The healing power of Wadworth's

[hirez]

So we're sitting there in the Tyntesfield temporary tea tent, when in strides this bloke in combat boots and a utilikilt. I nearly hailed him, since the fellow was the dead spit of reddragdiva, only with grey hair. Perhaps an uncle. He was accompanied by a fey young woman in a fetching floaty frock.

And there the alliteration ends.

Years ago, when driving the comedy Renault-5 that was held together with Isopon and U-bolts (Which later became the comedy three-wheeled R-5 when it stopped being held together with Isopon as the torsion-bar went sproing.) I came down past Andoversford traffic lights onto the bit of dual-carriageway as an artic was pulling away from those lights.

"Ha!" I thought, not wanting to give away hard-won momentum[1] "I can take that wagon easy." so pulled out and started to trundle past the trailer.

Either artic-bloke wasn't looking or didn't care because he chose that moment to pull out round something.

Not many of you will have seen Peckinpah's 1978 film, Convoy. There's a sequence where a police car is caught between the wheels of two semi-trailers. There is smoke and grinding as the wheels rip off the car bodywork and doors.

Renault 5s appear to be better built than late seventies US police cruisers. There was smoke and grinding as my car was caught between the trailer wheels and the Armco. I jumped on the brakes, swore lots and escaped with a curved print of rubber up the passenger door.

[1]Momentumism, first mentioned in a 'Bike' magazine in the early 80s, is thr art of driving an underpowered car (2CV, R5, auto-box unturbo Saab 9000, diesel Transit, Frontera, Terios, etc) as quickly as possible. Generally it involves not letting your foot off the loud pedal at all ever. Middle-laners are probably momentumists gone bad.

Comments

[reddragdiva]

I'm not sure a lycra miniskirt counts as a utilikilt even when I'm in London.

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Knowing a road like the back of your hand, knowing exactly where to accelerate and brake, and taking the "racing" line (for efficiency, rather than yer actual racing- I really can't imagine that anyone actually buys [as opposed to "borrows mum's"] an underpowered car with any sense of illusion) is also key to momentumism.

Providing you aren't in a desperate hurry to get anywhere, and that you're not carrying several cubic fathoms of passenger/cargo, an underpowered car can be remarkably fuel-efficient and reliable. It just goes horribly wrong when you try to break either of those preconditions for sustained or repeated periods. Furthermore, underpowered is fun. Mel's stupidly over-powered Volvo 440 1.8 injection is certainly fast, and exhillerating on the motorway, but is it any fun on the kinds of B and C roads we have locally? No, it's like trying to steer a stampede of shirehorses. Whereas, my Tonka is more like a happy bouncy kitten, able to dart around corners, never missing grip for a moment, and bounding around unadopted byways with ease (sure, this cat-like spring is only evident with only one or two adults; fill up with more generous passengers and it crawls). Now I don't doubt for a moment that there exist sports cars which combine power with control, but they're generally in the "I could just about afford that, but for the same money I could extend my house to double its size" price-bracket and they seem to spend most of their life being fixed (although I admit this mechanical failure rate could be more down to the driving style of the kind of person who values a sports car above an extra two bedrooms).

[sinibar.livejournal.com]

I had a very similar incident on the A1 about a month back, fortunately without any physical contact.
The latter fact I feel though was entirely due to the wizard stop-on-a-sixpence gizmos in my car, and the lucky fact that there was about 3 feet of tarmac between the edge of the outside lane and the armco.

[redcountess]

/me now has happy thoughts of you in a utilikilt :-)

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

underpowered *is* fun. i think my 2cv may be taking this a bit far, but my metro was a hoot. i used to win against just about anything just on the basis of go-cart handling, and sheer bloody mindedness, and it was total glee.
but, Richard's RX8 is *more* fun. power doesn't need to mean handling like a volvo 440. and being able to whip past the traffic like a motorbike, and accelerate hard enough to pin you against the seat is hilarious. having the ability to take 20mph corners at 60 *and* being able to get to 120 in a heartbeat is amazing.

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

Ahh, momentum... I once drove in my 2CV from Aberdeen to Hull, with a couple of substantial East Coast Scots, starting with maybe a couple of gallons of petrol.

This was in the early hours of the morning in the days when the A1 in the wilds of Scotland was utterly bereft of 24-hour petrol stations. Spent more time freewheeling with the engine off than I did with it fired up, as I recall, but made it - just - to some godforsaken hole south of Edinburgh that had a pump that you could feed a five pound note. I think I probably achieved some sort of fuel consumption record that night.

I still miss that car. In some ways it was more fun than anything I drove before or since, but a drunken mate at an Anarchist meet upwind of Sheffield did for it by taking advantage of my yet more pissed state and taking my keys, so he could drive up the hill to the pub for more booze. He made it too, but found a drystone wall on his way back. Exeunt 2CV, and I ended up being charged for repairing the wall too.

Happy days...