Scooters, Bangers, and Youth

"Thirty miles an hour. That's the speed limit. Is there any reason you were doing nearly sixty?"

I'll bet you've heard something like that before today. Who hasn't? Well, I've heard it once or twice in my life, and it's cost me a pound or two. More recently, the cost was in dollars.

I started my driving career (if that's what you call it) with an Isetta bubble car at sixteen years of age, because at that age, you could drive a three-wheeler in the United Kingdom on a motorcycle licence. Three-wheelers were treated like motorcycles and sidecars, whereas you had to be seventeen to drive a four-wheeled car. I never got to drive it by myself, because you needed a qualified passenger until you passed your motorcycle test. I didn't take that until much later in life, but I enjoyed driving, as most young guys do.

I learned really early on that once you let in the clutch, you jam your right foot to the boards and hold on—the only way to drive surely. You wouldn't get away with that today, but it wasn't quite so well controlled back in the sixties. Of course I believed I was a natural, as just about every other young man does, but with the huge BMW engine, a single-pot 300cc (eighteen-inch) affair, I wasn't likely to get into too much trouble, was I?

Didn't I mention the BMW engine? The car even had a BMW badge on the front door, so that felt good. That was the only door on the car, by the way. The whole front was hinged, and the steering wheel came out with it when you opened it. Anyway, the 300cc limit was probably instrumental in the length of my lifespan so far. I don't remember the top speed, but I'll bet it was on the slow side of sixty miles per hour.

As I said, I didn't take my motorcycle test until many years later, but at seventeen years of age, I started driving lessons. My dad taught heaps of people to drive, and all of them passed the first time. (I wonder why he decided to send me to a driving school ...) I learned in a Vauxhall Viva, which was a small family sedan. The lessons went really well for me, and the day before my test I was on one of my lessons. I felt pretty cocky about it; after all, I was a natural, remember. I pulled away from a road junction and promptly stalled. The poor guy behind me was probably assuming I'd be okay and looking to get out behind me onto the busy road. Next thing, I had a rear end full of Jaguar. He was fine about it, and so was my instructor.

Next day I had a one-hour lesson before my test, and I felt good about it. We arrived at the test station, and my instructor told me I'd be fine and that the only thing I needed to do was slow down a little. Yeah, that'd be right.

I failed for going too slowly. Now to be fair, that was a reasonable assessment by the examiner. The explanation for the fail point is the examiner has to assess you in a given time slot and has to see enough of your driving to make an assessment. Furthermore, they're not dumb; they know you'll speed up as soon as you leave the test centre, so they need to know you can handle normal road speeds. I didn't see it that way at the time, and I had my excuses ready for the pub later that night. Sorry—the milk bar. You couldn't drink until you were eighteen in the United Kingdom!

I took my test again a month or so later, and this time it was a breeze. I'd done some practice and had an hour's lesson right before the retest with a very attractive lady who was savvy about what was really required on a test. She picked me up on a couple of things that the examiner actually favourably commented on later, and I breezed it this time. I don't recall your name, but if you were a dark-haired lady instructor at the Altway School of Motoring in the sixties, I remember you were lovely. You even let me drive back, and after the first corner, you said, "You've passed now. You can drive faster than that." I wonder: Was it your fault I hardly lifted off the accelerator for a few years after that?

At this time, I was an apprentice motor mechanic, so I'd enjoy more driving. I was still going to work on my Lambretta Li 150 scooter, but at work, I got to drive proper cars. I even got sent out on breakdowns in the oldest or cheapest car in the shop.

Life was okay, although there was a lesson for me here that I probably didn't learn too much from, apart from the fact that some of your friends can be very helpful when your back's to the wall. Just a little point of interest, but I was sixteen years old and doing okay at work because I loved working with cars. This was a very small Saab and Fiat agency, and I still love those little Fiats; I wish I could get my hands on one today.

One particular day, the workshop manager asked me to remove the crankshaft on a little Fiat 500. (I now know it was actually an Autobianchi Giardiniera, based on a Fiat 500. In those days, I knew one as a panel van and the other as a station wagon, and I'm not sure if that was right, but it's not important at the moment.) There was one of each parked next to each other. I do remember that part. I was delighted because it was the first time they'd asked me to do something like that by myself. I was out to impress. Out came the jack and the stands, and off I went, methodically and with total concentration.

The engine came out beautifully, and it was on the bench with the ancillaries stripped off when the manager came out and asked me in a not-very-pleasant manner when I might actually begin the job. I started to tell him where I was up to when he suddenly gave me a "what have you done?" look. I knew something was wrong.

In case you haven't guessed, I'd taken the engine out of the wrong car. That car was in for a service, and the engine was half-stripped on the bench now. The owner would be back after lunch, and it was now approaching morning break. I went cold, but the foreman grabbed another guy, who started to reassemble my morning's work while I completed the remainder of the service it was actually there for. I don't think they actually allowed me to strip the crank in the end, but everything worked out perfectly and nobody got fired. Not even me. Good guys believe me.

I should mention that I love sports motorcycles but should probably not be allowed on two wheels for my own safety. I had quite a few wrecked bikes in the backyard at home, and I fondly remember trying desperately to bump-start them in the street. When I think back, all of them needed a coil and could have shared the same one since they were all Villiers motors; a little fresh fuel would also have helped.

At sixteen and seventeen, I spent almost as much time sliding up the road on my butt as I did riding my Lambretta scooter. I could recount many moments on it, some more severe than others, but mostly just embarrassing. Like when I was following a guy on a small motorcycle when we were both riding home from work. As we passed a bus stop, I gunned it, passed him, and pulled back in normally, but slightly erratically. I hit a small pothole, and both side panels fell off. The motorcycle, which was now following me, ran over one of them and didn't even stop. Though it was tempting to carry on myself as if it were nothing, I went sheepishly back for them to a round of applause. In life, you tend to find that the stupider the action, the bigger the audience to witness it. Or is that just me?

Okay, there were other bikes as well, but in all the time I lived in the United Kingdom, only the scooter was working when I bought it. About twenty-five years later, I bought a Yamaha 100cc single that wouldn't start but turned out to be just a coil. That one worried me because although it drove really well, the gear change was upside down compared with other bikes. That meant first was up and you went up the box through neutral, second, third, and fourth by pressing down on the shift pedal—most unusual. I really didn't want to get too used to that.

I did take my test on it though and failed the first go—again. You had to put your feet on the floor at a stop sign, and I didn't. Next test on the same bike went fine. Then I bought a Suzuki that had hit a stationery car and was considerably shorter because of it. I stripped the forks and rolled them out, which you shouldn't do. A second-hand wheel, a few other little jobs, and it was good to go. Trouble was, I'd rebuilt it in my apartment, upstairs from my dad's antenna shop. It was now longer and a real pig to get down the stairs, but I managed with the help of a friend and some rope.

Next of the bikes was a Suzuki GSX 250, which had been worked on to tune it, I guess, but it had gone horribly wrong and it ran really badly. I sorted it out anyway, and it turned out to be a decent bike once it was put back to almost stock. I have some advice though: never use Armor All or anything similar on the seat of a motorcycle. I did, and the first time I braked, I connected in a very unpleasant manner with the fuel tank because I couldn't prevent the slide into it; you need a little friction there to hold on, and some parts of the anatomy should never be used to arrest the continuing forward movement of the body.

About that time I did a track event at Cadwell Park Racing Circuit. The event was called "The Ducati Experience"; a fabulous day with one professional racer to a pair of riders. The professional was on a 996 Ducati and the rest of us on 748s. My instructor's nickname was Captain, after a member of the royal family. Captain Mark Phillips was the royal and this guy was just Mark Phillips, so Captain was his handle. Funny because I met a Welshman when I moved to Australia. He was Marc Phillips but we didn't call him Captain. Maybe we've forgotten that royal now; didn't Captain Mark Phillips marry Princess Anne? I loved that day and heartily recommend it if you like bikes. I knew it was nothing like the GSX, but I didn't figure on my no longer enjoying riding because of the differences. I got the enjoyment back in the end, but I can't say I was ever a talent to be reckoned with.

I'm jumping all over the place here, so can I go back to my late teens again?

Okay, the time came for my first four-wheeled car, or the first road-going one at least. The first one I owned I sold at the auction rooms where I was moonlighting. I sold it for five pounds sterling, which was probably ten dollars US at the time. I felt good about it because I'd gotten a brand new battery out of it before I sold it, and the car was a gift anyway.

My first road-going four-wheeled vehicle was an Anglia panel van. It was a sedan derivative, and there were huge amounts of the things in the UK at the time. I took this one everywhere. Not long after I bought it I'd met a guy in technical college where I was doing day release as a trainee mechanic. This guy worked on rally and race vehicles and I wanted in. I talked my way into an interview and got a job there. It was much farther out than I was used to but I didn't care. I spent the next few months polishing valves on Anglia and mini heads, but I was getting around the rally cars and a couple of circuit racers. Of course things weren't quite turning out as I'd expected, and I wasn't stripping Formula 1 machinery in the heat of battle, but I was enjoying myself. There were perks too. A guy came in for a new exhaust, or muffler, and the old one had twin outlets. There was a decent hole in it but nothing a bit of dextrous brazing couldn't sort out, so on it went, albeit exiting the driver's side in front of the rear wheel. It made a great noise too, and I got in trouble with the boss for exercising it in the yard. He reckoned he had enough trouble with the neighbours over race cars without my help revving the nuts off an underpowered van pretending to be an American muscle car.

I got to see some sights there too and some reasonably exotic vehicles at the time. There was a fairly famous hairdresser in Liverpool at the time who was the proud owner of a white Gordon-Keeble. They were a limited edition, and I think they were hand-built on very low numbers. They carried something like a 7-litre or 420 inch V8, which was a hell of a donk in those days and not too shabby today. Strangely, it had orange wheels, which looked quite odd to me, and stranger still it was chauffeur driven. It wasn't really that kind of car, but I remember coming across a builder with a chauffeur-driven Ferrari some time earlier. This young guy came into the yard for something or other and the other guys knew him, so we crowded around as you do at that age in the presence of vehicular royalty. As he was leaving, the guys wanted him to light up the tyres, and we were pushing him to do it but he held his ground and said he wouldn't because he'd only just fitted new Kelly Springfield tyres, whatever they were. So off he went, reversing onto the main road. He backed out onto the inside lane, where there were two lanes going each way with no median strip. It was a really busy road, and he was now facing a red light about a hundred metres in front of him, with a double-decked bus on the outside lane alongside him. He'd stopped, waiting for the lights, still pointing slightly toward the kerb. The lights must have changed because the bus moved off but he didn't.

He must have been waiting for the cars to clear the lights in front of him to get a bit of room. Then he screamed up the revs and launched the thing. It stood still for a moment, with white smoke pouring from the tyres, slapped the kerb as the back caught up, and was gone. You could hear it for ages, and we were squealing like little girls. The boss was a bit of a rally driver too and owned a brilliant Mini Cooper S, the 1275 version. It revved like a banshee, and they're not supposed to rev as highly as this one did but it sounded wonderful on full song. He used to swap out the motor to a 1-litre for the big rallies. Wise decision, but at least he was honest about it. His reasoning was sound in that the 1275 motor would have put him up against Paddy Hopkirk, who was an amazing rally driver of the time and would have given him no chance. You need to be aware of your limitations, so that was fair enough.

Getting back to the van—we were in the pub one evening and decided it would be a great idea to head down south to Newquay for a holiday and that night would be a good night to go. Youth ... you have to respect those freedoms we enjoyed. We'd drunk a beer or two but not a lot, so we went around the houses picking up bits to leave with and finished up at my house. While I grabbed my gear, my friend Frank, who was and is a fairly talented artist, painted slogans and sketches all over the panels with tennis shoe whitener, and we were gone. There were only two seats in the van, but if I recall correctly there were five or six of us travelling. It took twelve hours because the motorways didn't go all that far in those days. We got lost in Birmingham for what seemed hours, or was it days? The journey took more than twelve hours anyway, and the differential was munching when we left. We did take extra oil for it though and topped it off a few times. Pity we didn't consider fuel money as well, but you can fill in the blanks on that issue.

First day there we got a tent or two up before dark and back to the pub and the nightlife. Newquay was one of the first places in the UK to get surfing, and the whole area was buzzing. I believe it's still like that today. It was great. The following day it rained, so a few of us headed to the shops for some eats. One of the guys, Wazza, stayed in the tent and wouldn't get up. No problem, but on the way back I did my usual "look how well I drive" act and flew down the site on the wet grass. I took a sighting on the tent and flicked the back around. Obviously the trick was to get as close as I could to the tent. I did that all right. As soon as the van swapped ends I realised I was in trouble. I was on wet grass, at speed, and in reverse. Nothing worked. I had no steering or brakes; it was a bit too soon for ABS and ESC. The car felt like it was accelerating; Wazza was going to get a wake-up call he'd never forget, if it didn't kill him, that is. The van stopped ridiculously close to the tent, less than a metre away. I had to get out of the van looking like I'd planned it that way but my legs felt wobbly. It was years before I admitted that it had all gone horribly wrong and I wasn't that clever after all.

There was something else about that trip worth a mention. My boss asked me if I wanted a holiday or would I prefer to work for some extra cash. I'd elected to take the cash but guessed it would be okay to take the holiday since that had been an earlier option. It might have been a plan to ask permission first because that trip cost me my job. Another life lesson!