So, last night was a bit of an action fuelled adventure. Remember the E Class Mercedes I wrote about? You know, the big flashy fanny magnet?
Well I had to do the same job last night, which meant that instead of bombing to the customer on my monkey bike, I was driven to him by one of my monkey colleagues, who would then also drive to the client’s house at the other end in order to pick me up and drive me home. Well, that’s the theory anyway…..
Upon arriving at the client’s house in deepest, darkest Essex at around midnight, I noted with a little dismay that my monkey chum was not awaiting my arrival with the usual self-satisfied grin that says: “I didn’t have to professionally stick to the speed limit like you did in order to get here”
Still, without wishing to concern the client, I parked his Merc, bade him farewell and wandered slowly up the road, hoping to get a better signal on my phone in order to call my simian co-worker and find out what was keeping him.
The following conversation took place:
“Hi Jake”
“Alright Neil, did you get stuck in that tailback too?”
“Yep, but I’ve got another problem-ette”
“Riiiiiight? What’s up?”
“My clutch has gone! I’m in gear now…… but….er…. I can’t stop, otherwise the car will die”
“WHAT?”
“Yeah! I’m near you now, but you’re going to have to jump in while the car’s moving”
“O…..k…. What gear are you in?”
“4th”
“Shit!”
There then followed a scene that wouldn’t have been out of place on ‘Police, Camera, Action!’
Neil, to his credit did try and slow the car down to the absolute capacity of 4th gear, which turned out to be about 10mph…. any slower and it would have stalled.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had recourse to open a car door whilst sprinting? If you haven’t, but are interested as to what the experience is like, let me put it this way: It’s not something I’ll be doing again in a hurry, but I’m glad I can put it on my CV.
So, the passenger door was now open, but the effort I had spent in the successful bodily coordination of running and door opening had lost me precious ground, and the car was slowly creeping away from me. This coupled with the fact that I am possibly the un-fittest living entity on the planet, meant that what little breath I had left was about to leave me and force all of my major organs to shut down.
Neil tentatively released some pressure from the accelerator and the car slowed a little, but started to shudder under the strain of having to remain in 4th gear at such a relatively slow speed. I made a last-ditch attempt at a sprint and leaped, feet first at the open car door.
I landed, with unsurprisingly little finesse, on the passenger seat at which point Neil and I burst into child-like guffaws as I closed the door and we sped away.
It was the closest I think I will ever feel to being in an action movie. Not a good action movie mind; I’m thinking more Action Jackson, than Commando.
But our adventure was not over yet……..
“Neil, even if we manage to make it to the Dartford bridge without stopping, we’re going to have to at least slow to a crawl for the barrier to let us through”
“Yeah… I’m not sure how we’re going to manage that, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it”
“I see what you did there”
Thankfully we managed to avoid any major hazards between Essex and the M25, other than a set of traffic lights that were decent enough to remain green until we passed them. I have never before thanked a set of traffic lights with such enthusiasm.
“I’ve had an idea” said Neil as we started to climb the Dartford bridge.
“Go on…”
“If I can match the engine speed with the gears, there’s a possibility I can put it in a lower gear as we approach the barrier”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“The gears are moving at a certain speed. If I can match that speed with the engine, I might be able to jam it into a lower gear without the clutch”
“mm-hmm, and what happens if that doesn’t work?”
“It might get a bit Thelma and Louise-y”
“I’m not being Thelma”
As we started our descent on the other side of the bridge, Neil slipped the car into neutral and we began to coast towards our inevitable doom with a sort of tense contemplation. Alanis Morissette's ‘Ironic’ was quietly seeping out of the radio as we drew closer. I wondered if anything about our situation was ironic, and decided that it probably wasn’t. However, seeing as Alanis Morissette has no idea what irony is, perhaps that fact alone would perversely inject irony into our own situation. Probably not!
It’s a shit song anyway. And not in an ironic way.
Resigning ourselves to the fact that one of us would soon probably have to jump out and walk across multiple lanes of motorway traffic to bother some night patrol person and explain that our car was properly fucked and couldn’t move, we trepidatiously crept up to the barrier.
After 10pm the Dartford toll is free so the barrier dutifully sprung open as we hit the pressure plate at about 2mph. It was at this exact moment that Neil screamed:
“I’VE FOUND SECOND GEAR!!!”
With that, we lurched forward and then powered out onto the motorway to a cacophony of crunching as Neil successfully managed to also find 3rd, 4th and 5th gear without the aid of that pesky clutch.
As the motorway lanes narrowed to the usual three, we passed a trio of ‘lads’ on the hard shoulder in a souped-up, but very much broken-down Citroën Saxo.
IT’S LIKE RAAAAIIIIEEEENNN , ON
The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful in comparison. Because of his new found powers of gear changing without a clutch, Neil reckoned that he could drop me off on my road as I live on a hill, as long as he was facing down. He was right!
I’ve not spoken to him today to ask how he parked upon his return home, but I suspect ‘badly’ might adequately sum it up.
Clutch problem? What clutch problem? I was just injecting some Dukes of Hazard style drama into the journey! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI've subsequently spoken to one of my pre-decimal friends who told me all about double declutching
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_clutch
and it seems I'd begun to master it towards the end of the journey. Not unlike Jake, my car knowledge extends as far as - "does it look awesome & is it fast?" so I'd vaguely heard of what I thought was DOUBLE D clutching but never knew what it meant and my mind wandered elsewhere at the sound of it anyway. Being unsure of whether the gearbox was likely to fall out at any moment, I kept the gear changes to a minimum, at least until we were out of rural Essex where a breakdown would've been very unfunny.
The Red Rocket arrived at 2am outside my helpful friends at Portslade MOT, where they are currently exchanging their toil for my ££'s. I won't mention the exchange rate but it's not really in my favour.
I notice the Mercedes E350 convertible retails at roughly £40k for the age & model that we drive.
I picked up the Polo for a little under £1k.
Which one gave the most exciting & fun drive? Is the Merc 40 times more of a car than the Polo?
Give me a car with personality any day. Ok, not any day - just some days; you know, the days where it's not exactly vital to arrive anywhere, either on time or looking cool - those days.
Mercedes fanny magnet? . . Nah - nice guys drive an unpretentious, characterful (did I mention the steel wheels and manual windows)old Polo diesel & all women love a nice guy really.