkson’ three weeks of  intense creativity have come up with. Don’t forget, he has done this little stunt on TV before with his old mate Schuey. Stig took his helmet off to reveal that it was Schuey all the time right? What? Wasn’t it? Oh and the death of Black Stig, what would we do? TG should really look hard at itself then switch over to watch Tiff and Vicky Butler Henderson for a bit. Tiff can drive the doors off most things and who wouldn’t want to be Vicky’s seatbelt? Turn off the Saturday morning cartoons and turn on some cars!

Oh! I just had a thought! We don’t know who Stigs African or American cousin is! And what about Mrs Stig? Surely she could have his job now he has been sacked?

Stig and Mrs Stig on Holiday

* Credit to my colleague Darren Moss of Moss on Motoring for pointing this clip out to me.

Restoration, a stupid idea

A good mate of mine has just bought himself a new toy. He parted with quite a few of his hard earned pounds for something to have some fun in, a tweeked Peugeot 106 Rallye. It has a tuned engine, a weird differential and suspension that makes it go on three wheels at every corner. Surprisingly he has had it for a fortnight and has traveled less than 50 miles in it.

Now this is how you work on cars...

You see, as soon as he got the thing home, before the engine could stop its ticking cooldown after the, let’s be honest, enjoyable-with-spirit drive from its former owner, he had the spanners out and was taking the thing to bits. A phone call later and another friend arrives with an angle grinder and more spanners and set about pulling whatever he could out of it. This includes seats, trim, carpets, and even the rear wiper. Brackets, bolts and bits of the wiring loom that are no longer needed succumb to the grinder and manical eye of the new bloke, until we are left with a box with two seats and an engine that is capable of pulling it all along at a speed that would make most sane people faint. This car is so empty and light that it has to be kept tied to the house on windy days.

Why do all of this to a perfectly good, functional car, that’s already a light, nimble, sporty model as good as Peugeot could make it? Apart from the obvious power to weight gains, this car becomes his. There will never be another like it, and the car will be used to its full potential which suits my friend very well as driving on the edge round tracks is what he loves best. Curious about this, I asked ‘What if you crash it?’ Theres quite a lot of cash tied up in this, and I realise  its relative, but money is money! ‘Meh’ he shrugged his shoulders ‘Then we fix it’

Emptier than a hermits address book

All of this got me thinking. There is a guy who also has a little Peugeot that he has as a project, and again its being stripped and fiddled with but this time its being done to such a standard that makes OCD look normal. Every nut and bolt is polished or painted. Custom made, bloody expensive wiring looms make everything neat, the paintwork is perfect on all surfaces, including the engine bay. The whole thing somewhere stopped being a car, and become a very expensive work of art. The guy is obviously getting a huge amount of pleasure from this but I wonder how long lived that pleasure will be? Car restorers are similar people. Here are a bunch of guys that trawl autojumbles and Ebay to find the exact toolkit to finish their 1961 Mini Cooper, that has been restored exactly how it was when it rolled off of the production line. I’m not sure about these types of people. For one, this perfect Pug will be great until it rains, or someone bumps it in a carpark or a seagull craps on it.

These things can be avoided if he chooses never to take it out and keep it under a sheet in the garage like those dreadfully boring blokes who buy Ferrari’s do, and whats the point of that? What about that restored Mini? Dull I’m afraid, whats the point of spending a years salary to make something the same as everything else that came out of that factory? If you go to a classic car show, you will see rows and rows of the same restored marque but your eye will be caught by the loony that decided to make a monster truck out of a Mk2 Jag. My old VW is great, It has dings, dents and scratches but It has one thing a sterile ‘perfect’ show car doesn’t have and thats character.

If my mate bins the car at a track, I bet that if the damage isnt life threatening to the car, he would beat it out with a hammer and then spend the next two years telling everyone the story of how the power caught him out on that nasty hairpin at some track somewhere in Europe, and then, probably with a beer or coffee in hand, they will crowd around it and offer opinion and ridicule in bucketloads, probably from the bloke with the grinder.

Telling someone your showcar once got pooped on by a seabird is just dull, wear your dents with pride.

Hole lot of nothing

Driving throws up many questions, like why do rubbish lorries have a cuddly toy tied to the front of them, and why the hell do they leave it to get all dirty and disgusting? Another favorite is why do some people drive at 28 mph everywhere? And why do the people who drive at 28 wear straw hats?

My current question is why the hell do we pay road tax?

I have a nice new car (well it was new in 1989, but its new to me) and it has a nice set of firm springs and dampers to enable me to have a fun quick drive round some fun quick corners if the mood takes me, without the car lurching and wallowing like some drunken fishing trawler in rough seas. Every six months, regular as clockwork, the government send me a nice bit of paper reminding me that my car is not meant to be any fun, I should sell it and get a small soulless eurobox with a sewing machine engine, and stop killing the planet. They do this in the form of a road tax reminder/SORN.
The idea is a good one, we all pay a bit toward the upkeep of the roads, keeping them clean and smooth, free of dead things and building new ones when we get fed up with where the old ones go. We are all reminded that if we use the car on the road then we should pay for it and will be fined and frowned at by a policeman if we don’t. Actually we don’t even get the pleasure of a frowny policeman as these days a faceless silicone monster that lives in DVLA headquarters checks its calendar, complete with fluffy kitten picture, against your registration number and if you are a day out fires an automatic fine direct to your house.
Its worse if you DON’T have your car on the road! Heaven forbid you forget to tell the computer that your car is broken and is currently sulking in your garage. I committed this terrible crime and was hit for 65 of my pounds for not telling anyone my car wouldn’t move. So we pay up promptly, send bits of paper back and forward to Swansea keeping the bureaucracy and computers happy.

So why are we not sending them a million fines and bits of paper because they are failing to keep up their side of the bargain?

It snowed a bit in January, and this (I am told by a bloke who knows) speeds up the formation of potholes. Fair enough. Why then are there potholes in May? Why can I not drive my car without getting double vision? Why is it better to drive on the beach than the road? Who is going to pay for my shot suspension? But the best bit is Why the hell do we put up with it?
There are currently some three million unemployed in the UK, most of which would rather watch daytime TV than actually go outside, and a larger part couldn’t count their own legs, however I am sure with a weeks intensive training they could be taught how to stick a bag of tarmac into a hole an flatten it. I realise this is nowhere near what we should be expecting for our £200 or so a year, but its better than smashing your springs for the hundredth time in 10 yards as you painfully make your way along the dirt track they laughingly refer to as road.

My car is insured, MOTd, taxed and in good, safe working order. I don’t care how much petrol costs because I get what I pay for, petrol goes in, goes bang, moves me along. The roads, however, are a forgotten no mans land of craters, scars and forgotten weather. I paid my dues and play by their rules, the twits in the government just buy moats, porn and duckhouses.

Welcome back to Motoring!

Some of the more awake of my readers will have noticed that this is the first blog entry for quite some time. I thought of writing a long and deep explanation and grovelly apology, but wisely thought the better of it. Instead ill bring you right up to date whats been going on since December, and where we are now.

Rusty, clapped out cars have been fact of life for all of us, me especially (you will remember with hilarity the speed at which Honda threw me out of their showroom last year) So with the close of 2009 bringing the MOT on the Civic to stark reality I had to decide what to do. Patch the rust? Hope to God the bushes hold up, or MOT man has a bout of blindness? Spend more on it? Or scrap it and spend the repair money on something with more ticket? I see the sagely nods of you who have been faced with a similar situation. Well the decision was put off as a good friend of mine happened to have the exact same car for sale, but a few years older, that had an extra 5 months of MOT on it and was practically giving it away. The women out there are now saying “But that’s just putting the problem off for 5 months…” and yes you are right but I am a bloke and of course I don’t think like that.

Money changes hands and I am in possesion of a new Civic, much like the old one but even rustier as I found out when I pulled the sideskirts off to search for a creaking noise. Quickly putting them back on I felt more confident as I couldn’t see the rot. A bit of tax and we are off! Yes! motoring heaven!

Well no, not really. The car is in need of several mechanical repairs, having clicky CV joints is a bit like playing russian

Remember, rust is lighter than Carbon Fibre

roulette every corner, you never know when its going to pop and you are going to walk home. Then there was the cambelt… the car shows 175,000 miles and there is no record of it being changed. This is like playing Russian roulette with two guns, you get to walk and the engine gets mangled if it fails.
All this paints a gloomy picture. No fun corners, no whiffs of lift off oversteer, no nothing. Only the fear that the car will explode like a clowns, right in the middle of the high street. Then the rear wheelbearing started to fail…

So why the hell did I not throw money at it and fix it? The answer comes from the wife (!?) She says that if I can make it last, we can save some cash for something ‘newer’ and ‘nicer’ and (worryingly) ‘family’ (Subaru Forester is an estate car I told her…) So she duly does some hours, delivers some babies and earns the money, while I flick through Autotrader and fail to make money from any of my writing.

At this point it has to be said that you really shouldn’t ask one of your best mates, who happens to be a huge petrolhead, to come over and ‘Help me find something’ because all you end up doing is looking at one silver Astra, then spend the rest of the night drinking coffee and looking at track cars on pistonheads.com. (was great fun though!)
We are now about 6 weeks or so away from having the money, and I have sort of settled on a Suzuki Wagon R, I like its Japaneseness, its small and its cheap to run. It ticks the boxes of low mileage, newish and reasonably practical. Comfortable too and space enough for kids and stuff for the beach so we are on a winner! I am a little worried about its total lack or performance, and even more so the reports that it tends to understeer rather than go round bends, but hey a bit of suspension work and a degree or so of camber will fix that! Then for no reason whatsoever, I find myself on the VW Polo forum.

I have always loved Volkswagens, one of my first cars was an old 1968 Beetle, a 6 volter with a massive 1200cc aircooled engine that made you choose between lights and wipers if it rained at night. But it had something that I have not found in any other car. Character. But character is no substitute for power and excitement, the Mk1 Golf had that covered, but was way out of reach of my meager teenage funds. Flicking idly through the forums ‘for sale’ section I stumble across what at first looks like a Mk1 Golf in white, but turns out to be a Mk2 Polo, I am about to move on, when I notice that its had some subtle modifications carried out by the owner. Out goes the Polo’s engine and in goes a fully rebuilt unit from a Mk3 Golf, then its head is ported and polished, has a nice twin choke Weber bolted on, the cam is reprofiled and an adjustable vernier pulley added. Flywheel is lightened and the bottom end is balanced. All this ups the power from 50hp to a 90hp and adds a nice big dollop of torque (the car weighs about 700kg) Underneath the wheels are kept on the road with some nice Eibach springs and adjustable dampers.
All of this makes a subtle and nippy little car that’s totally wrong for me as it’s not new, has a hard ride, won’t fit the kids very well and is pretty crap on fuel.

Of course I bought it straight away.

I have now had it for about two weeks and have drained most of Kuwait of its oil reserves, its absolutely brilliant to drive and I’m finding excuses to go buy milk on an hourly basis. Being an old Volkswagen it smells bad inside, but has the advantage of being reliable and well-built (unlike the new ones) It’s terrible on fuel, if pushed I get 35mpg, which means a very gentle trip to the Nurburgring or I will be filling up every 6 feet.

The moral? If you are fed up, for god sake buy something fun! Regular blogging has now resumed, its great to be back, I feel a rant coming on.

For those interested, here are some specifications of my new Polo:

Engine: Fully rebuilt 1391cc ABD, balanced bottom end, CR raised, ported and polished head, Kent Cams cam, 2G inlet, Weber DMTL carburettor, K&N rudebox, Facet fuel pump, 8P gearbox

Suspension: Koni Adjustable Dampers, Eibach 40mm springs, supersport lowering top caps.

Brakes: VWII calipers, 239 Brembo MAX disks, Pagid TQ pads.

You wouldn’t belive it to look at it eh?