Switchback journey to Goodwood
THE VOICE ON the phone said: ‘Would you like to bring your lovely little Abarth Sperimentale to the Cartier Style et Luxe concours at the Goodwood Festival of Speed?’ There is, of course, only one answer to that question.
Having miraculously survived its jettisoned wheel incident (see Octane 193) undamaged, a touch of T-Cut to remove the rubber residue on the wheelarch appeared to be the only preparation required. That, and a polish.
Hmm. Absence of floor covering starts to niggle, so a decision to make a set of floorboards covered in grooved rubber prompts a flurry of activity. The indispensable eBay throws up a roll of finely grooved matting and, surprisingly quickly for me, a pair of floorboards materialise out of a sheet of ply that I just happen to have in stock; the fact that the underside is covered in the remains of plaster from its earlier domestic application is neither here nor there. Out of sight, out of mind.
So far so good, but there’s always a catch in a Mallett motoring endeavour. While I’m lying half in and half out of the passenger footwell, a light shower of tiny parts descends on my head from under the dash. Turns out they have fallen from the switch for the electric fan.
It seems that one of the original 60-year-old Fiat switches has
vomited its innards. In fact there are no innards, as such, as there is no outer shell in which the switching parts can hide. After two hours of trying to reassemble everything, I give up. Not wanting to have an aesthetically offensive, non-matching switch in the dash, I rig up a temporary switch on a dangling cable that can be tucked out of sight when safely on the Cartier lawn.
Since the fan is manually controlled, keeping one eye on the temperature gauge is essential. As it creeps over 90 degrees, a flick of the switch brings it down and after a while you can turn it off – repeat as required. Halfway to Goodwood, with the fan on, its warning light goes out. Quelle horreur! Squeezing the switch between my fingers once again lights the light, but a few miles short of Goodwood the switch becomes too hot to hold.
A brief stop to dispense with the switch and tape the wires together puts the fan into permanent ‘on’ mode. Journey completed safely. It’s all worth it as my ‘lovely little Abarth’ wins its class in the concours. Now, anyone got a period Fiat switch?