DR RITA PAL-CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS

Not bloody likely! I have known Rita Pal Ward 87 for about 8 months now, and I can assure you that she is definitely NOT crying in the wilderness, I have found her to be determined, knowledgeable and supportive, like all of us she has her off days, but a defenseless cuddly bear she ain't.




The photo below I think is more apt, because you don’t want to piss her off, either by deed or word, and she is not out in the cold (but I don’t know what the weather is like “up north”)

Anyway my regards to Rita, I didn’t send her a support email because I knew she didn’t need one.




But Rita did point out that unlike the Tiger she does clean her teeth.




Angus

OLD CARS

Posting this today because I won't be around on Sunday.

We are now well beyond “first cars” but we were faithful to Triumph.

Our next car once the Vitesse had gone was the Triumph 1300 FWD, a four-door saloon that was very well equipped and comfortable.

The 1300 was front wheel drive, Triumphs first, and the engine was “fore and aft” with the gearbox under the engine, not transverse, as in the Leyland cars.

This layout provided advantages because the engine was very easy to work on, but strangely it was the only FWD that Triumph ever produced, they did come up with an updated version but it was never produced.

Because it was such an ugly bugger.

We had her for a while still doing the “Sunday Run” until one day we were in North Camp, I was turning left off the main road and was braking, unfortunately the lorry driver behind us was watching a young lady on the other side of the road and managed to smash into the rear of our Triumph.

Because it had no headrests the next week or so was spent in a neck collar, with whiplash.

I never brought another car without headrests.

A friend of ours had just bought a MK2 Jag, he went for the 3.8 manual, shame really because the 3.4 was almost as fast but the handling was much better.

I like the MK2 it is very pretty and comfortable, but I found it a bit cramped; there wasn’t much elbowroom. Another problem was the lack of space around the engine, and yet another problem was the brakes, they worked OK, but when he was showing me the engine he managed to crimp a small tube. We went out on a test drive and there were no brakes! The tube he crimped was the vacuum feed to the “brake booster”.

So we decided against a jag, and instead bought a Honda Accord 1.8, 3 doors, which we named the space shuttle.

Because the interior was full of switches, buttons and dials, a real “boy toy”, it was ultra comfortable and reliable. But had the "Honda Rot" as they all did in those days, the most dangerous "rot" was the feed tube from the petrol cap to the tank. You would pull into the garage to fill up and end up standing in a gallon of petrol.

And that really is the end of “old cars” we stuck with Hondas until today, mind you my Honda civic is 18 years old, I just don’t get on with new cars.

We had many happy years touring around and visiting our favourite, and new places, still making friends and enjoying our old cars.

Driving was a pleasure then, no road rage and not many jams, much more civilised, not like now, but as they say that is the price of progress.

One more thing, pop over to http://ritaismypal.blogspot.com/ and leave a comment for our Rita.

Angus