London Express

Transmission Starts...

Climb in, turn on, wait for the cold warning sign to go out.

Reverse out, turn in, join the traffic.

Coast on, warm the clutch in the traffic, warm the gearbox on the short-section M5, warm the suspension on the long sweep that dips and undulates as it leaves the M5 and joins the 417.

Cruise up the hill, stretch out the revolutions past the Air Balloon, hold back for the dip past the Golden Heart.

Duel Carriegeway with angry Focus close up. Every so often I can show him who's boss by flooring the PanzerWagen. I tell myself to let it go, let it pass, let it breath...

I pull over, let him pass. He sprints off into the distance. Today is not for sprinting or getting into silly pitch battles with reps on a mission. Today I'm going to London.

417 skirting Ciren, up the hill to Swindon, join the 419, turn off to M4, settle back to low warp. Switch on In Our Time, sit back and cruise.

Stop outside Reading. Coffee in Burger King, spot an Elise in Gulf colours, press on. Flow into London, past the Glaxo building, past the Porsche dealership, join the press of traffic. I sit in Kensington at the lights opposite the Bristol dealership. Ben Fogal sits next to me in a Mini Cooper S convertible. His chocolate labrador rests its chin on the door, looking bored and hot in the muggy, close 30 degree heat.

Summer in the city and the girls are pretty. They line the streets, I almost crash here and there. The North Circular does its job and I reach the East End, parking in the shadow of The Guerkin. A Guinness fuelled night ensues. We paint a pub with the songs of our youth. All ends and sleep comes.

Transmission interrupted..............

Redirecting..................73032783t...vyownt893wnuw52u...otn295tn2v835ut80............

Junction 235 > 237

..................krtv37bt723ntvy3tnv7vt753n

..........

Transmission Resumes...

Wake up, breakfast in Brick lane, leave. About to join the North Circular but spot ClassicCarClub.com. Can't resist but to walk in. The creaking PanzerWagen barely fits in as two men manhandle a Cobra 427. It pops and gargles as a genuinely big man groans under the weight of moving that steering rack at low speed. I'm drunk on it. I walk in, ignored, touch the F355, the XJR, the GT3, the Mustang, the E-type(s), the Ferrari(s). Amongst all is a ZT180 estate.

Ha.

Told you they're brilliant.

No one bats an eyelid as I get right under a ramped and stripped E-type. I touch the sump of the glorious, cultured, legendary straight 6. The heart of one of the greatest sports cars ever made lies dormant above my head.

A Bentley Continental T sits big and proud dwarfing a P6. Always wanted both of those.

I stroll back out into the sunlight and engage in a 15 point turn in front of the mechanics. I'll bear they're grins better than putting a hole in a 360 Modena.

Pull out, join the circular, rush on, join the M4, spot an MR2 in Martini colours, cruise back in the heat. No air con, no matter. Worse things have happened at sea.

This is just one side of the story but for Auto Eclectic this is the whole side...

Transmission Ends...

Chatter

Transmission Starts...

Chatter, chatter, chatter.

All is talk.

You know when I said the Audi's steering is dead?

You know when I said it was non-communicative?

Well, here's a slice of my very own, home cooked humble tart.

There are two (so far) dimensions to good steering.

1st is resistance upon turn in. Does it weight up when you corner? Is that weight related to how hard and/or how fast you are cornering?

Or

Does it feel just the same?

The Audi doesn't have any of this.

Mute.

Dead.

Anyways,

2nd dimension.

this is 'chatter' through the steering column. Good tyres complemented by good suspension and a good (good) steering linkage can communicate the very slightest of tarmac imperfections. It can tell you what type of surface you are on and in turn how much grip is available. Together with a good 'seat of your pants' feel (I'll explain some other time) this is the essential difference between a Mk1 SLK and a Porsche Boxster.

Shocking really when I suddenly realised the Audi had been chatting away all along but I hadn't been listening.

oh well, it's done now, we understand each other a bit more.

Beyond the present tense there's a drive in the new Z4 on the horizon. Reviews have been positive, but how will it feel?

Transmission Ends...

The Whitler

Transmission Starts...

The Whittler whittles, but this is merely a detail in a much bigger picture.

Cryptic?

Me?

Yes.

Ok.

Ahem;

It was only a couple of evenings ago that I was sat in the Whittler's garden on a chair that he had made, surrounded by bits of yurt that he had worked on, in amongst an allotment that he and his friend Critical had planted. His first yurt had taken 18 months. His second, 3.

The point is that when you do something for the first time it always takes longer, involves more problems. Thankfully, so far, I haven't come up against any major problems with getting the WolfSled sorted for sale, but my goodness it's dragging.

Plus side?

I've made lots of new contacts and have had an SLK to drive about in on a roughly weekly basis. I suppose a road test should be in order...

Oh yes, I almost forgot. Someone new has started at the restaurant. He drives a Mini (BMW) Cooper. So that's another road test on the way.

Transmission Ends...

A to B

Transmission Starts....

Lesson No. 001 - Always Shop Around.

With a metaphorical wad of cash with which to service the WolfSled (the boss is known as the Wolf - if you met her...) in preparation for the sale I thought I'd dip my toe into dealing with Mercedes dealers. First call was to Mike Grimsby Mercedes on the Bristol Road in Gloucester. I had touched base with the former official Mercedes dealer a couple of weeks ago. He seemed honest and laid back. He put in a call to his sister business - Robin Lamb Mercedes.

Mike does the sellin', Robin does the repairin' (sorry - couldn't resist that).

Anyways, I was promised a call back from Robin.

Next stop, the local official Mercedes dealer. Again a return call was promised.

Mercedes Benz Hanza (although they are also listed in the Pages Yellow as Audi, Nissan etc Hanza) answered promptly with a mist of unfamiliar terminology. All of my questions were eventually answered, but it did take a sort of journalistic bullying to get any sort of strait reply.

Turns out there are two types of Mercedes service. A's are minor services ranging from £115 to £200 depending on where you go. B's are a little more serious and drum your account to the beat of £250+.

Although the WolfSled has only done 7000ish miles since the last service, it's been two long years. As the return calls started coming in everyone was insisting on a B, with Mercedes C and G (the official girls and boys) telling me she would need a fuel filter thrown into the mix.

I can't quite remember what Mr Lamb from the Bristol Road dealership said when I informed him of his former colleagues recommendation but it was something along the lines of;

"Those rascals".

Indeed a fuel filter should be changed every 50,000 miles or so. It's clearly stated in the service history that the last service had included this. Further to me mentioning this to the professionally friendly lady on the other end of a couple of satellites it should also be said that it states in the vehicle history that the last service had included a new fuel filter and had taken place at C and G. She had even called all of these details up on the screen to tell me this.

That's a code aubergine stroke fail in my book.

That's a a complete triangulation of coordinates to no thanks land.

I don't think I'll be going there any time soon.

So that's a win to Robin Lamb, we'll see how the actual experience goes....

Peeeee Esssssss

An honorable mention should go to MANN in Tewksbury for a friendly and competitive "A" price. Only unfamiliarity and distance had them shown the door.

Transmission Ends...

Wolfsled

Transmission starts....

I'm convinced it's about noise.

Noise and feel.

And possibly the idea of internal combustion.

Either way, that's something for another day.

This week I 'ave been mostly trying to sell the bosses car. Anyone in the market for a Merc SLK in black for roughly 8k?

It's funny (or not), as soon as you become known as a car know it all people actually assume you know it 'all'. Those 'all' things include how to sell a premium sports car/convertible hardtop thingy with no experience of actually selling a premium sports car / convertible hardtop thingy.

So, where to start?

It's all about the Pee's.

The preparation, the prevents, the piss, the poor, the performance..

She (the car, not the boss) needs a valet, all four alloys renovated/reconditioned, a 65,000 mile service and a letter 'R' from the 'Kompressor' legend that seems to have gone for a little one way trip.

Probably to the back of a chav-mobile.

Sorry that's not fair is it?

Ok, how about; its probably masquerading as a 'racing' badge on a lowered washing machine?

Either way, project 001a is now underway.

Transmission ends....

Ministry Of Transport

Transmission starts...

Fail.

Fail on the rear fog-lights, fail on a tiny pin-prick hole on the front brake hose.

Bugger.

An afternoons mucking about might have found the fault with the lights but the process of draining, taking apart and refilling the reasonably complicated set of valves and hoses that make up the internals of a (relatively) (not really) modern  ABS system is very scary indeed.

So, I'm now almost £150 lighter (that's including the initial MOT) and just a little bit mechanically paranoid.

Silver lining?

This is the garage that (by proxy) I'd bought the Audi from. Upon purchase several things that were promised in the transaction simply never turned up. 

A working sunroof for starters. 

Or how about a service history for mains?

Anyway;

The parcel shelf was missing but I'd been promised it was knocking about somewhere. A couple of weeks of fruitless phone calls produced a verbal shrugging of shoulders. Today it miraculously turned up.

The best part?

"Lucky you came in, otherwise it would've been chucked away"

Brilliant.

Cheers.

Transmission ends...

Night Riding

Transmission starts...

Night driving. It's what I do when I cut loose. Cut loose from the hio polloi, hustle bustle of the everyday. 

The poet and I had been debating theology at the local Alpha course.

"Fancy going for a drive?" I'd asked. After dropping The Pipe Smoker off we'd filled up on fuel and set a course to nowhere. The Audi does this well. The mid-size V6 takes high speed cruising in its stride, it's only let down by a relatively large amount of wind noise. Amazing really. There is only one generation of R and D that separates this from the Starship Diesel, a car whose name comes from its lack of wind noise, unhurried nature, blue sci-fi instruments, in all; Its touring ability.

And yet.

The Starship was created by a non-premium manufacturer. It is a Peoples Car. Welcome to expected growth and the exponential rise of the microchip...

So;

From Spa Cheltenham to Big City Bristol with its Victorian riveted Iron, its revived city centre, its preserved Banksy, Portishead, Massive Attack heritage. We merely skirt all of this. 

On and out we dash up the long hill M4 to the A46 junction then a sharp acceleration and a long sweeper that shows the Audi to be grippy but non-communicative. We get stuck behind a C3. I drop the pace. We talk of past journeys, past relationships, past conversations and the relentless passage of achievement and failure, not wanting to get off of this pressured rat race, human race for fear of breaking a leg. 

I find an overtaking opportunity and we pour along the Cotswold pass occasionally slowing to impulse speeds for the odd village, before winding out the V6 to yowl at the night.

We enter the small town of my childhood, creep past my parents house, creep past my Mother's Mothers' house, creep into the green field of my childlike dreams. We climb out and watch the clouds race overhead, talk of beauty, luck and possible grace.

The Audi ticks in the orange street light, but not for long.

All aboard and we idle down the street my Mother and I shared our childhood but for time.

On we press, then up the hill, up Coopers Hill to Minchinhampton/Rodborough Common. Tugging at the wheel reminds me that for some reason this car doesn't like a cross wind. I think back to a couple of hairy high speed moments on the French Alps Auto Route in driving rain. 

We press on across the common and down the hill into Stroud. We enter a lake of lights, the orange glow washes over us. We rejoin the A46, through chocolate box Painswick, turn off the A46, up the hill to the beacon, as far as the track takes us where we climb out and march up the hill, wind flickering my shirt and making The Poets hair dance. We stand and survey the glow of Glevum, the dark River Severn, the defined edge of the Cotswold Hills, perhaps, where 12,000 years ago the ice sheet had ground to a halt, pushing the skin of the land to make this wrinkled, hilly green paradise in this United Kingdom. We race back down the hill, stumbling, shaking in the cold. The Audi welcomes us back, protects us from the wind, the coming rain, as we drop down from the lofty heights back into Cheltenham. One last winding out of 5th gear reveals the theoretical maximum cruising speed .

"I like this car. It's comfortable" says The Poet.

I agree.

I drop The Poet off and creep home. As I climb out I take the time to look the Audi over. She ticks in the wind . I think I may be beginning to like her;

"There is playful element to the character of this car"

Funny, I thought she was too serious. 

Maybe I was wrong....

Transmission ends....