Inexperience is a wonderful thing
My dangerously irresponsible attitude towards vehicle safety was by no means limited to my Fiat 127. In fact, the first car I ever owned was a Mini. Bright red with black vinyl roof, bucket seats and a sports steering wheel this was a real mean machine. I acquired it from my brother when he got himself an MGB GT, his pride and joy which he still drives today.
With driving test freshly passed and with no real road experience, I was unleashed. The Mini's need for essential maintenance was sharply illustrated by the fact that the starter motor need a smack with a hammer to get it turning. Rust, however, was once again the root cause of my downfall and the underside of the car was in particularly bad shape.
One day a mate of mine and I were cruising round the country lanes near my home. Strangely, this tale is also set against the backdrop of torrential rain, so much that there had been significant flooding on the roads. As we rounded a bend we saw what amounted to a small lake spanning the whole width of the road. We're talking maybe twenty feet across and at least a foot deep. The sensible and mature thing to do would be to stop. Sadly in those days I was neither. I demonstrated this by flashing a mischievous grin at my friend whilst accelerating rapidly to break-neck speed and headed straight for the flood.
I had visions of hurtling through the temporary pond creating spectacular waves as I went. After all, it was just a bit of water right? Wrong. Water is heavy stuff, as heavy as concrete. When you get a large body of it sat motionless across a road it's pretty stubborn.
We must have been doing forty, the Mini engine screaming, as we surged into the flood. We both lurched forward and the engine cutout immediately. There was a groan and the sickening sound of tearing metal. The entire floor of the car, rusting and patched, was peeled back easily like a sardine tin lid. We came to a stop with our feet sat in a foot of water, touching the exposed road. The stunned silence was broken only by the gentle rippling of small waves and a mild hissing of steam from the front end.
After ten minutes of repeated attempts, my friend turning the ignition and me pounding the starter motor with the hammer I kept in the glove box, miraculously the engine restarted. We reversed gingerly out of the flood and with the Mini's structural integrity severely compromised, we made it back home with the car creaking disturbingly, it's floor flapping and scraping wildly beneath us.
Following a concerned conversation about the need for urgent repairs and the safety implications of having no floor, we did the only responsible thing we could think of and went straight to the pub.
With driving test freshly passed and with no real road experience, I was unleashed. The Mini's need for essential maintenance was sharply illustrated by the fact that the starter motor need a smack with a hammer to get it turning. Rust, however, was once again the root cause of my downfall and the underside of the car was in particularly bad shape.
One day a mate of mine and I were cruising round the country lanes near my home. Strangely, this tale is also set against the backdrop of torrential rain, so much that there had been significant flooding on the roads. As we rounded a bend we saw what amounted to a small lake spanning the whole width of the road. We're talking maybe twenty feet across and at least a foot deep. The sensible and mature thing to do would be to stop. Sadly in those days I was neither. I demonstrated this by flashing a mischievous grin at my friend whilst accelerating rapidly to break-neck speed and headed straight for the flood.
I had visions of hurtling through the temporary pond creating spectacular waves as I went. After all, it was just a bit of water right? Wrong. Water is heavy stuff, as heavy as concrete. When you get a large body of it sat motionless across a road it's pretty stubborn.
We must have been doing forty, the Mini engine screaming, as we surged into the flood. We both lurched forward and the engine cutout immediately. There was a groan and the sickening sound of tearing metal. The entire floor of the car, rusting and patched, was peeled back easily like a sardine tin lid. We came to a stop with our feet sat in a foot of water, touching the exposed road. The stunned silence was broken only by the gentle rippling of small waves and a mild hissing of steam from the front end.
After ten minutes of repeated attempts, my friend turning the ignition and me pounding the starter motor with the hammer I kept in the glove box, miraculously the engine restarted. We reversed gingerly out of the flood and with the Mini's structural integrity severely compromised, we made it back home with the car creaking disturbingly, it's floor flapping and scraping wildly beneath us.
Following a concerned conversation about the need for urgent repairs and the safety implications of having no floor, we did the only responsible thing we could think of and went straight to the pub.
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