Notes From the Hard Shoulder - James May [30]
I now have a new nightmare in which Sid and all his po-faced friends rise up, take to the roads and exact a terrible revenge.
PART 3 – THESE ONES ARE ACTUALLY ABOUT CARS, SORT OF
HOW GREAT CARS COME TO BE ABANDONED IN OLD BARNS
Every now and then, one of the classic car magazines runs a type of story that has always baffled me. It begins with the revelation that something like a rare Lamborghini has been found abandoned in a garage.
Reading on, we discover that it's been there since 1980. It's very dusty and the tyres are flat but, remarkably, it's complete and in need of only 'gentle recommissioning', as the classics lot put it.
A few months later we see a picture of the same car, gleaming like new, and bowling down a tree-lined road in the hands of a bloke who never imagined he could get his hands on such a thing. Marvellous.
Now here's what I've never understood. How did anyone ever forget about owning a Lamborghini? Or grow bored of owning one? How did a car that is obviously in sound condition end up sitting idle for 25 years? If the previous owner didn't like it, why wasn't it sold? Or even given away? All it took was a postcard in the local newsagent's window.
I can see how a fountain pen might work its way to the back of a desk drawer and be overlooked for two decades. A few years ago I bought my girlfriend a pair of boots that she didn't really like, and they are in the corner of her wardrobe, still in the original box and awaiting the great day when they appear on eBay as an item of mint and unused retro chic. But a car? I really don't foresee a day when I can't be bothered with my Boxster any more, and I just leave it in its garage gathering mould and mouse droppings. Apart from anything else, I'd want the garage space.
But now I understand exactly how it happens. I recently drove around France making a new programme for the BBC, and for this purpose I bought a 1989 Jaguar XJ-S convertible.
It was a good one. Everything on it worked, there was no rot, the hood was free of tears, the mileage was confirmed at under 60,000, and I loved it. Before I left I had it thoroughly serviced and checked over, and a few marginal components such as radiator hoses and brake pads were replaced. It still had its original toolkit and spare wheel, and even the unused bag thing that the conscientious owner is supposed to use to cover the hood when it's folded. And I've always wanted an XJ-S convertible.
After a few days of driving around France, it sprang a small oil leak. Tiny, really, and from the little micro switch that governs the oil pressure gauge on the instrument panel. Sadly, this little component was not available in any of the local garages I tried, so I resigned myself to topping up the oil instead. It was only losing a spoonful of 20/50 each day, and as it was all dripping on France I wasn't that bothered. I'd sort it out when I got home.
And this is exactly where all those Lamborghini-in-a-barn stories really begin. The Jaguar had crossed that invisible line between being a car and being a car that 'needs some work'. It was the first scuff on a new pair of shoes, the first chip in the paint of a newly decorated room, that moment when the case for your sunglasses disappears.
So when the air conditioning packed up owing to some otherwise minor electrical fault, I decided to live with it for the moment. The car needed work anyway, so that was just something else to add to the list. As was the passenger-door mirror, which somehow became detached from its electric motor, so that the motor whirred away but the mirror didn't move. I could sort that out in half an hour when I was in my own garage with my own toolbox.
I think you can see where this is going. There were now three faults with