2026-05-09
I remember first taking the wheel of my Dad's old Ford Popular, with the sit-up-and-beg radiator and the amazingly vague self-steering mechanism, quite soon after I passed my test.
How i survived I'm not sure, but I certainly owe a debt of gratitude to those who waited behind me whilst I struggled to find top gear (3rd in those days!) using the long and unfamiliar gear lever. In those days we just got on with it until we made it work.
It wasn't too long before (with some modest financial assistance from Dad) I graduated to the much more amenable Austin A35 van (yes, the very van of Wallace and Gromit fame - Oh the nostalgia!) which kept me motoring rather more controllably for some years. Until I moved to the south coast and swapped it for a VW 1500S sedan ... which survived until I crashed head-on overtaking a tractor that turned right across my bows into a driveway, thereby confirming that the seat-belt fitted by VW worked just fine - that's as much as you need to know, so we'll leave it there. Mais je ne regrette rien 😀!
Steven Goldsmith writing for Brownstone recently made the mistake of hiring a modern rental car (in America, but I don't doubt much the same applies in the UK).
He was not amused. If you value your independence/freedom/sanity, make sure your trusty old-fashioned motor is maintained in fine fettle by your local independent garage for as many years as possible ... and drive sensibly.
