Before I started working my transport choices were restricted by an empty wallet. I worked every weekend and always had holiday jobs to scrape together a few pounds in the hope of becoming mobile. I passed my driving test on my second attempt. I was failed at the first driving test because I joined a busy dual carriageway by slotting into some fast-moving traffic; the examiner said I should be more cautious as a learner.
Two events, while I was working weekends at a petrol station, changed my driving career. One of the other boys working at the garage owned but couldn’t drive his car as he had no licence. I saw an opportunity to get mobile! The other event was filling an E-Type jaguar with 5-star petrol and thinking “One day I will have an E-type, and maybe a beautiful girl to go in it”; there was a beautiful girl in the passenger seat!
I bought a Honda C50, rode it for a short while, and then swapped it for my co-worker’s Ford Anglia 105E.
This, the same as my first car, was principally made of rust and partially of dull-blue paint. Originally a Ford Anglia with 997cc, it was fitted with a 1500cc engine from a Classic, a skimmed head, Weber carb and wide wheels. It was just about road legal.
The Anglia’s starter motor only had one bolt, so it lived in the boot, and the car was always push-started; I had to keep it well-tuned. Due to the rusty fuel tank, the idle jet would always block after a short while; I kept a spare, clean jet in the glove box, then I could change it when I parked or stalled at traffic lights. This car was with me in my first year at university; there was always someone who needed a lift and could give me a push. I mentioned the car was mainly rust; the main earth terminal occasionally came away, and all of the electrics would die. It was a simple thing to reach down in the engine bay and flash the terminal against a piece of the body to temporarily weld it in place. The only time the complete loss of electrics was really exciting happened one winter night on a dark, fast country road. The car suddenly went quiet, all lights out and pitch-black outside. I couldn’t see a thing, and I was moving at about sixty miles an hour on a country road. I gently slowed the car to a halt, all the while braced and waiting to crash. When I came to a standstill, I breathed a sigh of relief, swore a bit, and stepped out of the car. As was now usual, I opened the bonnet and flashed the earth lead back in place. The headlights now illuminated a farmers field; I was no longer on the road as I had just driven neatly through an open field gate at a T junction! I didn’t close the gate as I drove away, who knows, maybe someone else would need it open when their lights failed?
When the time came that the Anglia could no longer be considered safe, I had to stay mobile but still had very little money. I bought this Ariel Leader motorbike.
My Ariel Leader motorbike was purchased from a former schoolfriend. It was a 250cc two-stroke beast with leading-link front forks and a monocoque steel frame. The Leader was not a thing of beauty, even though it had many technical innovations. This motorbike taught me essential motorcycle road-awareness and basically how to survive on two wheels. Hazardous things like Diesel and oil spills, wet manhole covers, people opening car doors etc. etc. all happened to me, and miraculously I came to no harm. I never enjoyed the cold and wet part of motorcycling, so I sold the Leader to an Ariel enthusiast. The proceeds, with some savings, let me buy a real car!
A beautifully looked after Ford Zodiac Executive in Silver Fox (and hand-painted Red) which I bought for £200. The red was where the original paint had peeled away, which was a common issue with early metallic paints.
This car was a three-litre V6 with a bench seat and three-speed column change. It was magnificent with a stupidly large bonnet, chronic understeer and superb comfort. I used this car for 12-car rallying at university and had great fun trying to get it to perform. I could fit a whole group of chums, three in front and four in the back and regularly drove to London from Bath. Eventually, I sold it for £200 with one Macpherson strut seized, so it was handling like an arthritic crab (it ‘hopped’ around right-hand bends). I then went back to two wheels because of poverty and rode a motorbike for a few years, during which time I gained a full bike licence. I also had access to my mates’ British motorbikes which are now considered valuable classics.
My University transport, the Honda XL250. I used it for all of my transport and also off-road fun. Boring but oh so reliable!
Lime Green Mini 850. The first car after starting work. I didn’t use it for work and continued for a few years to use my motorbike.
I no longer have a motorbike as it was sold, without my permission, apparently being too dangerous for a father of two.
I still hanker for British classic, nothing with great performance, maybe a BSA A65 Lightning, like my mate Pete Turner had?
Now that I was working, I climbed the greasy pole and soon started my Company Car phase of driving.
White One – Number One, my first firm’s car was a white Ford XR2 Ford’s first ‘hot’ hatchback. I drove it relatively fast but never came to grief, always managing to get around corners.
It was ‘written off’ by one Louis Mascarenas who hit it with his Escort van whilst I was parked off the side of the road waiting for him to pass as he came the other way. He had driven down a hill way too fast, hit his brakes in panic, and lost control when there was plenty of room to drive past. My wife was in the car, as was my baby daughter and our dog. Our baby had belt bruises, my wife hit her legs under the dash, and our dog dented her food bowl with her teeth. Jess, my dog, was understandably upset about being rammed, and when I let her out, she saw me shouting at the other driver, so she flew at him and started biting. I admit I did nothing to call her off. That was the only time she ever hurt anything in her whole life, basically the nicest dog ever, her one act of aggression. Our baby girl and I were pronounced fine after ambulance check-ups, but my wife went to the hospital to be x-rayed (but was OK). My baby daughter and I went with the recovery truck and ate fish and chips whilst we waited to be picked up by relatives. Louis was done for dangerous driving, received a massive fine, was banned from driving for a year and my XR2 went to the scrap yard about a foot shorter than designed. …Pity, it was a fun car.
White One – Number Two, a white Vauxhall Cavalier SRi. This car was the best car I could get on my firm’s allowance after I was promoted to Associate and it served me well.
This car wasn’t written off, but there was one really close shave on the A23 into Brighton. I was driving to a meeting for the rebuilding of the Grand Hotel (after the IRA bomb of the Conservative conference). I was driving rapidly down a section of dual carriageway when, up ahead, a lorry decided to do a U-turn across both carriageways. I don’t know how I stopped, but the car spun a full 180, so I ended up facing the wrong way just a few yards from the trailer, phew! No contact! The lorry driver had stopped to watch my tyre-smoke and graceful spinning slide rather than getting out of my way. As I checked that I was still alive, the lorry slowly drove away, leaving me to face the on-coming traffic with my eyes bulging and all of me shaking with adrenaline. I had to pull a handbrake turn to be the right way round and then drove slowly to my meeting, being overtaken by everything, as my adrenaline levels subsided.
White One – Number Three, a used/demonstrator white Volvo 940 Wentworth Turbo Estate. This car went really well but understeered alarmingly if driven too joyfully.
It served to carry all sorts of stuff and was a great family car and loaded with options. When it started to puff white smoke, I took it into the Volvo garage and asked for a diagnosis of the issue. I knew that the turbo was having problems. It was so satisfying to hear the mechanic say “What idiot serviced this? You need a new turbo, and it’s going to be expensive”. I went to the glove box and pulled out the service book and said: “It was you!”. I had a free turbo fitted. Unfortunately, after three year’s service, this car was written off when a driver in front slammed his brakes on for no good reason on a clear road. My fault, I know, but honestly it was a bizarre place to brake so violently. I almost stopped in time but didn’t. After the crunch I was a mere few centimetres inside the guy’s bumper line, having felt the ABS hammering at my foot. Those few centimetres intrusion caused front panel damage to the Volvo, which was more than a third of the car’s value. So goodbye, Volvo!
Time out from white: I then had a blue Audi A6 Estate that our dog Jess decided was ok, especially the plastic load cover which made a great chew toy on long runs and only survived a few days.
When it was time to change cars, I had a gold Mercedes E350. Nothing much to say about this one except it had loads of space, was comfortable, and great for long runs.
(It was about then that I bought my first E-Type at this time, an Ascot Fawn SIII V12 2+2, and ordered the restoration of my Blue SI 3.8 FHC E-Type).
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I then decided that Mercedes was a good brand, so I ordered a Gold Mercedes CLS 350, a true Marmite car for the British public. I loved its looks, even though many others couldn’t agree.
When it went, I wanted another so ordered one in Indium Grey (which should be called Turd Brown). It was an awful colour, and I hated it. I am stumped as to why I let my P.A. choose it. Why did Mercedes call it grey when it patently wasn’t?
Oh dear, this colour could ruin any car.
When the car was only three months old, I was trying to get home and it ended up getting a little wet. Somewhere near Gloucester, in some of the worst floods (23/7/07) I have ever known, I tried to ford what I thought to be a large area of shallow surface water. The car conked out in the middle of the temporary but impressive river (no, I did not ‘hydraulic’ the motor; it was just wet electrics). Water came through the pedal gaiters and soaked the footwell. Apparently, they can never guarantee the fibre-optic controls once wet, even after drying them out, and replacing them involves a complete strip-down of the car… so it was written off.
Bye-Bye horrible colour!
Anyway, one of the memorable things was phoning the Mercedes “Executive Recovery” service on one of the worst motoring nights in history. The call went something like this:
Recovery Man: "Good evening, Mercedes Recovery, are you a woman?" Me: "Er.. no" Recovery Man: "Are you pregnant?" Me: "No..." Recovery Man: "Well are you, perhaps, stood on your car roof with your children waiting for recovery?" Me: "No" Recovery Man: "Well F#ck off then!"
The line then went dead… a damp, peculiar, night in the middle of nowhere continued. Obviously, there were a lot more serious rescue cases out there in the dark and being an ‘Executive’ counted for little, quite right.
Next morning I looked at my car. Everything motorised, seats, steering wheel, mirrors etc… etc… had moved to one or another extreme of adjustment. The controls had been having fun by themselves all night, and the battery was flat. Had I slept in the car, I would have been crushed against the steering wheel as everything inside wandered around, and the doors were failed locked.
As it happened, I had slept under a pool table in a village pub amid many other stranded motorists.
The next week I ordered a Black CLS350. All of the Mercedes were excellent cars to drive and very comfortable, just not very good as submarines.
White One – Number Four & Five, both were white Jaguar XF S, splendid cars that served me well as my last car’s on the business,
I was sad to see these go, and maybe I would have bought the last one from the lease company if their valuation wasn’t so stupidly over-priced. I should have followed it to auction where I could have bought it for a song. I must say that this car and subsequent offerings from the Indian run company have been nothing short of brilliant and up to standard with the proud Jaguar tradition of Grace, Space, and Pace.
White One – Number Six a white Porsche Cayman S, my first personally-owned car after many years of firm’s lease cars.
I drove this for the last 18 months before I retired and for about a year after. It was a revelation in performance and handling. I am now a confirmed Porsche fan. I bought this used car because it allowed me to access a bargain in engineering excellence. I am not ashamed to say that the car was much better than I am a driver; it never felt as though it would misbehave, no matter how hard it was pushed.
A Mental Aberration. Something in me thought that owning an American muscle car would be fun, so I bought and imported a Garnet Red 1969 Chevelle SS with a 454 motor and 500bhp.
It looked and sounded great, but it drove like a greased-pig on roller skates and made you seasick, wallowing around bends (Imagine Captain Pugwash and his Black Pig trying to tack around Cape Horn). The previous owner had set up the torque converter for drag starts, so it was an alarming liability at traffic lights and crossings. Imagine tire-smoke almost every time! Americans of the ’60s could not design suspension or any part of handling, nor could they design interior trim. In truth, Americans are still exceptionally poor at car design. Maybe Americans can manage better when they are designing something expensive and extraordinary like the latest Ford GT. The Chevelle’s engine and looks were fantastic, everything else absolute rubbish. I drove it through France and averaged about 7 miles per gallon, waking up the dead as I passed. I have scratched that itch and sold the car. Hopefully, the new owner, is someone who only drives in straight lines, does not suffer sea-sickness and likes buying tyres and fuel will enjoy it?
White One – Number Seven a white Cayenne S, bought to travel with my dogs to France and to make a major driving trip to Iceland in comfort (via ferry to France on to Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, ferry to Denmark then ferry to The Faroes and Iceland).
I sold the Cayenne for a Porsche Carrera GTS, great fun and taken Autobahn storming and speed-ticket collecting around Europe.
My car, as of September 2020, the Porsche Cayenne Turbo. A magnificent machine. My favourite touring car…. so far. I consider it to be my high-velocity living room.
I know that I am ridiculously lucky, although I admit that some people have been kind enough to say nice things about certain skills I seem to have. However, I wonder at my good fortune. I do not ascribe my luck to anything mystical or supernatural. I do not ‘believe’ in anything, belief is a failure of reason, I just compare my good fortune and meagre talent with those I respect, and I have been lucky, coincidence has been on my side thus far!.