"How I loved the Little Car Then": The Mini Chroncicles Part 3

         
         Continuing the story of my last day in London trying to sell my full race Paddy Hopkirk rally replica Mini Cooper before moving to California:


       Waiting for the light to change to cross the Kentish Town road, where everybody is always pissed off, carving each other up at 1 mile an hour to gain that all important extra half inch, and the little Mini, which had been idling at a screaming  75 MPH coughs tragically and dies.  By the next change of lights, encouraged by the singing of horns behind me I get it to run again on two cylinders and it ventures out into the middle of the Kentish town road, coughs and dies again in the middle of one of those yellow, cross-hatch, no-go bazooka zones.

        A lot of advice from my fellow motorists at this point.  I drag it across the intersection on the starter motor, the engine flailing around loose, the bonnet flapping up and down.  Eleven minutes to go before the poor hopeful guys from CCC show up at my house and wonder where WonderMini is.  

                 I can't parallel park it, all I can do is nose it in alongside a fruiter's market cart with its blue mini butt sticking out in traffic and its blue and white mini nose on the yellow line.  How I loved the little car then.

  I give the fruiterer twenty pounds, and I ask him to look after it for me, tell him I'll be back in an hour.  He looks doubtful.  Especially when I start running. 


     No chance of a taxi on the Kentish Town road but maybe my luck is changing because by sprinting, maybe I can just catch a  bus that is pulling out of a bus stop a block away.  I catch it at the next light, pound on the door and the driver lets me in.  The bus stops and we sit in traffic.  In a bus that is wall to wall with the sound of my gasping for air.  

               Finally the bus starts to move and it accelerates all the way up to seven maybe eight miles an hour.  Stopping at stops where there is no-one there.  Slowing way down at intersections in case the light hasn't had enough time to turn red.  

                 Alright, I tell myself, I'll be late, but they are coming up from Croydon, so they'll wait right?  Then I remember the UPS pickup for the computer I'm shipping to California is due at 3:30 and they don't do Saturday pickup and if I don't make it back by 3:30 I won't have a computer in California.  Everything, all of my books will be lost. I try to practise mind control.  There is nothing I can do.  I can't run the two miles uphill.  And I can't hitch a ride.  Brits are afraid of heavily sweating Americans over six feet tall with a crazed look.  Might as well enjoy the ride.

              Then bus stops and the driver fools around for awhile fumbling for change or something.  Then he switches the engine off AND GETS OUT OF THE BUS AND SHUTS THE DOOR.  AND HE WALKS AWAY.

              I am plastered against the back window watching him as he has a nice chat with another fellow.  I bang on the glass and they glance up but figure it's just another looney.  Lots of looneys on the bus these days.  The other chap has a story to tell. 

              He tells it.  And they laugh.  Then the other chap wanders over to the bus gets in and starts it up.  Apparently he is the other bus driver and he went to the same racing-bus school as the other bus driver.  Seven miles an hour tops.  Never missed a single red light. Any slower and we'd be going backwards. 


             Every stop takes forever. I never noticed before how  people talk among themselves, pausing for effect or trying to remember the next line as they get on an off the bus. I know now, the novel I'm halfway through on my computer is going to be lost.

               Valuable seconds slide by into minutes as a gentle lady of mild confusion looks around for a hand hold and considers her strategy for negotiating the first step.  

                It seems like hours but eventually we get to South End Green and I run the last quarter mile to my house only seventeen minutes late.  

(to be continued with final episode with a special guest appearance, tomorrow)

"We give up." The Mini Chronicles part 2

              So I had this Mini called Bogus in London, a full race rally replica with a $10,000

If God wanted Minis to go this fast they'd have bigger wheels.

racing engine that you could drive to the supermarket  if you had Mike Tyson's thigh for the clutch and a childish delight in embarrassing Porsches.  And I had to sell it, had to because I was leaving for California forever in two days, no place to park it, leaving forever, etc. etc.  

Nigel Fryatt look-alike

But it was OK, Nigel Fryatt and his guys at C&CC were buying it so it was gonna be all OK.
             
          Except, at one AM Friday morning, the day they were coming by to look at it get the papers, give me a check and take it away, THAT VERY DAY at 1 AM there was a clank as I was sliding sideways around Hyde Park Corner.  

Hyde Park Corner

       One of those small, awful and expensive noises you feel as much as hear.  At the next light, the whole car wobbled at idle.  I thought it was probably an engine mount and took it a Big Time Mini mechanic at 8 AM.  Call us in a couple of hours, they said. 

    Don't wait for my OK to fix it, I said, It has to be fixed.  No matter what.  Going to California.  Gotta sell it today.  Absolutely.

    At ten they said that it wasn't an engine mount, it was the engine stabilliser bolt sheared off in the block.  They were working on it.  At eleven they said they had gone down the street for some more drill bits. At noon they said they had a flame on it.  And at two thirty they said, "We give up." 

    But that was still plenty of time to take a minicab over to get the little fuck back to my house in Hampstead by 3:30 where I could hope the Fryatt & the Cars & Car Coversions guys would still want it. 

    Plenty of time.  Being Friday the minicab drove straight into a traffic jam.    But I really know the route and I steered him through the back streets and into a worse jam.

                  
      A half hour crawled by.

    I ran the last 150 yards.  The mechanic said he was really sorry they couldn't do anything.  No charge.  I gave him a twenty for the gents who had spent the morning bent over it and drove away very, very carefully, the engine rocking violently at the slightest twitch on the accelerator.  No petrol, the gauge said.  But it always says that.

      Besides I don't have time to stop for petrol, I have to stop by Ian & Tiba's house because naturally I forgot ALL of the little fuck's papers and documents like the letter from Paddy Hopkirk. 

      So I charge in their house, almost mash the cat into a pattern on the carpet, fling the contents of two suitcases into the air, until there on the bottom is the blue folder with the papers and I run out.  Nineteen minutes.  Plenty of time.  Slow ease off.  Into second gently, smoothly.  Over the past few months it has developed a habit of ripping its exhaust system off its mounts and dragging it on the ground and I think I've got that little quirk licked but you never know.  Third gear.  I am driving like the car is full of baby girls holding jars of wired Semtex.

    Seventeen minutes to go and easing gently onto York Way, I'll skip the BP petrol station because it is on the wrong side of the road and getting across the traffic twice could add another minute maybe two.  Plus a pit stop would take five minutes, so don't even think about it.  When the throttle return spring snaps with a wee ping as we pause in the traffic and the engine soars free like it loves to do.  It now idles at 75 MPH.   Roar, scream, sweat, crawl. 

              It crosses my mind, as every time I have to stop the engine screams and another half pint of petrol is transformed into partially burnt hydrocarbons, fuel economy never having been one of its strong points, it crosses my mind that having passed the BP station there's an EXXON a mile up the road, and maybe I should consider risking a stop when I get there.  (to be continued with anquish and anxiety)

"WHAT??" she screamed: the Mini Chronicles part 1

                     When I lived in London the original pint-sized 1960s Mini Cooper 

was the ultimate urban car.  

Paul McCartney had a Mini too. 

            You could park it anywhere and go through holes in the traffic that other cars could not see. 

             In real life, the Mini Cooper I had was pleasant, (a 1972 1275 S with all mod cons) but dull.  Nippy, but I have never been thrilled by nippy.  So I sold my real one to buy a replica of a full race Paddy Hokirk Mini.  The motor was shot so I had British Tuner, Oselli bore out the engine to the max 1375 cc, with all the other solid lifter polished and balanced Kent Cam stuff just like a real a full race rally engine. It would blow the doors off anything this side of a Ferarri but you weren't risking the national heritage by parking it in the street.

            So the little car (we called it Bogus) and I were happy for a while.  Except for the yowl of the straight cut gears in the transmission.  I was driving up to Silverstone with Pippa,l the beautiful  blonde PR exec from my publisher, Pan/Macmillan to sell some of my books at the British Grand Prix.  It was a hot July day and we were bounding along on a back road on full whack, following a big Lancia.

Lancia Fulvia (click to enlarge)

     "Look at them." I said. "They've got their windows rolled up, the air-conditioning on, the stereo is probably playing some wall to wall fabric softener.  They don't even know they're going fast."

    "What?" she screamed.

    The straight cut gears had to go.  After I had it's screaming teeth pulled it was a little sweetie around town.  It rode like a brick falling down stairs and spin it's wheels in almost any gear and it had soul and 130 hp at 7,000 rpm.  Which may not sound like much but it only weighed an ounce more than as your left shoe.

        On the downside ,the racing stripes, roll cage and no back seat, were a dead giveaway.  It looked like a case of arrested adolescent development and I couldn't get anybody to ride with me.  When I went to dinner with my friend Fay Maschler, (London's restaurant Diva in The Evening Standard,), she made me park it out of sight so nobody would know she knew the owner of the little monster.

         Still, I forgave it its foibles like ripping out it's super trick exhaust from time to time, and having to give its little black box a cuddle before it would start on a cold morning.  But they all have their little foibles don't they?      
        
        Anyway I waited too long to sell it. I needed wheels until I left for the land of fruits and nuts in a few days.   But I couldn't take it to California with me.  So I had, absolutely had to sell it.  And the first ad I put in Autosport for £6,500 brought in just  one reply who lost interest as soon as he found out it wasn’t a real Mini-Cooper.

          A little rise in anxiety here; I was moving to California in a week.  I already had more luggage than I could carry.  Besides, the California Highway Patrol would take it behind an abandoned cop house and ventilate the little car with their 357 Magnums for no crash tests, no pollution control and eating Porsches.  

         So I ran another ad in Auto Sport, dropping the price down to £4,500, showing a beauty pic and, yes, oh yes, the phone rang.  Nigel Fryatt the editor of CARS & CAR CONVERSIONS said they wanted to do a feature on it.  Put it on the cover of their new Quarterly magazine, MINI WORLD.  Buy it.  Oh JOY!!!!   (to be continued, with pain and violence)

The Blog is taking off for the weekend.
    In the meantime there's a ton of goodies here. Scroll down for the beauty of a blizzard in New York City the wacky wonderful Coneheads at Silverstone. Or the flip side of that madness to the days of dope and meditation in The Volvo Years.
         if you missed the all-time-record-breaking-hit- monster blog, The Real Allard Story:give it a click.  No, I lied; last week's  tribute to the women who are as"sweet as honey and smile at you like you're made of money," attracted even more hits. And If you missed the 1979 Polish Grand Prix now's your chance.

Or, click on bob judd on the top of this page or slip down the right hand column to click on such gems as  my favorite, How You Look at the Sky.   Or The Kythera Chronicles to shake hands with Barbarossa.

Or just cruise through the links on the lower right hand side of this page, maybe come upon some unexpected little gem like  an excerpt from The Candle,  In Praise of the Belleville Midgets,  The Midgets of Belleville. Part II,  Truth in Grass: a Kansas adventure, The Story of the Larned Eagle Optic, Hollywood Calls, You Pick up the Phone, Hollywood Calls, you pick up the phone part 2 maybe my favorite My Short Happy War in Afghanistan or no, wait, wait, Fangio and the Maserati 250 F for the priceless video of Fangio in a polo shirt and helmet, absolutely relaxed driving a Maserati 250F around a beat up old race track with no run off, no barriers, no safety nothing.  My lunch with Rob Walkeris a good one even though it leaves out the Betty Grable stories. 

       You wouldn't want to miss My Short Happy War in Afghanistan

 

             Then there's Erno Goldfingers house-and-mine, which throws in Ian Flemming, no extra charge. Riding around Laguna Seca with Jackie Stewart was picked up by Jalopnik.com.

              Or Uncle John's Prayer.

               Or Clarence Judd Head-Butts a Truck.  Truck dies. That's a good one. 

             And, of course, the one that started it all, Truck Story.

               Then Virgin calls, and Forrest goes to Hollywood to star with an Electric car. And Forrest does a shoot in bed with Virgin. That one is a lot of fun. 

                Although, you might want to take a look at Pheromone Dreams to see what they are doing in bed in front of a film crew. While you're there it's just a short hop to Nurse Pelvis. 

            Or take a dip in the world's largest concrete freshwater free municipal swimming pool.

           And for a fine rainy afternoon divertimento, click on my dance with a prima ballerina.

 

              For a tasty bite with bon mots check out my friend, Gerry Freeman's foodie blog as  Hungry Gerald.heads for London and Paris.

             Or go visit Elif Batumen, San Francisco's brightest and funniest writer, a fine lady to curl up with for a good read.  Here's Elif's homepage.

             Enjoy, Have a ball.  See you Monday, January 3.

Posted by Bob Judd at 9:23 AM 0 comments Links to this post

Bye Bye Black Bird

      
        

You say you love me like
a lion loves his Africa sky.
You say  your pretty words,
I know what they buy.

You lay your words around my neck
like emeralds.  Hang dazzlers
from my ears.  When you left
I scooped up your words
in a shopping bag dumped
them on the pawnshop
counter. The man say your words
ain't worth a dime.  Not worth,
he said, the  usual word for
fundament. Keep your words.

The day I called you said you
sliced your palm to the
bone, drooled blood
in your kitchen sink
stained your marble bath.
Bleed dry.  See how it feels.

You say I am turquoise and gold,
a bird of paradise in snow.
You say my breath blows maroon
through your mind. You
say I am a brass band in
a little tin town. You
say, you say.
I say
show me
what good
your words do
you now.  I'm gone.