The last word
Brian Gower admires a mad Mediterranean creation.
Brian Gower has some fun with an Italian beauty.
There was a surprising air of celebration at my father's funeral. His immediate (second) family and close friends were united in the belief that he was now 'In the Glory', a conviction that carried them through the initial shock and formalities but wore off once the realisation that this well-loved man was gone for good hit home.This inescapable fact struck a very young girl during the service when her Great Grandad was carried in at shoulderheight in a box. Perhaps no-one had prepared her because she gasped and began to cry quite loudly. Being 'In the Glory' doesn't wash with kids.
When Simon Gray attended the memorial service for his old friend, Harold Pinter, it was habit rather than self-deception that kept reminding him to discuss it all with Harold later. However, delusions persist everywhere.
My personal delusion (you know what's coming) is that the 1968 Rover 3-Litre Coupe, the last of the six-cylinder PSs, is the finest car that anyone could ask for, despite the evidence of our current Japanese 4x4 being just as comfortable, reliable and tough. It is indifferent to inclement weather and high mileage. But it's all the plastic and gadgets and its habit of locking itself if we don't get in quickly enough, its lack of warm wooden veneers, proper leather and Wilton carpets, the large key with its fob full of buttons instead of a couple of small plated brass items, undetectable in a trouser pocket, its Oriental complications. And that's it, you see. It has no tradition, so knows nothing of the carriage-and-four or the long avenue of beech trees running through a deer-park towards the family home. Neither do I, come to that, but you know what I mean.
The couple who used to live in the nearest cottage arrived in a large 1995 Mercedes-Benz estate. I imagine it was bought specifically for country life (with children planned) before they left London. If the three-pointed star on the bonnet represented a solid belief in something or other, it failed on umpteen inconvenient occasions.
I think it is time to consider a car that promises absolutely nothing.This two-seater bit of fun is a concept car - an idea made solid, but possibly just the once for the Geneva Motor Show. Designed in the Bertone studio, it is beautiful, especially in profile, and impractical unless you live somewhere that never, ever gets rain.The Autobianchi Barchetta Runabout has been replicated at least three times in the model world.
Matchbox's orange Speed Kings No K31 boasts an opening rear engine cover and was produced from 1971-72, and Corgi's No 386, in yellow and black, was made from 1971-74. I have also seen a model in the correct finish, white, but it was seriously wrecked. I don't know who made it. I don't know what Barchetta means either. Basket-chair? Surely not. I must ask Guiseppe, the co-owner of our local coffee-house and ice-cream parlour, although he's from Lambeth, so might know less Italian than me. Still, it's worth a try.As is Guiseppe's coffee, icecream and the exquisite cakes of Suzanne, should you find yourself outside Beppino's in Bridport. DC