You see, in the days before the annual MOT test you could drive an old car until it literally fell to pieces around you one day, and indeed thats exactly what happened to many of us and our old cars.
It happened to my old friend Charlie Smith one day, for instance.
Charlie had been running an old Humber car for six months or so when it finally and absolutely refused to start one morning. having dismantled its engine more times than he cared to remember and having been given the forty year old car for free in the first place but then spending a lot of money buying replacement parts, he decided that the old, old Humber – a huge car of 1940’s vintage – had to make its final journey to the scrap yard and so they stripped the car of anything useful, including its spare tyre and jack (remember this detail) and set about getting it to the scrappers.
After much coaxing and pouring a couple of pints of petrol into the tank – Charlie was never one for buying petrol in bulk he used to fill up at a local petrol station where he knew the proprietor and could buy his petrol by the half gallon – eventually they managed to get the engine running on two of its six cylinders, just enough to belch and fart its way to the top of the hill near his house where, nestling at the bottom of the hill lay Dickinsons scrap yard.
He and Keith, a friend of his, sat in the car while it rolled all the way down the hill with just enough kinetic energy to mount the small rise in front of the scrappers and thence down into Dickinsons yard where Dickinson took one look at it and offered them £10.
Charlie was outraged and refused point blank to accept the disgraceful offer, why this was a car of forty years vintage, an antique it was surely worth £50 of anyones money, despite the fact that its previous owner had known it was worthless and given it to Charlie for free.
Dickinson refused to budge so with a great deal of trouble and pushing and shoving the huge car back up the hill to the main road Charlie and Keith set off for another scrap yard that was located a couple of miles away, they had just enough petrol to get there being that most of the two pints in the tank was being spat straight through four non-firing cylinders and out the exhaust pipe.
The second scrap yard owner offered them £5.
Outraged once again but with only a few drops of petrol left Charlie decided to take the car back to Dickinsons and accept his first offer, and so once again they pushed the car for several hundred exhausting yards before it coughed into life for one last downhill run and off they spluttered, holding up all the traffic on the ring road again, but in the opposite direction this time.
And then they had a flat tyre.
Charlie walked around to the boot to get the jack and spare tyre out only to realise that they had salvaged those two vital parts before they had left his house, they would be useful to keep they had thought, not knowing just how useful they would be if, for instance, you are out driving your car and you get a flat tyre, in fact a new tyre and a jack are not very useful at all if you don’t keep them in your car at all times.
They had to walk the two miles back to Charlies house to pick up the spare tyre and jack and then walk the two miles back to the car which by now was featuring in the BBC radio traffic bulletins all on its own as “an abandoned car causing severe congestion”
The jack in place Charlie started to wind the handle to lift the wheel off the floor – the tyre was nearly clear of the floor when the jack ripped through its mount hole in the rusty old chassis and cut a swathe right up through the rusty old rear door leaving a nice eighteen inch long gaping vertical hole.
They repositioned the jack a little further along the chassis and once again managed to get the car most of the way up off the road before once again the rust gave way and the jack ripped another hole up through the door in a cloud of rust.
Three times they managed to rip big holes in the car door before abandoning the idea and deciding to drive to Dickinsons on a flat tyre after all.
By the time they finally rolled into Dickinsons yard for the second time that day there was not a drop of petrol left in the tank and not a shred of rubber left on the wheel and hardly a wheel left on the wheel hub, sparks flew from the mangled rim and as the car finally drew to a halt the exhaust pipe fell off just for good measure.
Dickinson came out of his office and looked the car up and down.
“I’ll take your ten quid” Charlie suggested cheerfully
“I’m not offering ten quid now” Dickinson muttered, miserable as always, a man who clearly hated his job, “you can leave it here for nowt and I won’t charge you rent for it”
They had no option, they’d spent the best part of their day and ached in every muscle from pushing the bloody thing backwards and forwards between the scrap yards, just to accept the grand sum of nothing for the car, they even left the jack and one good tyre in the boot because they couldn’t be arsed to carry them home again.
It was just after that incident that Charlie joined the police force, a job that wouldn’t tax his brain quite so much as the day he needed to scrap his car.
Why is it that I saw that final offer of zero pounds coming. Sounds like my luck!
They should have just set fire to the car ad claimed on insurance. That usually works for me.
Sam – Days of penniless motoring and third party only policies, I had one too !
Ed – I almost daren’t tell the story of the Volvo that shrank from £27000 to £11000 in 18 months (but I will now I’ve remembered it) so losing £10 in two hours is nothing really