I almost tagged this onto Ian's daily driver post, think it stands on its own though.
I went Dartford way yesterday on a trip to Sevenoaks* with 4 excited Spanish relatives, two on their first visit back to the UK in 30 years, including one hyperactive 5 year old who kept calling my poor Sprint Mr Beans car and using the back window as a toy ski slope... I had only just warned them that people might stare at us a bit, when a car pulls alongside and the driver tells me that my Sprint was 'gorgeous' and he had a blue one once before he realised he was holding up the A10 slip road, happened two more times as well as a couple of photographers.
Point of the post is that I had volunteered to give them a lift (foolishly) but when I arrived the first question was do you think it's a good idea going in such an old car? Thought had never actually crossed my mind until that point that there was anything to consider. It got me thinking, as I crawled along a car park called the M1 and then it's sister the M25, should I be concerned? Last year I had gone on holiday to Wales, just checked the fluids and went off, needed to head up to East Yorkshire from Huntingdon via Birmingham, kicked the tyres got in and drove. So I was wondering what makes me quite so casual about my Sprint and the only thing I can think of is that I regularly do an 80 minute round trip to work in it, basically a daily shakedown, and along with that comes not just confidence in the car, but that by constantly doing what it was designed to do nothing gets a chance to get stuck.
Back to yesterday, that was 7.5 hours of driving, I was knackered when I got home, Sprint was happy enough though!
*And not the Dolomite spotted yesterday on a trailer going through the Dartford tunnel in another post!
_________________ Current fleet: '75 Sprint, '73 1850, Daihatsu Fourtrak, Honda CG125, Yamaha Fazer 600, Shetland 570 (yes it's a boat!)
Past fleet: Triumph 2000, Lancia Beta Coupe, BL Mini Clubman, Austin Metro, Vauxhall Cavalier MK1 & MK2, Renault 18 D, Rover 216 GSI, Honda Accord (most expensive car purchase, hated, made out of magnetic metal as only car I've ever been crashed into...4 times), BMW 318, Golf GTi MK3 16v x 3
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