First car
I suppose you never forget your first car.

Mine was a 1972 Vauxhall Viva three door in red. She was called Brunhilda (fuck knows why!) In hindsight, the number plate (prefix PAL)was probably worth more than the actual car which cost the princely sum of £70.
Anyway, this car had an amazing engine and gearbox, but in common with other 70's built British motors it suffered a motley of faults.

The windscreen leaked, the linear speedo had a kink in the speedo cable which manifested itself in reading a speed of anything between 30mph and 70mph. The washer pump was a hand pump affair (I jest not) which suffered from a split diaphragm one day soaking me completely in washer fluid.
The handbrake cable had three take up brackets throughout its length and you still had to pull the handbrake almost vertical to apply any sort of braking to the back wheels.
Brunhilda's demise was unexpected. Whilst T-Cutting the bonnet one day, I put my hand straight through the wing and ended up with my hand resting on the front Tyre!

Brunhilda was 17 when she went to the big scrap yard in the sky.

Gee I miss her.
(frightfullybored, Sun 25 Apr 2010, 10:43, 1 reply)

Along with the One-Party Marxist State, the Socialist Centralised Economy, Collectivised Agriculture, and Floral Wallpaper..................
... Russian's next daft export was the Lada. My first car was a mid-blue 1983 Classic 1600 4-speed. Twin-round headlights and bumpers akin to railway tracks. I named it Lenin, primarily because it smoked like he did.

I have never driven a car imbued with such amazing contradictions.
The engine was gutsy, but really needed the 5th gear. Unbeknownst to me the main crank screw came out (the one where the manual crank handle goes in) on a trip to Wellington (5 people + full boot), and I didn't realise this until I had returned to the starting point over 1000km later. Yet the engine didn't miss a beat - the main flywheel had a groove worn in it due to the odd angle it was in, but that was it. Yet the damn timing chain had to be realigned every month, and you could only travel 200km before you had to refill it with oil.

Handling was amazing. Powerless steering, but easy to turn. You could get into all sorts of trouble then take your hands off the wheel, and like a MiG29, she'd sort herself out and go back to level. But if you were passing a large vehicle with the wind coming from your left, as soon as you'd cleared it you'd have to yank hard left, as the wind would hit you and put you into the oncoming lane if you weren't quick enough.

The best part was the headlights! On lowbeam they had the candle-power of Anti-aircraft searchlights - you'd always get flashed by oncoming cars to dip. Now, if you flicked them to full-beam - just for an instant - the oncoming car would light up like a Nuremberg Rally and swerve for a bit before their eyes returned to normal. Seriously, no car I have driven since has had better headlights.

The interior was bollocks - no electric heating or venting that worked, and if you opened the lower vent barrel after a downpour you got wet feet, and wet carpet that then stank like a Russian hobo's armpit.
But the passenger seat folded down to a near single size bed, and could be done so with a deft hit to the side in just the right place... very handy to impress the frauleins for sure.... :)

Traded it in for a Corolla II after 2 years.... and after two tappets cracked and superheated exhaust gasses shot back up the wrong way and set the air filter on fire.
It scared the hell out of my dad who was following at the time....

BTW
In 1996, a friend who was trying a Russian mail order bride service got a letter from one lass that said she worked at the Lada factory. Helpfully she included a photo of herself sitting on the sign outside said factory.
He took one look at her chintzy early 1980s style clothes made of 1970s polyester, and the faux Tammy Fae Bakker makeup and remarked:
"This totally explains the Lada Samara."

Edit: For some strange reason, in NZ Ladas were classed as Euro cars, so spare parts were always horrendously expensive - and as any Lada owner will tell you, you need A LOT of spare parts!
(Sebulba continues to fight evil with evil....., Sun 25 Apr 2010, 10:29, 4 replies)

Talbot Alpine
My mate owned one of these. Whilst waiting for him in the carpark where he had left said vehicle and growing more and more impatient, I discovered that it was possible to gain entry via the boot by utilising a discarded ice lolly stick as a makeshift key.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Sun 25 Apr 2010, 10:17, Reply)

Wait... wait... wait... *BANG*
My first ride was my Dad's old Lada Niva. It was awesome, and was one of only two 'cars I've had' that I'd buy again*. I took it to Hatfield, where I was busily studenting. End of term, time comes to drive home, so I packed it full of my stuff and off I went. Now, with an 0-60 time of 22 seconds, it wasn't any kind of roadburning ubermachine, so a certain amount of patience was needed at busy junctions. There I was, by the college, on the A1M roundabout, waiting for a gap in the traffic, when *BANG*. 'Bother', quoth I, and tried to remember if I had the right amount of insurance (I did).

I got out to find that a young lady had wrecked a Ford Fiesta on the back bumper. Being as the Niva is an off-roader, the bumpers were made out of fairly hefty stuff, unlike a Fiesta. She'd smashed the radiator, the grille, both headlights, and a load of other stuff. Er. She also didn't have insurance, as it was her husband's car... Oops. My fog light was a bit bent, and that was all the damage I had, so I told her to leave it and drove off. In hindsight this was all wrong, but I had no idea what to do in an accident, so I had to leave it.

* The other - my mint, brand new Alfa Romeo 145 Cloverleaf!
(purplegod counting down for Christmas!, Sun 25 Apr 2010, 9:28, 2 replies)

My boyfriend drives a Rover 25.
Enough said.
(kellysprinkles dying for a pee since, Sun 25 Apr 2010, 9:06, 1 reply)

My new car's engine
continually makes this annoying 'thump - thump - thump' sound.

It's a land raver.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 25 Apr 2010, 6:02, Reply)

my friend
told me he had a 3 litre engine 1987 jaguar XJS Cabriolet with a truley unmolested dark blue leather interior....

It was a 5 litre and thus we had to ban him from the yacht club.
(shake'n'bake Tally Ho, Biatch!, Sun 25 Apr 2010, 3:12, Reply)

Why you should never give in to peer pressure..
Picture the scene. I've passed my test for over a year, and thus pretty confident about my skill(z) on the road. Having gone out to the local for a social gathering (I hadn't even drunk anything :S) its time to head home. It is absolutly pissing it down, as if God himself had just broken the seal and decided to miss the bowl completly.
Feeling a little reckless, I decide to take the famed Arrowsmith road; with many a sharp turn and blind corners making it pretty fun to drive (in fact, if you're in Poole I would reccomend giving it a go). Due to it being Autumn, the leaves have fallen all accross the road, creating a hazardous route. Naturally, I only attempt to take the road at 20mph, in a toyota yaris. The friend I'm giving a lift home to, however, has other ideas. Apparatnly 40mph is a much more sensible speed to take, and she persuades me to accelerate until we are at said speed.
Unfortunaly, this cuases the Yaris to do a Pinball impression as it bounces off both hedges, whilst spinning round quite wildly. Front bumper, rear bumper and rear windscreen smash. Amazingly, we were both Ok nd the car had not electrical faults either.
There was a slight problem though. My mother (who owned the car) had specifically told me not to go down that particaular road (on pain of death). Of course the only logical thing to do was to move the crash to a different location. So off we went, to a road that would be quite difficult to crash on witout dying (although she still believed me :p).
Due to the collision with various pieces of vegetaion however, the number plate had broken off, so we had to go back to pick it up. Once we had, we had to turn around on the road we crashed on. The easiest way would be to go up the driveway of someones house. Unfortunatly, the had decided to put a BLOODY HUGE PIECE OF CONCRETE hidden under some leaves, which left my poor Yaris with its back wheels useless, resting on its chassis. Fortunatly, we phoned up a friend and his van towed us off (cheers Dave)
Moral of the story : don't give into peer pressure and Japanese cars are really well made :)
Apologies for length etc.
(Buftoon posted this on, Sun 25 Apr 2010, 3:08, Reply)

TWAT
In the late 90s I worked for a web design company where a few of the guys had pretty swanky motors (I had a 1.0 Micra with gingham cheesecloth seats, pah).

Anyway, one of the guys was a nice lad but had a real show-off car, a bright yellow Lotus Elan (one of the new turbo models). In a genius move one Friday lunchtime, someone in the studio decided to get a piece of luminous pink card the size of a numberplate and print the word "TWAT" on it in huge block letters, and then taped it over the front numberplate.

Naturally when your car's in a car park you don't often check the front of it, so he had no reason to suspect a thing when he drove off that summers' evening with the top down and coolest shades on - apart from the whole office gleefully waving from the windows.

"YOU BASTARDS" was his simple utterance when he got into work on Monday. Apparently he had only noticed the sign that morning, and realized it explained all the laughing and pointing of people throughout the weekend, which he assumed was down to them appreciating his oh-so-cool automobile.
(zootius, Sun 25 Apr 2010, 1:30, 1 reply)

Update to my story on page five
Today was the day or my first ride on my Suzuki SV650S big bike and it went swimmingly well, right up until I hit the patch of gravel and crashed. I ended up on my back, on the ground and the bike went down on her left side.

The wife helped me back up and we lifted the bike back up onto it's wheels to survey the damage.

Where did this happen you ask? The sodding car park by her Nan's house. How fast was I going? Less than walking pace, I was backing into a parking space!

I think the wife would have laughed had it not been for the fact that she knows how much I love that bike. Luckily, no damage to me or the bike. I did however walk into see Nanny Noreen, wearing a somewhat embarrassed smile.

Of all the luck, it had to happen to me didn't it! Bugger...
( Rev. Jayneflakes Buy my book, I need the cash for drugs and hookers, Sun 25 Apr 2010, 1:23, 6 replies)

The future's orange
Whilst a few of us passed our tests before my mate Sid, none of us had regular access to a car. When he passed, his parents bought him an oldish bright orange VW golf. It was a bit of a wreck truth be told - if you lifted up the carpet on the drivers side you could see the road underneath. Sid was also too scared to drive his car on motorways - he once crashed into a skip whilst driving at 5mph, so his reluctance to take to the mways was probably best for all concerned. We had to make le mans style driver changes if we ever needed to go out of town. The car didn't have a stereo either and we didn't have any money to buy a decent one, so we ended up using someones ghetto blaster placed on the lap of the front seat passenger. no idea how much we spent on batteries, but it was certainly more than a decent cd player would have cost. Also whenever we filled up with petrol we never put in more than £3.57. I like to think this figure was reached due to some complex calculations about the efficiency of lugging around 50 litres of fuel, but no, we were just tight.

good times
(Carruthers, Sun 25 Apr 2010, 1:20, Reply)

Bang
Last week - M40 Just before J2, 70mph and a 3 ton Land Rover that had just passed the MOT:-

BANG and...




Amazingly me and the Land Monster got off without a scratch, but that is one of my nine lives gone!


Edited to say that the cream-crackered tyre was on the nearside rear hub at the time!
( Vambo, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 23:31, 2 replies)

revenge, spicy style
after a particularly harsh break-up, a friend of mine decided that she wanted to punish her now ex-boyfriend. she went to the chippy, bought a carton of curry and took it to his house. due to the fact that it was 11.30p.m and he was up for work at 6, the ex was in bed asleep. my mate poured the carton of curry all over the shiny blue bonnet of his brand new XR3i.
i didn't know that curry fucks paintwork.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 22:30, 5 replies)

Double Thud
I swear this is true!

I was rolling down the road in my trusty 406. I had not a care in the world (apart from thinking a new exhaust might be needed) after a small coming together in stop-start traffic. Yes, someone had driven into the back of me, and driven off. (This isn't the same one as pickup man, by the way.) I'd finished a good day at work, and I was off to see the most beautiful woman in the world (pinkgoddess).

A colleague phoned. He was gently taking the piss out of my most recent accident. I had to say that I was just a little unlucky. We chatted about damage and so on, and I told him that I'd be in the office so's he can check the damage. Just as the words left my mouth, (honest), the guy behind me failed to stop and sailed neatly into the back of my car. **BANG**. Fucksocks. I told my colleage that I'd have to go, as I'd just been hit.

Bye-bye back bumper and exhaust system. I got back to Pink Goddess', with the car sounding rougher than a badger's arse, due to having less than the usual amount of exhaust.

In it went for repair, on his insurance. I got both sets of damage fixed for the price of one. Woo!
(purplegod counting down for Christmas!, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 21:09, 1 reply)

Vengance was mine!
Well, sort of.

I was in stop/start traffic on the A40, heading for Shepherd's Bush. Stop. Start. Stop. Start. Stop *tap*. Oops, guy behind me's just tapped my back bumper. It was a proper car park tap, no damage, but I wanted a word, just so we both knew, no harm done. So I pulled forward a couple of feet and applied the handbrake. *Thud*.

FFS, he's gone and hit me harder. So I get out to remonstrate. He refused to give up his details, on the grounds that he's driving a company car. I tried and tried, but he was having none of it. So I gave up, returned to my ride, and headed out. As we pulled away, he moved from the middle lane into the outside lane, and gave me a Hard Stare as he passed me. He was still staring as he went into the back of a pickup truck in the outside lane. Luckily, I had the presence of mind to swing in front of the pickup truck and park up.

The driver of the pickup asked me, not unreasonably, what I thought I was playing at (and whether my parents had ever married). I ushered him to the back of his truck, to see crash guy in a seriously wrecked car. I invited him to check the remains of his exhaust, lying on the tarmac. I offered my details if a witness were to be needed, and left them to it. As I made my exit, I noticed pickup truck driver banging on the window of the car.

Never heard anything, but I like to think of it as a karma accident waiting to happen.
(purplegod counting down for Christmas!, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 20:56, 2 replies)

Chavcar modifications.....
I love to laugh at the sort of tucking-tracky-bottoms-into-your-socks wankers who buy really shitty Saxos and then spend silly money equipping them with exhaust pipes wider than their cocks are long.
Oh and tinted windows on same Saxo. Tints on a 1.1. That's so fucking gangsta, innit??
You want to sound like your exhaust has blown do you and give Dibble an easy excuse to pull you over?
Fair enough.
Tool.
( Sallyrsm, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 19:20, 4 replies)

Japanese Import
In the late 90s, there was a bit of a bargain to be had with imported Japanese sports cars. Fairly late one summer day my girlfriend and I went to a dealership to look at an imported Toyota MR2.

It looked the business so we took it for a test drive. They let us take it out on our own, so we had a nice blast and then I stopped somewhere in the countryside to have a play with all the buttons and gadgets. As I was looking around I noticed a funny yellow reflection in my side window - there was something on the carpeting behind my head (the MR2 has quite a confined 2-seater cockpit).

I twisted around in my seat to find, 3 inches from where my right ear had been, a bright yellow spider the size of my face.

I think I may have howled incomprehensibly as I tried to somehow jump out of the car door without undoing my seatbelt first. My girlfriend had no idea what was going on, until after I'd slammed the door shut from the outside, when she came around to peer through the window with me and screamed at the sight of the ghoulish horror within. Passing pedestrians observed us with bafflement as we clung to each other on the pavement.

After about 10 minutes it occurred to me that the garage were going to want their car back, and there was no way I was going to drive it with that lurking monstrosity next to my head. Also, I figured it was a Japanese car, so it must be a Japanese spider too, so it might be DEADLY POISONOUS. I resolved that it MUST DIE. I looked around for a handy weapon but all I found was some none-too-woody foliage. Have you ever tried to beat a spider to death with a bush? It's not easy, especially when your target is in a car and you are trying to keep a distance of at least 3 foot between you and it.

In the end I was victorious, but mentally shattered. Back at the showroom, the guy wanted to know where we'd been. I didn't bother explaining why the car was now full of bracken and bits of broken spider.

I didn't buy the car.
(zootius, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 19:14, 3 replies)

He was pulling up alongside me
but there was nothing I could do; my foot was planted to the floor, I was in fourth gear, the valves were whining their fucking heads off and this was as fast as I could go.

The corner loomed. He was on my outside, but I could see he was going to do it. I grit my teeth, wrenched the wheel into the corner, but it was too late, he was already in front, and I could see the rear quarter of his car, a garish yellow, disappear in front of my bonnet. That's when the impact happened. From behind.

In all the exitement, I hadn't seen the other guy, tearing up behind me. Same car as me too, but he was lighter, more grunt up front, and in anticipating the corner, he'd buried the snout of his motor right into my boot. Now we were proper fucked.

As he slammed into me, the nose rose, the steering went floppy and time slowed down. All I could see was the boot of the car in front somehow swimming its way up my bonnet towards my face. I shut my eyes and waited for the inevitable.

When I opened them, I could see blue sky. My seat belts were pinning me in, and I was looking through the hole where the windscreen used to be, and all I could see was sky. And smell petrol and oil and burning rubber. And there was a pain in my leg.

When they'd finally cut me out of the shell, including the piece of the door that had gone all the way through my calf, I got the chance to look over the side of the stretcher I was being carried on to see the wreckage. It was a Toblerone triangle; a three car shunt with my old Ford Cortina in the middle, mounting the car in front up if it was sticking its prop shaft right up the exhaust pipe, doggy style. I raised my hand to wipe my face, and the lookers on cheered, a few even clapped as I was put into the back of the ambulance.

And that's how my Mum found out I had started Banger Racing.

SHAMELESS PLUG: If you like old cars, check out sticksout.blogspot.com/
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 19:01, 1 reply)

The band van
For starters, it was dubbed the Millenium Falcon after we turned up for a gig and someone actually said " you came here in that heap? You're braver than I thought ". It was a silver Transit minibus, with NHS prosthetic pink patches of rust retardant in random places. Our singer had built a 'shelf' in the back by fixing some ply on to 4x2s with 4" nails, so it was a dance with tetanus every time we loaded up. One wintry evening it had iced up, so what did he use to get the ice off the windscreen? That's right, a piece of fucking griptape: every time the sun hit the windscreen, the driver's vision was instantly obscured by more spiral scratches than Norman Cook's record collection. Nonetheless, it conveyed us from Plymouth to Aberdeen and points between many times before failing its' 3rd MOT catastrophically. The only photos I had, taken outside TJs in Newport (RIP) in all its' reeking glory, seem to have disappeared from our webshite.
( uncle bastard is twanging a dan moi, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 18:57, Reply)

Another Strato Silver Fiesta...
... this one belonging to my mate. An earlier story reminded me of this.

I used to work with a mate of mine who I shall refer to as Andy, for that is his name. Now, Andy had a 1.1 Fiesta in the aforementioned Strato Silver. It was a bit rough and rusty, but it could go and it could stop, and that was all he needed. One day, Andy came into work and asked me if I could take a look at his car. "The throttle doesn't work at all, the choke works like the throttle and it's stinking of petrol" he said.

Popped the bonnet, and had a look. Hmm, the air filter is lying at a slightly funny angle, wonder why? Maybe the screws are loose. No, the five screws that hold the top half of the carburettor onto the bottom half were loose. When the engine was running the pipe that was supposed to be filling up a little tank with a float valve (like a toilet cistern, really) with a limited amount of petrol was pretty much just spraying it over the top of the engine - and by chance mostly getting it into the hole where the rest of the carb should be.

Eep.

A bit of Loctite on the screws, and it didn't come loose again - but it could very easily have sprayed it onto the hot exhaust manifold.
(gordonjcp, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 17:54, Reply)

Peanuts
Repost from the slapstick QOTW:

My sister-in-law was driving her boss's Porsche to the airport to pick him up. While waiting in the carpark she opened a pack of peanuts to have a snack but, as sometimes happens, when she opened the pack the nuts came spraying out all over the car.

She rapidly cleaned up all the nuts and salt, just before her boss arrived. 'Everything ok with my car?', he asked. "No problems!" squeaked his secretary, and they set off.

It was a hot day so he put the air blower on full blast, whereupon peanuts came blasting out of the air vents, spraying into his face and hitting him on the nose.
(Smale is stuffed, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 17:14, 1 reply)

Am I allowed to do this? This is on the road I go down to get the tube - it's not mine, but fuck it's sweet as my nuts:

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 17:01, 4 replies)

I hate nissan micras.
I also hate yellow fiat puntos. But I REALLY hate nissan micras. They just look awful. The fact my ex ran off with a guy who had a nissan micra only adds to this loathing, but it was there before that. I hate them.

They look loads better with hundreds of hair-thin scratches up the side of them though, as do yellow puntos, especially when they're both parked in the driveway of the house I'd just been kicked out of. someone seemed to be encouraging me by banging on a window and shouting "Oi!", I'm not entirely sure though, as I was out of my tiny mind on vodka.

The moral of the story is, if you're going for petty revenge on an ex's new boyfriend's car, use a chewed up ring pull and not your keys, then Gil Grissom from CSI won't catch you. No matter how many people see you do it.

I don't drink as much these days.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 16:45, Reply)

my first car
that i had when i was at school was a 1970's beetle that was older than i was, and fuck it was cool. but unfortunately for my poor dad it was one thing after another. the clutch went, then the battery went (to be fair, when the AA man dug it out from under the rear seat cushion [of all obscure places] it said replace by 1982... this was 1996), then the accelerator cable stuck on, then it failed its MOT in a million different ways. so dad snapped after a year and part-ex'd it for a fiesta.

my next car was when i was a letting agent, had the registration 1 LET. i was gutted on coming out after a viewing in a less than salubrious part of manchester (the prospective tenant said "forget it, i'd need a fucking gun to live here) to find someone had been at it and it now read TO1LET.

i also wrote my dad's car off when i was about 18, and being me, it wasn't the usual bump that most people have, oh no. i decided to go for it with a 1 week old luxury car at 90mph on the m56, with all 4 of us in it. the car was a total write off. how the hell we all walked away without even a scratch is still a mystery. and i still have nightmares about it. you have no idea how fast 90mph actually is until you are doing it sideways, skewing helplessly across 3 lanes of speeding traffic in the rain and the dark!

my new car is my massive treat to myself, it costs a stupid amount every month, but i love driving even in london (esp now it is actually sunny enough to put the top down) and i do drive a lot, which is how i justify it. however. i was thoroughly fucked off this morning, given that i only spent £25 having it properly valeted last weekend, to find that the bastard dirty pigeons have been holding what can only be described as scat parties all over it. i am taking it back via the valet place on my way home from work, and i think he might actually kill me... fucking purple berry eating bastards. where do they even FIND purple berries in central london? waitrose??
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 15:36, 6 replies)

There's too many damn red cars around.
One fine night my brother decided that we'd make a chippie run. As was the usual procedure, he drove the pair of us up there, handed me a twenty and sat back to wait in the car.
Ten minutes later I emerged, clutching a box of deep-fried goodness and a little tub of curry sauce.
Across the carpark I trotted, flung open the door and started to climb in.
At this point the middle-aged woman sitting behind the wheel went very wide-eyed and began frantically digging in her purse for her attack alarm.
"Oops" I said, with a sheepish smile and climbed back out.
Meanwhile, little bro sitting behind the wheel of his car, ten feet away and an entirely different make and model, was laughing his bloody head off.
In my defence both cars were red.
(Big D, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 15:09, 1 reply)

Fun in a Van
Last year I was coming back from Warwick one Saturday morning in a works Van. Driving up the A1 near RAF Leeming (what a bloody horrible piece of road that is) I overtook a car and as I came back into Lane 1 the steering went all light and then snapped over to the left.

Last thing I remember was the left wheels hitting the kerb and then coming round sitting in a van with a smashed windscreen. I then looked at the rest of the van -

* The cab roof was bent down to within about an inch of the top of my head
* The stereo had come out of the dash completely and flown out of the passenger side window
* Both doors were jammed into the supports by the force of the crash

I ended up having to knock out the drivers window and climb out through that, miraculously not cutting myself in the process. Walked back to the road to see a police car screech to a stop and ask me if I knew whether there was anyone in the van. Replying I just climbed out, he didn't believe me so I turned back around to look at the wreckage.
From the gouges and lumps taken out of the field the policeman reckoned i had rolled over six times before coming to a stop. Paramedics then shot up behind us as I was giving a statement and gave me a once over. The only thing they could find wrong with me was I had cut the back of my hand knocking the window out. I didn't even have an elevated pulse.

I think i was probably the luckiest bugger alive to walk away from that unscathed.
(Shamrock, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 14:11, 6 replies)

My friend Kieran
Drives like a maniac, although he's actually quite good at it. One of my favourite things about him is that he used to zoom up our narrow driveway when we flatted together so fast that he quickly lost both side mirrors. Not that he gave half a shit.

Best of all was the time he told me about when he was with his girlfriend at the time getting groceries or something. When she wasn't looking, he got a bunch of acorns and shoved them down the front of his pants. As he was reversing out of the park he unzipped his fly and started pulling out acorns screaming LOOKATMYNUTSLOOKATMYNUTS! She was confused as anything and he crashed into another car because he was laughing so hard.
(ElGranto, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 13:35, Reply)

Driving in Ireland
is terrifying - it's like Mario Kart, with slightly more serious consequences. I've driven in Africa, the former USSR and what used to be Yugoslavia - none of them can hold a candle to the sheer fucking lunacy I witnessed daily while navigating Dublin and the surrounding areas. A van won't save you or elevate you either - I've had all sorts trying to run me off the road or shorten my stay.

Is there any truth in the story that the Dal just started handing out licenses like sweets for people who'd only previously held a provisional license?
(mymilkshakebringsallthemongstotheyard poison hearts, poison minds - joining hate, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 13:29, 4 replies)

I've starred death in the face and told him to fuck right off!
A while ago I found myself on ze Autobahn (as a passenger) in a V8 mental Chevvy; about 450 bhp, rear wheel drive, almost as quick as a 911 in a straight line... great car - provided the driver isn't 18 and hasn't bought his drivers license in the car park at Walmart for $50....

Cue doing well over a ton in the fast lane (with illegal almost bald tyres and dodgey brakes, unknown to me at the time!) when some absolute twunt decides he wants to overtake something 10 miles ahead and pulls out without looking... I'm sure many people have had near death experiences, but this one was very very nearly one for the coroner, not the lovely doctor who saved my life.
The driver (with whom I was underway with) automatically slammed on the brakes, but having very limited driving experience and the above mentioned defects, unsuprisingly lost control of the car. What actually happened in the following few minutes no one really knows. The last thing I remember was seeing the crash barrier almost come through the windshield, and then regaining conciousness on the side of the road amongest small trees and bushes with an emergency doctor cutting my clothes off and putting in various drips/tubes/drugs.

To cut a long story short, despite wearing my seatbelt got shoot through the back window of the car and flew about 20 meters, broke my arm, ankle, hand, wrist, back in 3 places, all of my ribs, and had a chest full of blood (hamopneumathorax for the jargon junkies out there) and nearly had to have my spleen and part of my liver removed.
2 weeks in an induced coma, 5 months in hospital and rehab and somehow I'm almost back to normal! Even managed to pull a rather nice 5,10" blond nurse :D schwiiing!!

The cunt that caused it drove off, nobody stopped to help (apart from the ambulance we'd overtaken 5 minutes beforehand, and to this day I can't recall the driver ever appologising for very nearly killing me...

Moral of the story - never underestimate other drivers, and if you must have and accident, for fucks sake don't have it in the UK! The NHS probably won't be able to save you!

rantage over.
(deine_mudda Wer nicht weißt, wird nicht heiß!, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 13:23, Reply)

My Mk1 Fiesta 1.1L again (see previous answer to this QoTW if really bored)
I did put it up on two wheels going round a corner way too fast and encountering centrifugal (or is it centripetal?) force and using a small grassy bank as an impromptu ramp at which point I wobbled up the road for ten or fifteen metres on right hand wheels before coming back down with a crash and a mangled front wheel. Had to wait for ten minutes before it was cool enough to the touch to change the bloody thing. Well that and get my breath back, calm down and allay the fears of my passengers!
( number5 has been fighting tramps and losing., Sat 24 Apr 2010, 13:01, Reply)