Prior to getting my drivers licence I dreamt of owning a sports car, usually a red or green MG, maybe you did too. Being female any notions of mechanical unreliability just didn’t compute … style was the thing.
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| thanks to wok |
It was either going to be an MG or a FIAT bambino, the later drawing even more tutting from those intimate with oily rags and dipsticks (the nonhuman kind). Instead I ended up with a domino of second-hand cars that can best be described as having minimal style, loads of personality, but sadly no soft top. Many years on the time was right … finally.
The first week in your newly acquired sports car is filled with visions of top down, hair flying, music blaring sojourns, with people waving you on like a Tour de Force stage winner, minus the tight lycra outfit hopefully. For those of you who’ve read my earlier motoring posts you’ll know that Ralph, my much loved old MX5, did indeed generate many smiles and waves, mainly from very small children who, rightly so, thought he was a toy car, but I digress.
The reality of having a soft top car is very different, especially in Perth where the 40 degree summer days and 2 degree winter nights, mean you have a very small window of opportunity to exploit the sans lid experience. Get it wrong and in summer you’ll find yourself stopped at a red light under the blazing midday sun, trying to look nonchalant while your makeup oozes off your face and into your lap.
More than that though, you soon realise that while you thought you’d bought your car for yourself, turns out that’s not the case at all, someone else quickly takes possession.
Late afternoon the tan tabby from next door meanders passed the lounge room window, innocence etched across his face. Venturing out to your car the next morning the tell-tale paw prints over the windscreen and the tufts of fur on the canvas top are a dead giveaway. He’s already staked his claim. Not only do you realise it’s futile to fight him, you quickly develop a new ritual … placing a beach towel over the canvas each night incase he decides to mark his territory in the time honoured way of all cats.
As I start my ritual up again this winter I ponder whether the garage managers of V8 supercars or MotoGP bikes ever faced a similar dilemma.
3 Comments
Oh me too, me too. A red MG was my dream. Sadly, I’m still dreaming.
thankfully my dreams changed somewhere along the line … age and an aversion to waiting in the rain for the RAC man will do that to you I guess 🙂
Hahahaha