It’s amazing sometimes how something long kept secret comes out, even if it is by one’s own hand. The other night I was around at Mum and Dad’s having dinner and over a quiet glass of red or two, Dad and I got around to discussing cars. There’s a not so secret project brewing for me to acquire an early model 911 and it was part in due to discussion of this that the top of Dad’s Triumph Spitfire came up.
Dad referenced the fact that I’d told him about the time that I’d taken the car for a spin and only very much later had ever told him about it. I think it had something to do with the fact that I said if I ever actually owned the Porsche, the keys would travel with me everywhere to prevent my boys from doing the same thing. It was only part way through that conversation that it became apparent that the time that he was referencing was a different time to the one that I was. Oops. The direct result of that of course was that I had to tell him all about ‘the other time’ that I’d taken the Spitfire (and admittedly there really are only two occasions that I recall doing so).
The time he referenced was an uneventful affair when I took Caroline for a spin up to Belair National Park only briefly fearing that perhaps the hills were a bit much for the 1960’s ailing little car.
The ‘other time’ that I had to reveal on this occasion was the day that Ron and I decided to take the car down to the beach. Ron wasn’t so keen, the car only being a 2 seater and the fact that Ally was with us for the ride, but I assured him we’d squeeze him in behind the seats and we’d be all set. Ron insisted that he’d only do so if he could do a ‘Ferris’. Thus, we took off for the beach, Ally and I in the front, Ron in the back. As we cruised down Oaklands road, he sat up on the back of the car all Ferris like.
All was good until we went around the corner onto Diagonal road. As I came out of the corner, I eased off on the clutch and dressed the accelerator only to have the car completely die.
I rolled to the curb and started having a bit of an ‘oh shit’ moment. Let’s face it, I knew less about cars then than I do now and there’s still no way in hell I could ever do much to get it going if the same thing happened today. I decided to do one of the more technical things that I could manage and popped the hatch on the fuel lid. ON the spitfire, fuel is poured in just behind the seating compartment, at the top and in the middle of the car. I peered down and all I could see was bare metal. Not a hint of fluid of any kind. Fortunately we’d stopped directly across the road from a petrol station and so I ran across and grabbed a small tin’s worth of gas.
With that in the tank, I held my breath as I turned the key and uttered a small prayer of thanks when the car roared to life. With the clouds closing in and the weather not perhaps looking quiet as beach worthy as when we’d set out, I took the whole thing as a sign and drove us straight home again, putting the car back in the garage where it belonged and never saying anything of it again. Well, not until a couple of wines and 20 odd years later at least!
One of these days, I’m now going to have to get a copy of Ferris Bueller’s Day off and watch it with Dad. At least we didn’t have an elevated, glass walled garage!
