Car Stuff

Today I went to the garage to have a repair done to my car. The passenger’s side front door needed a new central locking lock thingy. It didn’t cost me anything as its still under guarantee. When you blipped it to unlock the doors there was a rather alarming graunching sound, although apart from that everything worked fine. Our car is a Kia. We had a Subaru Turbo Forester a few months ago, but when I discovered it was going to cost me a thousand pounds just to get a new exhaust, not including the new clutch it needed - amongst other things, it was clear it had to go. The Kia Carens was the much more affordable replacement.

Now, if you know anything about cars, you will know that in terms of performance the Subaru wins hands down. I could hold my own quite comfortably with BMW drivers who, as everyone knows believe they have the right to overtake everything on the road and sit glued to your tail flashing their lights until you get out the way. Now I couldn’t care less.

The Kia is much more a pipe and slippers car. However, as I possess neither a pipe or slippers, this is irrelevant. Actually, contrary to what I’ve read about the Kia, it does actually have quite a turn of accelaration when I floor it, although I’m past caring about racing other motorists. I don’t care if a Trabant overtakes me. I don’t wear a baseball hat, but I do play loud pounding music - when my wife isn’t with me. However, I do have a bit of an issue with the TV advert for Kia. “Designed to change your mind” says the slogan. Designed to change your mind about what? Designed to change your mind from thinking Kias are underpowered, unreliable cheap and nasty crap cars? Is that what its trying to change your mind about? Probably. Until I was pushed to getting one, that was pretty much my view of Kia cars. I am of course a complete snob in most things. Now I am a Kia snob. They must be brilliant cars otherwise my very discerning wife and I wouldn’t own one.

Time for bed - G’night, Sleep tight, D’nay let the doggies bite.

Colin

I was deeply shocked and troubled by the death of Colin McRae. More than that, I felt a sense of emptiness, as if a sudden dark void had entered somewhere in the depths of my being.

I have never met Colin. I have never seen Colin except on TV. I am someone who while not a fan of rallying, likes rallying. Motor sport to me has always been something pretty boring. That ceased to be the case when my youngest son encouraged me to watch some of the World Rally Championships on the box. I found it both exciting and thrilling. Colin could easily have been one who drove in endless circuits around a Grand Prix track. Instead he chose the varied challenge of hairpin bends on mountain roads, forest roads, driving through snow and ice, taking off and flying from the crests of hills, crashing off sharp bends, rolling over and over, smashing up cars in a gladiatorial struggle to be at the top of the podium, showing no fear but only a steel determination to win through. He was - and is a hero.

It is because of Colin that I drive a Subaru. Let me explain. I used to drive a Rover. That in itself is a good enough reason to change to a Subaru! However, that is not how it came about. My Rover had served me well for some years but was now giving me more trouble than it was worth. On the day I bought the Subaru, I hadn't planned to buy a car - let alone even look at a new car. I took my wife and my youngest son ten pin bowling in St Neots. It's what I do. I bowl. After bowling, we were at a bit of a loose end and it seemed too early to go home. There was a Rover garage nearby and so we found ourselves looking at cars. The bloke in the garage was trying to flog me a series 2 1.4 litre and I wasn't terribly impressed. My son suggested we take a ride out to Marshals in Cambridge, near the airport and look at cars there, so that is what we did. While I was looking at used Rovers, my son and wife were not looking at Rovers. They were looking at an Impreza. It wasn't a turbo model, but an Impreza nonetheless. Encouraged by my son, I took it for a test drive, liked it and bought it. Since then, I have moved onto a moody black Subaru Turbo Forester which is a real mean machine. I love it.

My son would not have pushed me in the Subaru direction were it not for his devotion to Colin who did a lot to enhance Subaru in the public eye by winning the World Championship in one. After that he went on to drive for Ford, but never became as indelibly linked with a brand as he did with Subaru.

My son wants to be a rally driver. He has entered competitions to win a rallying scholarship, and did well to get near the final stages. He is an excellent driver and frightens the living crap out of me when he takes me out for spins around the country lanes of Scotland where he now lives. He covets the dream of being a rally driver himself. I believe he will. He has fleetingly met Colin when he was helping out at a rally and was asked to take something to Colin who was sat in his car at the time. It was a moment he will never forget.

So here's to Colin. An inspiration, role model, sportsman, brave, fearless, determined, champion, hero, "Flower of Scotland". May his memory live for ever.