I (accidentally) provided plenty of reasons for a gloomy family Christmas 2022. Just a glance at my swollen neck – post op – would have put a damper on most domestic celebrations. That I allowed a beard to grow over the swelling (too sensitive to shave) suggested I was fathering some nauseating tropical fruit that even orangutans would find unpalatable. No matter.
Playing a demanding game based on word definitions almost cracked the ceiling plaster. Drink flowed in torrents (if not for me). The Beef Wellington was superb. And there were table presents.
Table presents are gifts intended to provoke wit. As for instance the carefully-chosen book I received: Cars We Loved In The 1950s. My initial reaction looked no further than that hilariously erring participle “loved”. Surely the author had mistyped “loathed”. But reflect. At the time – assuming you are old enough – one didn’t loathe these wretched contraptions. These were the only cars available. Only the passage of time revealed their terrible defects.
Poverty forced me into owning one such vehicle. I’ve mentioned it before so it remains nameless. It had a four-speed synchromesh gearbox which may need some decoding. Synchromesh allows drivers to change gears without wearisome “double declutching”. Yet my car lacked this facility between first and second gear. A garage mechanic explained: on my make of car synchromesh always failed permanently within the first year. Even on modestly steep hills, engine power was so feeble I often had to select first gear. And thus double-declutch.
Male Brits tend to glorify car defects, maintaining they form character. Being able to double-declutch was the subject of much boasting. I could do it, but remained enraged that the symptoms of this industrial failure were so casually accepted, even seen as a way of expressing techno-manhood.
Yup, I loathe those cars.
In the 1950's my whole extended paternal family lived in South Bend, Indiana. My grandfather and Dad both worked at Studebaker's. So we owned Studebaker's.
ReplyDeleteColette: Simple economics. Studebaker employees qualified for staff discounts. A lower purchase price buys a whole lot of brand loyalty. All this happened aeons ago - the last Stude emerged in 1966, six years after I got married, the score now being 62 years.
DeleteI Googled Giles Chapman. This extract from his website may, in relation to your comment on his word choice, make one wonder at his boast for being a "wordsmith."
ReplyDelete"I am a versatile ‘wordsmith’ and ‘manuscript doctor’ on book projects where sensitivity needs to meet that often overlooked factor: readability."
http://www.gileschapman.com/
Sir Hugh: I only glanced at the text. It seemed as if it had been copied directly from publicity handouts. Included in the list was the BMW Isetta which Mum drove with Barney the Labrador accompanying her on the passenger seat. Also the Heinkel three-wheeler which I owned for a brief and unhappy period; apparently my model was called the Cabin Cruiser, an incredible bit of advertising hyperbole.
DeleteMy first car, a1952 Ford Anglia (the sit up and beg type in the usual black) had three gears and no synchro on first. I became quite good at double declutching, which served me in good stead when I went to Morris Minors, similarly with no synchro on first. Of course, all motorcycles, up to very recently have no synchro, hence the throttle "blip" when changing down is essential.
ReplyDeleteMy mother, too, had a BMW Isetta for a while, but she had sight in only one eye so found it hard to judge widths. She had to have both headlights replaced. They stood out like ears and she wiped them off going through gaps.
I quite enjoyed driving it until the gear stick came off in my hand one day. It did not have future BMW quality.
Avus: Yes, but it shouldn't have been necessary to learn such a skill. Compensating for lousy engineering at the manufacturer instead of demanding a gearbox that worked as a gearbox. I bought the car to travel, not to widen my abilities as a mechanic. Look how long we had to endure leaf springs, push-rods, and (in the case of the Mini) electrics on the front-facing side of the transverse engine, a pathetic and vulnerable target for even the mildest shower. And how we laughed at ourselves when we risked dislocating our thumb using the starting handle just because the battery wasn't up to turning the engine on a car parked overnight on the street. And how we never seem to question the phrase "British car industry" when all the UK's major mass manufacturers are controlled from abroad.
ReplyDeleteI hope your neck is now reasonably svelte, or plain old neckish. Sorry I have not kept up--my 2022 has been packed with long drives and emergencies.
ReplyDeleteIt was not of the '50's, yet... my first car was a terrible little Opel Kadett. I drove it as a teen when I was allowed and later took it to college. That worked okay, but then I took it up North when I was a mere sprat of 20, foolishly going off to grad school when I should have been doing something else entirely. The car hated the North and northerners. Nevertheless, I met many kind northerners adept with jumper cables by way of the car not starting as soon as a cold R. I. wind off the sea blew inland, and the thing was positively mulish in deep winter.
Marly: Sorry, I missed this. My neck is svelter (the comparative adjective) but not exactly svelte (the absolute adjective). I have difficulty rasing my head but you will no doubt say I deserve this; that I should practise humility more often; that I should not resort to "Thank God - or whichever deity I favour - for not making me as other men." Hard to take the lesson in that; that being different was somehow ungodly.
ReplyDeleteI admire your choice of an ungodly car. No doubt you cursed that bag-of-nails regularly but did you direct your curses in the right direction? Towards the car's ultimate progenitor? Opel is (or rather was) a German manufacturer but Opel was taken over. By all-blessed General Motors, resident of Detroit. In kursing the Kadett you were sort of maledicting your birthright. Hey ho, all over now. And I am left guessing your present chariot. I'd like to say Buick because of its phonetic plosiveness. But is Buick still extant? A Volvo, then. A car that was once praised in Car & Driver (a US mag) because, the writer speculated (wittily VR, my wife, thought), that Volvo's whole board of directors had back trouble and were keen to ensure they could at least be comfortable in their own cars. And you know what? GM also acquired Volvo.