A CV8 IS A PRETTY WIDE MUTHA
As Mrs M will tell you, I’m might y antsy about where I’ll park my favourite cars. A succession of tow-truck utes has been left any where from the airport to the loca l supermarket, but my Sunday cars have never even seen a shopping trolley up close. None of which made a blind bit of difference when I had to park the Munro in an older, inner-cit y suburb the other day. You k now the sort of suburb: The ones where they have narrow streets and old bluestone kerbs and g utters. You can probably g uess what happened next.
Yep, I kerbed t he goddam front-left a lloy on a bluestone block that was sitting about 20mm proud of its neighbouring blocks of rock. Oh sure, I was tr y ing to make sure I got as close as possible – a V X CV8 is a prett y wide mutha – but had that mongrel, rogue block not been stick ing out into t he road, I never would have touched a lloy on stone. Of course, t hat’s not much use to me now (and I’m willing to bet the council wouldn’t have cared less) `’cos now I had t hree pristine a lloys and one scarred one. And it fair dinkum looked like a zit on a supermodel. Drove me cra z y.
The solution turned out to be prett y simple. I contacted a mob that comes to you and smooths and repaints t he rim in your driveway. Okay, t here’s a limit to what t hey can do wit hout putting a rea lly hammered rim on a lathe or welding it up, but for the litt le tick le my wheel had copped, t hey were conf ident t hat t hey could f i x it in situ. The best part is t hat I simply took a shot of the damage on my phone, sent it t hrough to head off ice and t hey got back wit hin an hour to say t hat yes, t hey could f i x it and even told me how much it was going to cost. The bloke turned up, got stuck in and within 90 minutes or so, Hulk Bogan was beautif ul again.
Which brings me to Rule 64 when inspecting a second-hand car: Always check the right-hand-side rims for kerb rash. A lot of snea k y buggers switch t he lef t-hand-side rims to t he right, f ig uring you’ll be check ing for kerb-strike on t he lef ts, but not t he rights.
Aside from stick y-out y kerbs, t he ot her t hing t hat’s been getting up my nose lately has been a batch of fairly uncomplimentar y comments about one of the reader’s cars to be featured in t his mag. Ty pica lly, t he comments have not been expressed face to face but on socia l media (where we promote the upcoming stories) and the ones I saw concerned the grey V N SS of Rob Groeneveld. A couple of geniuses were expressing t heir expert option on t he V N SS, essentia lly say ing t hat it wasn’t a car worth restoring and would a lways be a pile of crap no matter how much time and money was t hrown at it. This despite t he fact t hat t hey’ve never seen t he car in t he f lesh. And for a ll I k now, have never driven a V N SS any way, let a lone owned one.
Now, I’ll admit, t he V N SS isn’t ever ybody’s cup of tea. And if it aint yours, t hen feel free to move right a long… Nothing to see here. Of course, t hat limits your exposure to the variet y that makes our hobby such a grand one, but hey, whatever. On the other hand, if you want to see how a restoration is done properly, t hen check it out when it appears, because it’s a stunner. Here’s my r ule: If you wouldn’t say it to a bloke’s face at a car show or in t he front bar, don’t say it online. As Aret ha Frank lin once said: R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
BTW: Vale Aretha.