#FormativeYearsWrenchingOnBritishSteel
Memoirs Of An Independent Repair Shop Owner: My Formative Years Wrenching on British Steel – Road Romps Reserved for Riveting Recall, Not Righteous Repetition
In my last entry, I tried to convey the wonderfulness that was, and is part and parcel to the British Car driving experience, which I was able to enjoy through my “wrenching connections”. For me, if I had to describe this experience in one word, it would have to be “unique”; and when it comes to motorized transport, unique is ALWAYS worth doing at least once.
The experiences I related in the last entry, as far as I’m concerned, are worth doing often and on as regular a basis as possible. In this entry, on the other hand, I’m going to relate some British Car driving experiences that define the darker side of the term.
Memoirs Of An Independent Repair Shop Owner: My Formative Years Wrenching on British Steel. Or: How I Learned to Never Underestimate the Power of a Real Road Test Experience
One would think that with all the head scratching, added expense and needless difficulty involved, anyone who persisted in their own repair and maintenance efforts (professional or otherwise) on such flawed contraptions —which I will continue to document in this series on my experiences with automobiles British— must be running as low on vital fluids as the vehicles themselves typically were!
But we’re not talking about the repeating of the same procedure and expecting a different result, in this case. The experienced British Car mechanic understood that the oil leaks would persist, the electrics would continue to be perform intermittently and the driveability would literally change with the weather. To expect otherwise WOULD have been a sign of insanity!
Memoirs Of An Independent Repair Shop Owner: My Formative Years Wrenching on British Steel, Or: How Whitworth, Lucas, Girling and Other General B.S. (British Standard) Set Me On a Skewed-And Stimulating-Career Path
“We don’t need mechanics…we need MAGICIANS!”
In a heavy accent loaded with London grit, that was the response of the proprietor of the local—and at that point in time, quite vital—independent British Car garage, when I approached him to inquire as to whether he was in the market for hired help.
Not even twenty years of age, with a whopping one-year’s worth of experience servicing used cars for a BMC/Jaguar/Toyota dealership, just up the Pacific Coast Highway, I was still in the process of formulating an opinion as to what it took to make a success of wrenching (or should I call that “spannering?”) on things British.
Recent Comments