With every hill we climb, there is always the run and a skip on the way down. This last weekend proved to be quite eventful. Since my parents went back to England for three months, I have driven my Dads car. Suzi the vitara is a bit of a beast. She is a mighty girl with a lot of ‘go’ under her bonnet and has been fairly reliable the last five months. With the music going and the horn honking, Suzi has taken me on road trips to Wellington, Ohakune and Rotorua. It’s hard for Suzi, being a rebound from my Corolla. I still feel no car will match my mighty white Corolla! Suzi is not as nippy or as fuel efficient, however, people don’t mess with her like they used to with Rolla. Being a small car can’t be easy, everyone is under the false assumption that a small car is a pile of old crap and that it won’t go very fast. Well let me tell you, my little Rolla was the most reliable and won races against Skyliners, often when they didn’t even consider a race! Our cars have personality, not like that on Disney, but a persona that is also carried by the driver.
As it was my Dads birthday at the weekend, I called him up on Saturday morning and proposed the idea that we go out West Auckland to some of the beautiful beaches out there. I chose to take them to Karekare beach, a beautiful yet windy place that I visited with a friend a few months prior. We all piled into Suzi on Saturday afternoon and started the journey out west.
The roads to the western beaches are steep and windy; twisting from this way to that, the type of road you can do a maximum of 50km, unless you really know the roads and your car. As we descended down the hill side, I was reminded of a sound that Suzi started making a few weeks back. Suzi was getting, what sounded like a bit of arthritis in her limbs, every time we turned into the driveway or such, she would make a little clunk, almost like a groan. This hillside seemed to maximise Suzi’s pain. She began to clunk and groan on every turn. Sometimes just to the right, or just to the left, it was becoming irregular and a little worrying.
We arrived at the beach late afternoon, and although the sand had been heated by the warmth of the sun, the wind was still bitterly cold. The three of us spent an hour walking and mulling around taking in the sheer beauty of the volcanic black sand beach. When realising the time and remembering we were going out later in the evening, we hastily returned to Suzi.
After the drive down the hill, I asked Dad to drive back as the clunking noise Suzi was making was starting to worry me. I didn’t want to be the culprit that hurt her! We began our journey back up the hill, around the chaotic hairpin bends. The clunking started getting louder and more regular, I began to wince on every bend. Expecting the worst to happen! One bend in particular was more ferocious than first thought and as Dad swung the car into the bend, there was an almighty scraping clunk. Unlike the regular clunking we had become immune to, it contributed to a slight rolling feeling. I couldn’t work out if it was my fear playing tricks on me, but from then on, I was freaked!
We drove as slowly as we could without irritating the drivers behind us, pulling over every so often to let the tailgaters pass. As we drove home we discussed what to do with the car. Worried that I would be left without a car, I said to Dad about buying a cheap run around. That’s when the idea popped into Dads head. My friend Eugene is a bit of a master at owning and selling cars. In the few years of driving he has had more cars than hot dinners. Each one, bought, cleaned, spruced up in some way and then sold on. I text him, out of curiosity to see if he had a spare car floating around that I would be able to borrow. His reply was almost immediate and stated that I could borrow his little car, aka the Goldmember. As he is picked up for work and dropped off, it worked out well that he was able to lend me his little car.
Sunday rocked around and Eugene came to drop off the car, we had planned that I would take him back to his house out west (okay, yes this story does sound a little westie). I am pretty confident that I can sit in a car and know how to make it drive. However Goldmember was an exception to the rule. Although I have the know-how to make her drive, it was the routine that was failing me! After being greeted by the dented golden exterior, I jumped in the driver’s seat to feel like I had jumped back in time. The interior was a faded chocolate brown, with a smell that seems to linger in all old cars. With a 1.5 litre engine, 4 gear automatic, I thought to myself that the little Mazda would have been the bees’ knees in its day! Eugene explain about Goldmember’s trouble with reverse and that she needs the help of a choke to get her going when she’s cold. As she was warm from driving to my house, I had no trouble starting the car. As I swung her automatic lever into reverse, I begun to turn the wheel to realise that there was no power steering. At this point I also realised just how weak my arms were!
With Eugene safely dropped off and sometime in the car on my way home, I had begun to get used to the personality of this car. It made me smile just how old and comical it must look on the road. Monday morning came, and with the knowledge of an automatic engine that tends to kick in at least five seconds after you put your foot on the throttle, I decided to get up five minutes early to reduce the risk of hitting too much traffic at the end of the driveway. Off I potter down the path, bags in the back seat, I sat in the driving seat and went to turn the car on. After three attempts and the choke pulled out all the way, I put her in reverse, only to find that as soon as I went to pull away, she stooled. More gas. Damn.
As I drove to work that morning, I laughed. Out loud! I laughed at the old, unreliable car and the coincidence that it was actually what I was counting on for reliability! I put my trust in that car to get me to and from school. Later in the day, I pulled up at the water front to go for a walk along the beach, unaware that the choke was still pulled out, I came to a stop in a parking space and was completely freaked out to find the engine revving over two thousand rev’s! Unable to work out why, I immediately turned the car off and started laughing at myself. Only then did I notice the family of people walking passed, watching me and having a good giggle. I have found myself laughing at the thought of me driving that car every day, I appreciate that car so much, however tragic it sounds! I believe the character and personality of that car has made it all the more amusing and eventful! Thank you Goldmember for stepping in while Suzi was sick!
