161 posts tagged “car”

Wow. Six minutes to load the compose screen. That’s definitely this week’s record.
   This is the other photo I wanted to show:

   A beautiful 1969 Ford Mustang Fastback with a 351 in³ V8 under the hood. I asked the owner for permission to photograph his car which, sadly, had lost all oil pressure. I drove him to the petrol station in case the car was ‘out of gas’; when I came back along this route a while later, his car had gone, so I hope he was able to get it started.
   He says he has a friend with a Cobra Jet 428, which we both thought was the best of this series, and that this shape was probably the nicest before Bunkie Knudsen’s fat Mustangs hit the streets for the 1971 model year. Sometimes I like the ’68s, and the ’65s, but right now, the ’69s seem to appeal to my taste in 2009.

Here’s today’s bad parking job. Unless this Toyota’s driver wants to tell me that originally, there was a bike in front and a Smart ForTwo behind. Otherwise, being in the middle of a two-car space and not allowing something as small as my Renault to get in behind is not cool.

I think Vox might be back. I clicked ‘Create’ and the compose box came up instantly.
   How’s this for a sparring match? The Renault Sport Mégane versus the Ford Focus RS. The Renault has a 50 bhp deficit but still manages to keep up on the corners. No surprises which car I was rooting for.

Remember how I complained about some idiot in a Volkswagen Touareg tailgating me in the ice last weekend?
   Man, I feel heaps better after watching this:

(Probably better to watch it with the sound off.)

I was, of course, referring to Simon Templar, or at least the TV incarnation of him as played by Roger Moore. For today I spotted the following down the road from the office:

It’s a beautifully maintained Volvo 1800S from 1967 (and yes, I could tell without looking at the registration certificate).
   A few hours before there was this beautiful 1959 MGA hardtop on the other side of Latimer Park:    Earlier today, I also spotted a Karmann Ghia Typ 3 and yesterday, a 1972 Volkswagen Typ 4.
   Christchurch seems to be the home of many a classic car—two months ago, I came across a beautiful old Ford Falcon Wagon. These Cantabrians seem to love their classics.

It was an interesting experience driving home yesterday. I thought I would go via Napier on State Highway 5, since I have never been to the sunny coastal town. I never made it, because the route to the sunny coastal town was like this:

   State Highway 1 (Desert Road) was also closed, which originally made the detour on SH5 a clever plan—not so when it snows in the supposedly warm springtime here.
   Napier has a reputation for having great weather but my one and only memory of getting there will be this! However, I can no longer say I have not seen snow up close any more.
   And how.
   Knowing that the Desert Road was closed off, I took State Highway 41 west, where I was greeted with similar scenes. A very helpful motorist in a pick-up truck led the way down to the Taumaranui intersection, otherwise I would have been stranded at the top of the mountain. As I had discovered earlier on 5, the BMW is terrible on sludge and I had next to no traction in attempting to make a U-turn.
   It didn’t end there. I got as far as the National Park area and stopped for dinner. As I headed down on State Highway 4 (which was also shut for a time as I waited, while Wedding Crashers came on the BMW’s TV tuner), it turned out that SH48 was closed—it would have been much faster going to Wellington from there. I was advised to continue on SH4, which, incidentally, has no lighting. I dodged quite a few slips and if it were not for the three-dimensional sat nav, I would probably not have attempted the drive, as it was tricky for a first-timer.
   I got as far as Wanganui, because I was running low on petrol and a lot of stations were shut at that hour, or on pre-pay. I spent the night in a hotel where a lone cockroach walked atop my blankets—I will not name the place because I cannot say for sure whether this little creature walked in while the door was open as I shifted in my luggage. I am no entomologist. But I have advised the place that they need to take whatever steps are necessary to clean the room.
   Wanganui is an interesting town: the sat nav told me that there were hotels called the Four Seasons (which was really a motel that has nothing to do with the Four Seasons that I know) and the Quality Inn (which has nothing to do with Quality Inn). Sorry, I won’t confirm if either of these was where I stayed. Neither is breaking the law here as far as the names are concerned: as far as I can make out, the old Quality Inns are now the Quality Hotels, and Four Seasons does not operate here.
   So a six-and-a-half-hour drive turned into one lasting about 25 hours, but I had a whale of a time.
   And finding a way to State Highway 2 would not have helped. The police shut that off because a killer was at large yesterday (yes, just one—and in a generally peaceful country, that’s sufficiently for our police to act).
   Oh, and to the asshole in the Touareg who overtook me on SH4 (reg. DZC ***): tailgating in the snow is a really bad idea, dick. I don’t care if you do have four-wheel drive.

Current transport: BMW Z4. At least it’s more butch than the prissy Z3 (too “Pierce Brosnan”) but one cannot help feeling one is compensating. Long hood, short deck.

Thanks to Coby at Mercedes-Benz for my transport last week: a new E350 Coupé with Distronic (the cruise control system that slows down if the traffic in front slows). Lucire review to follow. It looks much better in the metal than in the photos (where it looks fussy and rear-heavy). In fact, of all the coupés I have driven, I really began to feel “at home” with this one.

When I was at school, one of my classmates was Simon Beattie, whose Dad was the Governor-General. He told us that there was a Rolls-Royce Phantom for official usage. I remembered seeing the Daimler Limousine that Government House had as well. Both were lovely, coachbuilt cars on separate chassis.
   In the 1990s, my Alma Mater was visited by the then-Governor-General, who arrived in a Daimler, but not the limousine. It was the Jaguar XJ-shaped one, but it had the fluted grille.
   Imagine my surprise when I saw this last week:

A regular Jaguar XJ. No fluted radiator grille. Talk about getting downgraded.
   The official BMW 730s that the MPs have look more imposing. And at least they are the long-wheelbase models.
   The republican movement here must love this: HM the Queen’s representative, who used to ride around in a car befitting the monarch, now rides around in a car befitting Arfur Daley.
   Or worse, John Prescott.

Lady, you’re lucky I won’t be narcing on you because I can’t see your number plate in this shot.
   But just a word of advice about driving in New Zealand. Green means go. Starting to move your car after green turns to yellow is not correct at the intersection of Wakefield and Cuba, especially when you are the first car in the queue. Going through a red light on Cuba is also not correct.
   This message has been brought to you by the concerned citizens of Wellington.