It’s about the journey, not the destination…
January 22, 2020
As I’ve mentioned in the past, I own a Rover 800 Vitesse Sport. It’s my ‘forever’ car. My ongoing project. The source of a great deal of my time, money and patience. And that last one, patience, is what’s key here.
The car isn’t on the road at the moment, as I still need to finish some bits before I stick it in for an MOT. That said, I move it around the car park every other day, partly to amuse myself, and partly to keep the old girl ticking over. And ticking over it was until this morning, when a wheel fell off.
That’s not how the wheel should look. Bugger.
It turns out the nearside lower ball joint failed, which is spectacularly bad luck considering both lower front ball joints are brand new. In fact, they’ve covered less than a mile. But anyway, the ball joint failed, the hub spat outwards, pulling the driveshaft from the gearbox at the same time. Deeply annoying. Thankfully, I managed to shuffle the car back into its space by resting it on a stock trolley from Tesco next door. I am now not talking to the Rover. It is the dog that barfed on the new rug. The child that scrawled bright colours on the living room wall. It is in my bad books.
But, like the dog or child, it will soon win my favour once more. I will forgive it, and I’ll carry on with it until the next major component falls off. And I write this knowing that while a great many of you may not ‘get’ my choice of car, you will at least understand and relate to the cycle of rage and reinstilled affection. It’s a scenario prevalent in the old car world, but why? They are cars, machines, lumps of metal in which other bits of metal move about. Why do we get so attached to them, and why do we take such an assault on our very being when they fail us?
Project Benz is an ongoing love/hate affair
Charles Babbage, the father of the computer, spoke in the 18th Century of ‘the unerring certainty of machines’ by which he meant machines don’t bugger things up, at least not if they’ve been engineered correctly. The machines in our lives generally adhere to this train of thought. Our ovens work, our fridge works, the washing machine, so on and so forth. And when they fail, they generally come to an absolute conclusion. Cars don’t do that, though. Cars can fail, yet still work. In fact, cars are very good at that.
Cars, despite being machines, have soul. They have presence and personality. A lot of that, especially in the case of older cars, comes from the engine, the way they drive, so on and so forth. A lot of it, however, comes from their ability to fail. Cars develop idiosyncrasies and in doing so, we see them as being more human. Because humans are flawed. It’s our flaws and differences that make us unique. And because it’s in our nature to look for familiar ground, we put those vehicular flaws on a human, personal level.
My old Zodiac. Breaking down. Again. Still loved it though.
This then brings about a bond. Our cars are now seen to have soul, we drop our guard and build a human-like attachment with them. The longer we own a car, the more work we do, the more we are in tune with it. No other appliance does this. New cars don’t even do this. New cars are too full of computers, there is nothing to bond with. It’d be like getting really attached to your laptop, and that’s just weird.
My ’76 3.0S on a trailer. There’s a theme developing here.
While I was pondering all this, as I stood there looking at my Rover and its wobbly wheel, I realised that the thought of scrapping it, or setting fire to it, or grabbing a branch and going full ‘Basil Fawlty’ on it never occured. I wasn’t mad at it, I was more upset that it had broken. I know this car better than I’ve known any, so now it’s something I will help and protect, not abandon at the first sign of trouble.
And I think for many of us, this is just how it is. But more than that, I think we enjoy this relationship with our cars. As I said on Twitter while ranting about what had happened, it’s annoying, but it all adds to the rich tapestry of my time with the car. I’ve now got a ‘the wheel fell off’ anecdote for the future. It’s now a memory, something else that will strengthen the bond. I have no memory of the fridge I had five years ago.
My father’s ’55 Thunderbird, another car the owner has a strong bond with
When our cars fail, and when they test us, we react to them in a human way. Admit it, you’ve spoken to your car, whether desperately begging it to start, or gleefully spilling praise on a spirited drive. You’ve never offered reassuring words to the oven for cooking a pizza correctly.
And as a relationship, there is no goal or objective. The relationship itself is the journey, that’s the adventure and the goal. Being there. In the moment. And that’s why we spill endless cash into old cars, it’s why we go to shows, it’s why we align ourselves with people of a similar mindset. Because we want to capitalise on the journey of classic car ownership, we want the adventure, and we accept that sometimes things go wrong. Or in my case, fall off. And do you know what? We, or certainly I wouldn’t change it for the world. I love old cars, and I’m fine with that.
