Some snow causes transport meltdown in UK

It’s been an eventful week logistically in the UK. We awoke on Tuesday morning in Manchester city centre to find we had clearly entered a new ice age. The taxis rank normally wakes us up with their incessant beeping by 7:30, but it was about 11 o’clock before we stirred and looked out the window to see a city covered in snow, ice and more snow and not a taxi in sight. This was not surprising when we ventured out and saw that there was nothing to distinguish path from road surface.

The fact that civilisation as we know it had affectively ended (albeit hopefully temporarily) in the North didn’t seem to concern our London centric ‘national’ news, which barely registered the severity of precipitation north of Watford. That of course changed by Wednesday when they realised it was heading down south and London and the South-East generally went into economic and social meltdown. My mother and father in Surrey have not done a days work since, although they have made sure all the grandparents have been given food rations. On Monday night I had watched the Bolivia Top Gear special (at one point it does look as though Clarkson is going to fall down a ravine in an ancient Range Rover) and wanting my own dangerous car adventure I decided to ignore the overnight snow fall and skate down to the Boddingtons car park, dig out the car and attempt the journey to work.

The Probe never ceases to amaze me with its hardiness. The pictures don’t do justice to the sheer amount of ice and snow it was entombed in.

It was that cold that a thermos flask inside the car, filled with hot water the day before had frozen solid. Yet, it started first time, and with my trusty red seaside spade and ice scrapper, I was slipping and sliding out onto the A6042 in under 15 minutes.

On my way to work I damned nearly drop my phone on a number of occasions trying to take photos of the journey. I have spared the shame of the BMW drivers out there by not taking photos of the many who were stranded. I have counted five of Germanys finest so far, many of which had found that rear wheel drive and automatic gear boxes don’t cope very well in slippery conditions. One Z3 has been abandoned all week outside a Shell Garage and now resembles an oblong shaped igloo, I assume being an aggrieved BMW driver, they just went out and bought a replacement Z4.

I thought cars were supposed to look glamorous in the snow, but then I realised that this notion was subconsciously based on James Bonds Lotus Esprit in For Your Eyes Only. In reality the snow and ice mocks our cars, giving them stupid white humps on their roofs, like ugly roof racks and attaching muddy snow clingers to the wheel arches. The ice also makes you look like you drive like a fool. If you haven’t lost traction whilst trying to accelerate from the lights, you are driving at four miles an hour to avoid careering off the road, whilst braking earlier for traffic than anyone over 70 usually does.

My colleague, a proud Jaguar XF owner has also had an eventful week. Now that Jaguar have successfully built a BMW 5 series, Neil found out that the rear wheel drive, automatic gearbox set up in the XF made him drive like a BMW driver too. On Tuesday, Neil barely made it into work before 10:30 and he had to leave for home at 1:30 pm, in case the slight incline on the road out of the Quays caused the XF to give up and slide to the side of the road. Neil has been very forgiving of the cars shortcomings, but that’s only because he’s glad he still has a car...early on the same morning an unlucky commuter was sitting in the dark, in traffic on Hale Road, when he started to hear strange noises coming from his Peugeot 308. Then on noticing sparks, he pulled into a side road and parked up next to Neil’s sleeping Jaguar XF. The Peugeot promptly set itself alight and followed this with a series of small but flamboyant explosions. Surely only a French car would have the indecency to catch fire whilst driving on a block of ice. Neil awoke and on looking out his window deduced that it was his XF causing the impromptu bonfire. However, on rushing outside it was to his utter relief that it was only a silly French car burning. Acting quickly, Neil bravely moved the XF out of harm’s way.

This is Neil’s surprisingly artistic photo of the fireman attending to the blaze, so fierce that it has melted a small, warped car shape into the tarmac.

Although dramatic Neil did not have the worst week transport wise. This accolade goes to my wife’s sister, who had a very difficult week car-wise in her brown 1980 Austin Mini. On Sunday night I managed to pour half a pint of Newcastle brown ale down her back seats, something she wasn’t best pleased with, especially when having to remove her sopping seat cushions out and clear up the mess at 1:30 am. Her journeys to the Trafford Centre this week have also been a complete nightmare. Her mini being as light as snow has meant virtually no traction. Her solution has been to drive to work in first gear, calculating that if crashing, she couldn’t do much harm to herself or to her precious mini. Her pace has caused a few road rage incidences with drivers of big stupid off-roaders. Having witnessed the smug behaviour of 4x4 drivers over the last week whilst driving the Probe, I can only imagine the hassle that Edel has had in the mini. Well done 4x4 people, I hope you all enjoy the only week EVER where owning a 4x4 actually has a benefit. Theo (as Edel’s mini is called) added insult to injury this morning by failing to start. The Probe meanwhile has taken everything mother nature could throw at it. I love to hate that this car, but having now spent the best part of my twenties explaining to people that its the wife’s, I have to grudgingly accept its growing list of abilities, now added to which is ice skating.

Well done Probe, you have started first time every day, defrosted quickly, you didn’t get stuck in the snow or slip off the road and haven’t yet caught on fire. Thank you.

2 + 2 = Classic Car

“...Lorry, red lorry, red lorry, red lorry, red lorry, red...” Yes, when I was nearly three years old, I repeated this phrase for a whole 18 hours straight. I went to sleep saying it and woke up the next day, still babbling the phrase in constant repetition. Ok, so it was a lorry rather than a motor car, but at that age I don’t think I pondered the distinction. What was important was that it had four wheels, an engine and it was red (obviously the latter was of particular significance to me at the time). Although this period of early psychological dysfunction may disturb some of you, it was certainly an early indicator of the obsession taking hold and something I am no doubt wrong in feeling quite proud of. Can anyone else boast of suffering from some kind of car related breakdown of the physiological kind? I’m adamant some of you can. (Surely its no worse than having an imaginary friend...? Yes apparently I had one of those too...called Durn).

Car obsession has its place though and like any addiction, you may find yourself returning to it in times of stress. During my GCSE exams I was utterly obsessed with the Caterham Super Seven and I don’t just mean during this period in my life, I mean I was thinking about this car whilst undertaking the actual exam papers. The car represented escape and freedom and although it’s tempting to blame Colin Chapman for the state of my GSCE Maths grade, surely day dreaming about cars is an escape into our imagination when reality gets too boring. I really would love to have a go in a Caterham.

Surely the cars we choose to think about says a lot about who we are, or who we would like to be, at any particular moment. Recently I became obsessed with another Lotus, the classic Esprit.This obsession was structured ar

ound a number of real world considerations. It’s a fairly reliable classic and one I could drive to business meetings. It would also be a kind of statement about my lifestyle choices (read no kids thank goodness, so no need for back seats). Its also a classic piece of British engineering, with classic ‘pop up’ head lights. The very last factor is my wife’s concern. She loves pop up head lights and wonders why more cars don’t have them. We haven’t yet bought an Esprit, as my wife is very attached to her Ford Probe which also has pop up head lights. I am therefore stuck on how to promote the Lotus as a more attractive car? Who gives a damn for aerodynamics or fuel efficiency when an essentially mechanical gimmick is bestowed such weighty importance.

When we first purchased the Probe, I thought it had the design inadequacy of not being able to flash the head lights quickly, as you might do when letting someone out of a side road, or want to bestow permission to a pedestrian to cross in front of you. I thought you had to pop up the lights every time you needed to perform the motoring equivalent of Morse code, i.e. flashing your lights in a certain order to communicate with other road users. Most of us have become casually acquainted to some version of ‘flash code’. Personally I flash once to let a pedestrian cross the road and two flashes to let a car out of a side road. In all cases three flashes or more means hurry up and get out of my bloody way). It was taking me an inordinate amount of time to locate the column stalk light switch to operate the front beam, which was initially very distracting and dangerous. I did a whole week of nearly knocking people over as I fumbled for the head lights and like a twit, wondered why I was getting funny looks. I felt quite the dunce when I realised the Probe has front spot lights, visible at all times within the front bumper and operational without the need to pop up anything. These smaller lights could be flashed in the normal manner, with minimal fuss and at a moments notice. But I’m sure most of you already know this.

Next I would like to introduce you to an example of the Rover P6. It wasn’t my first car, but it was my first classic car obsession that wasn’t just a day dream. Ownership was a test of sanity, but that’s all in the next blog.