Motoring
A BORROWER AND A LENDER BE
I'm now in happy possession of my fourth loan car. Not one a dealer lends you while yours in being serviced. Nor a car from some optimistic, car-sharing neighbourhood scheme.
No – my loan cars have all been lent by friends who wanted someone to use them for 12 months while they couldn't. Or, in one case, to hide their car.
The first was a 1968 Bristol 410, an exclusive, two-door, four-seater tourer, powered by a 5,211cc V8. I've always coveted Bristols, the early ones for their svelte curvaceousness, the later (up to the 1970s 411) for their understated elegance. I loved that car. Mechanically simple and robust, a thoroughbred to drive, it made you feel special without attracting unwanted attention.
My friend bought it, but when he got it home his wife took against it because of an intermittent petrol smell (later cured
– and anyway my friend likes the smell of petrol, as I do). She assumed he had it on approval and would return it the next day. He hadn't the heart to tell her he'd done the deal, let alone what he'd paid for it, and so he asked me to hide it and drive it while he found a buyer. That took a year.
The second loan car was an early Mark 1 Mazda MX5 with pop-up headlights, which I looked after for a few months for a friend overseas. A battered old thing, left-hand drive with a galactic mileage, it was utterly reliable and a delight. I've never gone in much for sports cars, but if I were to it would be an MX5 – probably a Mark 1 with those cute pop-ups. My friend will never get rid of it. He wants to be buried in it.
The third loan was a Porsche Cayman. That did everything it said on the tin but I couldn't love it. In fairness to the car, it took me a while to get the point of Porsches – which is that the harder you drive them, the better they are. But it's hard to drive hard on our rural lanes.
That won't be a problem with the latest loan. When sold here, they were the butt of jokes: what do you call one on top of a hill? A miracle. What do you call one with a sunroof? A skip. Honest John, the Daily Telegraph's renowned motoring agony columnist, reckoned the only good thing about them was their big toolkit. Reader, it's a Lada.
Yes, the original Soviet article, a 1974 1,200cc saloon imported from Estonia, based on the 1960s Fiat 124, and in the 1980s form known as the Riva. The Russians gave it heavier-gauge steel to withstand their winters, a different engine and brakes and a raised, simpler suspension. For decades, it was the only car available to aspiring Russian motorists – you probably had to be in the nomenklatura to own one.
With 18 million sold (60 per cent exported), it's arguably one of the most successful cars of all time, bettered only by the VW Beetle. Indeed, it was known as the Second World Volkswagen. Some 350,000 were sold here between 1977 and 1997, when emissions regulations put paid to them. But they were made until 2012.
Now they're a minor motoring cult. There are clubs – the Lada Enthusiasts' Club and the wonderfully-named Unloved Soviet and Socialist Register (patron J Corbyn, surely?), whose members love these cars for their simplicity and repairability. Some say they're reliable. Maybe they are. This one runs OK, but the brakes feel like blancmange – so it's head-under-bonnet time. Except the bonnet catch is broken, so I can't open it. I'll report back.