In My Humble Opinion

Mike’s tale of a dodgy Marina.

A local neighbour’s son turned up to visit recently and I couldn’t help but notice the car – a heavily customised 1996 Vauxhall Corsa. I smiled when I saw the monster alloy rims attempting to cover up the standard penny-washer sized brake discs. The phrase “It’ll all end in tears” went through my mind, and I recalled a fellow apprentice mechanic named Steve that I used to be quite pally with.

We used to socialise by clubbing on a school night or trawling around one of the many breakers’ yards in Northampton at the weekend. In those days, the South Midland county town was a Mecca for the DIY motorist.

Steve had three car-mad older brothers living at home with him, and the front garden at the family residence would strike a chord with any fan of Keeping

Up Appearances. Just close your eyes and think of Onslow – that marvellous loveable slob played by the late great actor Bernard Hughes.

As many of you will fondly remember, every sizeable town or city featured breakers’ yards of good and ill repute. Northampton was certainly no different, sporting at least five or six that immediately spring to mind. Aided no doubt by having a thriving banger racing circuit in nearby Brafield village ensured these yards remained prosperous. Today, with ever-strangling health and safety, the trusty ‘scrappie’ is becoming a faded memory – like the Cortinas and Allegros that once filled them.

I eventually took a job with a different main dealer workshop offering

substantially more than my £44 per week ‘Employed YTS’ Ford trainee status. Steve continued to work with CVH, Pinto or Valencia lumps, whereas my new staple workload involved fettling with classic Minis and other Rover-related stuff. We kept in touch for a while and as my 17th birthday came and went I learned to drive, passed my test, and became a social nuisance with my Cortina 1.6 Ghia.

Early one summer’s evening, Steve called round to show off his new toy. Sauntering outside the house I was greeted by the sight of a 1973 Morris

Marina van, brush-painted in a brilliant white gloss. It made you wince – partly at the brightness, and partly in dread of what your neighbours were thinking. That said, I was 17 and didn’t care, as we lurched off into the sun in a stinking and laughably basic van.

Arriving at our watering hole – The World’s End in Ecton village – he reeled off his ambitious plan of souping up the van, jacking up the rear-end, fitting some melody horns and a plethora of driving lamps. He wanted to know if I was up for helping; it sounded like good fun, so I heartily agreed. A couple of weekends went by and we found ourselves at the premises of Joe Ingram Motors – one of the now longgone Northampton breakers’ yards.

The puny A-series driveline was soon swapped over to a 1.8-litre B-series but the modifications stopped there.

I had previously suggested we fit the whole front droplink and hub assemblies from a Marina or Ital saloon to gain disc brakes, but he ignored this. Steve often remarked about the effort involved to anchor the van, and he did get around to doing something about it – even if his plan was less than ideal. Rather than doing the right thing by upgrading to discs and perhaps a servo, he took the advice of a half-wit work colleague, who suggested he have the drums internally shot-peened.

By this point, the brakes certainly had some response, but they grabbed like fury. Initial pedal effort was lessened, but the side-effects now outweighed any other advantage. For example, he went through two sets of brake shoes in as many months, as the drum surfaces munched through the linings like a dog chews through a box of Bonios. And now the brakes faded even quicker than ever before, as he was soon to find out.

Rural hazards

His vantastic capers continued for a little while longer. The low-ratio rear axle fitted to the commercial Marina was there to combat the lack of power from the standard 1.1 or 1.3 engine.

Now armed with a fair bit of extra grunt the van struggled to stop effectively, and his luck simply ran out.

After racing a different chum across country, he completely ran out brakes. The van over-shot a blind bend, went through a picket fence, down a small bank and rolled onto its side. The day after, he turned up at my house full of woe sporting a fat lip, black eye and an impressive bandage around his elbow.

What did cause a great deal of humour were Steve’s injuries. He explained in our kitchen, my late father listening in with delight. Steve’s battle scars were not the result of an airborne wheel brace or spanner. Both my

Dad and I had to wipe tears from our eyes as Steve glumly explained that a landowner appeared ‘Mr Benn’-style from out of nowhere and proceeded to give him a good hiding for damaging his property and startling his animals.

A month or two after this took place, my Cortina was sold for a slim profit, and I bought an Ital 1.3 with a seized engine. One Saturday morning, I was back at Joe Ingram Motors on the lookout for a 1.7-litre O-series. In a dark corner, minus its engine and looking rather beaten, stood one very familiar looking, accident-damaged M-registered Marina van in a perky shade of grassy white.

So, if you are in your first flush of youth and looking to upgrade your first car with a few extra nellies as us oldies did years ago, do the right thing and beef-up those brakes!

‘Now armed with a fair bit of extra B-series grunt, the van struggled to stop effectively – and eventually my mate’s luck simply ran out.’