Tuesday 29 December 2009

My First Car

While applying for a National Insurance Number for my foreign wife, I had to answer some rather odd questions, which included the 'security question' "What was the colour of your first car?" If you discount all the red-oxide primer, multi-coloured over-spray and white roof, I suppose it was grey. I started to go off on one about the 4" roof-chop, but was cut short by "What was the surname of you favorite childhood friend?"...!
Way better than an external hard-drive as a keep-safe, is my Mum's kitchen pin-board. Several decades worth of happy memories and vehicles. This is my Wolseley Hornet. Essentially a regular 70s Austin Mini with the same transverse 850cc engine, it was badge-engineered as both a Wolseley and Riley, with its chipmunk nose fake radiator grill. The derrier has a carbuncle boot with miniature finned rear lights. My younger brother (on the left here), is sitting on his Mongoose BMX with ACS Zee rims, he's also sporting Simple Minds haircut with above the ear water-mark, so I guess that puts the date at ± 1981. My elder step-brother (on the right) came down from Wales with his MIG welder which seemed very space age at the time. Having spent literally years honing it, my step-dad sent it to the scrapper while I was away at college, before it ever rolled under its own steam. BP

5 comments:

t said...

that thing looks wicked.. too bad it was hauled off so prematurely. Your brother is a dead ringer for "New Gold Dream" era Jim Kerr. ACS Z rims rims..those things folded so quickly and brake pads were shit to stop against them. The graphite versions were supposed to bounce back if you put the rims unlaced in the freezer.

Sideburn Magazine said...

T
Do you remember the Zee rims ad showing a bike after a heavy landing; back wheel folded, then 'POP' straight as the rider pedaled happily away? About as believable as an undercarriage destroying Dukes of Hazard jump in the General Lee.
As for the pads, I once went down a very steep hill, by half way down they had already worn down so much I had to use a hedge as an emergency exit.
BP

t said...

I remember that ad.. how'd they explain the spokes bouncing back? They didn't ... we were suckers.

Chris said...

'Zed' rims on a Mongoose... he must have felt like the King of the street!

Anonymous said...

my first thought when i saw that was WTF?!, but then i started thinking "maybe, w/frenched in lights, de seamed, blend in the grille..."


also - proclass rims>z rims