Thought for the day-cars!

Im sat here waiting for a young lad to come and have a look at a mate of mines car. I sat here all day yesterday waiting for the same man. He is a nice man, but frequently a bit vacant. His wife complains of this rather dubious quality also. Indeed, she is yet another of those folk who are kind of emotionally blackmailed into staying with what otherwise would appear to be a bit of a pain in the arse for a husband. Love blinds us sometimes to the less than attractive side of our chosen mates.

I know that I will shortly give up on the chap in question and continue with my day.. I think 36 hours for a "no show" is enough. Its a shame mind you as I was trying to do a favor for a friend, but by now I should know that cars can frequently cause trouble. Im already in the poo for making a mess of the lady in questions drive when we changed the oil the other day, by allowing most of it to pour onto her brindle brick.

Im reminded of a time long ago now when a friend of mine Tim brought a monstrosity of a Triumph Herald

that had seen much better days. I think it would be safe to say it was a loose collection of panels held together with rust. However, beggars could not be choosers on £10 a week and one weekend Time and I, who both lived in Nottingham, decided to go home from RAF Cosford where we were being trained.

Amazingly we negotiated the bull ring and managed to get eventually onto the right road and get home. Here our Triumph Heralds expired outside my door.

Saturday morning found me under the bonnet with Tim looking none the wiser like me at a Haynes manual. We eventually deduced it was a timing chain to replace and tensioner. So off to the shops we did walk and pick one up. Then with spanner in hand we spent most of the day doing a simple job the hard way due to lack of expertise and knowledge. But, we did it and whats more on the sunday we got back to camp and with some swagger to I might add, at our obvious automotive engineering ability.

The next weekend however proved to be our undoing as basically the old heap decided it was time for the scrap yard. Naturally it let us know this on the sunday evening before return to camp. God bless my dad who took us back to camp on the monday morning and had a word with the Sergeant on the gate who allowed us into camp without fear of being charged AWOL.

Now every time I see a "Classic" triumph herald I wince.Funnily enough I brought another one for fifty quid when I was a policeman because its all my new wife and I could afford. It was a total heap, but the engine just kept going and for six months kept me and my wife likewise.....going! They really good thing about them was you could take the entire front off and then had loads of room to work on them. Something you did a lot if you owned a herald or its sporty cousin the Spitfire. Which we also owned.  KGB 325D was a green Spitfire Mk3  I brought for no good reason other than it was a sports car..

It was fun car to court in and we had some fun in it.. It had what is known as a live axle on the back and could be very tail happy, as was proved when we saw an oak tree three times on a leafy road once.. On another occasion I went to pick my wife up from the station. She had flue and was not the happiest chap on the planet. The roof on the spitfire was not really much good and frequently leaked. My wife got in the car, slammed the door and 2 pints of water dumped over her as the roof collapsed. We sold it shortly there after!

Shortly there after Triumph made a bloody awful Stag and then the TR7 and went bust.. Not surprisingly.. I had one more Triumph a Blue Dolomite. Which was for £80 did the job, but for reasons I never really understood used to wind up my girl friend at the time. She totally hated the thing. No idea why... Ive noted this with women. They can take an instant hate to a car for no valid reason. I had a lovely Mercedes 190E that used to wind up another girl friend I had. On reflection I should have kept the car and got rid of her.