SMOKING IS DANGEROUS FOR YOUR CAR
Now I know I take the piss out of Porsches a lot, but it’s only because racing against them is so difficult, because they never break, sort of. Never ever. Bloody things just keep going, as Vic Elford said to me, and he should know. (“To win races, you need the best equipment.” He was, of course, alluding to Porsches.) Vic Elford has written a great book on how to drive a Porsche. Buy it.
My very first Porsche was a stunning 944, bought in 1983, front-engined, white, burgundy interior. It had everything, including a hatchback for storage, but something was wrong, folks. Porsche 911 drivers still looked down on me with derision. You see, in their eyes, it wasn’t a proper Porsche: (a) it was way too comfortable; (b) the engine was at the front; and (c) it handled beautifully, an absolute no-no for those stupid twats. Oops. Sorry. Anyway, it was so good, I bought another one a few years later.
In 1984, I bought my first 911 Turbo. It was two years old. I didn’t want to buy a new one until I’d tested one. Which was just as well. I sold it two months later. If I drove to London, I’d get dead arse, a bit like a footballer’s dead leg, and my arse had stopped speaking to me. But the magnificence of the build quality never left me.
Moving on to 1998, I see in Fort Lauderdale a beautiful Twin Turbo white Porsche, with a huge picnic table on the back—well, a wing. It was huge. I had to have it, so I traded in then and there my two-year-old Mercedes Pimpmobile (500 SL). I’d bought it because it looked cool and it had a trick roof, the first real hardtop convertible. The only trouble was I started to notice that they were nearly all driven by beautiful blond tarts who had been given them by rich boyfriends or aging husbands. Shit. I had to get outta this fast, and there was the Porsche before me. Menacingly sexy, I just had to have it. The deal was done about four thirty in the afternoon, and I relished the thought of driving it across the Florida Peninsula, home to Sarasota.
Off I went on a small state road—dead straight and two lanes: B road, as we would call it—running right through the sugarcane fields that stretch as far as the eye can see. The sun was setting, and I was saying “Wow!” when there was the blue light. Bollocks! Pull over. Shite, not a policeman but the dreaded highway patrol. This guy was big, black, with dead eyes and big daft hat that tilted forward like he’d just braked too hard. Unlike in the U.K., American cops stay behind the car, so they can see if you’re gonna shoot them or something. Wow! became a wooah!
Cop: “License, registration, insurance.”
Me: “Here you go, officer. Beautiful evening, isn’t it, oh ally in the Second World War.” Nothing.
Cop: “You were doing eighty in a fifty limit.”
Me: “Well, officer, I’ve only had the car thirty minutes. I just bought it and I’m driving it home, and I was trying to get used to the . . .” Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. I dribbled on. The Johnson charm offensive was going badly.
Cop: “I don’t care.”
Me: “Pardon?”
Cop: “I can’t afford one, and I don’t like anyone who can.”
Me: “I’m pretty much fucked then.”
Cop: “Yup!”
Bastard gave me a ticket, but I got one back on him, because I gave him my English license, and he didn’t know what to do with it, or where to add the points, or where England is. Anyhow, I carried on driving into the sunset. Lord, I could kill a cigarette. So I pulled one out, lit it, opened my window a crack to flick out the ash. Then I thought, “You silly sod, smoking in a brand-new car!” So I flicked that bad boy out the window, proud of myself, till the smoke started rising in the back (shades of Williams). I stopped, jumped out, and there in the lap of the seat was a fire started by a cigarette thrown out of a window by some silly twat. I dropped my shorts and did what any man would do: I peed on it till it went out. Then I folded the seat down and drove home, sheepish.
She Who Is To Be Feared came to look at the new car. “Why’s the backseat down?” she asked. “It’s an aerodynamic thing,” I said. She said it sounded like a “you lying git thing.” She lifted the seat and I was copped for the second time that day. I definitely remember getting drunk that night.
P.S.: Porsche asked me how it happened. I said, “Would you believe it, the cigarette lighter flew out of the dash, passed my ear, and set fire to the seat.” The guy on the phone just laughed and said, “That’s the best one yet.” He sent me a free replacement seat in forty-eight hours. Now that’s service.