Cars

I keep on having a spat with my daughter. I have bought me a Renault Clio (added to my extensive automotive collection) so that when she is with me, I at least have the use of MY Landrovers!I can sense the problems that my Mom had with 3 school boys, learning to drive Fred our black Vauxhall Victor - circa 1960. We called him "Fred"!

I call "MY Clio" "La Frog" because it is French, but she refers to the car as "Chloe" - I suggested "Chloe La Frog" but she wants nothing to do with that! It is - I maintain - my car, so I have the right to name her! Next month - after the all important payday, I want to go in and get her 4 new tyres and 4 mag wheels! A car looks so neglected if it has no - or missing - hubcaps! I have mag wheels on my Landrover(s) AND on my trailer, so why not on "La Frog" also!

When I was serving my National Service (1980) I used to take Fred out to the nearby lake on sports afternoons and go sailing - in Mike (tiny little boat, called that as short for Microscopic)

That car was in need of an overhaul, but in the 4 or so years it was owned, it never broke down so badly that a quick sparkplug change would not get it running smoothly again! Fred used to create hilarity at fuel stations where we used to leave the attendants confused. We used to pull in and say "Check the fuel and top up the oil!" Fred used to use more oil than is carried in a Saudi oil tanker! (bit of an exaggeration - but not by much!) James Bond with his smoke screens had nothing on Fred if you ran against the gears!

Still Fred was a great car (a character), and taught all 3 of us how to drive - and to make emergency roadside repairs!

We had to buy Fred because my dad freaked if I ever looked at his darling BMW. If we had to rely on learning to drive that, I still could not have been able to drive.

We learned to drive basically, then were "polished" at a driving school. The cars we had there were Daihatsu Sedans - tiny little cars. I think that the government had a deal going with Japan and France, because the only cars you could get new were Datsuns (pre Nissan), Renaults (R4 then R5), and Peugeot (404 then 504) with a smattering of BMWs from SA and a few Daihatsu's. In SA the BMWs were marketted as 1800's and 2000's, but in Rhodesia they were marketted as Cheetahs! Before we emigrated, we put our names down for a brand new BMW, but they stopped making them before we were contacted! It was a real eye opener to see car showrooms in SA overflowing with shiny new cars. When we first came on holiday to SA, the first thing we saw in Messina - the town nearest the border - was a brand new VW Beetle! That was in 1979.

I remember seeing a showroom in Mocambique that sold Citroens. On the floor was a new DS19, (hydraulic suspension) and the price sticker on the windscreen had so many zeros in it (tens of millions of Escudo's) it stretched right across the windscreen. When we obtained Escudos at the bank, 1 Escudo was changed for a tickey (2.5 cents - or pre decimilasition, 3 pennies!) - or 40 tickeys to $1. Those were the days when 10 cents pocket money a MONTH made you feel really wealthy, and you could buy a coke and a packet of crisps for breaktime from the tuckshop, and still get change! Now 10 cents is more of a pain than anything else - taking up valuable space in your wallet! It will not buy much anymore and just sits in your wallet ad infinitum! Usually I HATE receiving my toll fee change in small change and I recently peeved an operator off when I offloaded R 5 in 10 and 20 cent pieces. I was only giving them back the coinage they give to me!

Thinking about that, makes me feel really old, because my daughter refuses to believe that life is even possible without cell phones even! Even then a cell phone HAS to be a Blackberry, not your average common or garden Nokia.