…or, how I finally got me a sports car.
Firstly, I must apologise. This is the longest break I have had between entries since I started the blog in July 2008. I’m sure you both know and understand the reasons and I’m sure you understand that I have been wrestling with what direction I should take with it.
With that in mind, then, I’d like to fill in the time, sort of, by sharing an article which I wrote for my local MX5 club magazine. I hope you enjoy the read even though it doesn’t really have anything to do with motorcycling.
Two into Four (or how I finally got a sports car)
I’ve always wanted a sports car. When I was a little boy my dad fostered our passion for all things mechanical and he said (proudly) that, by the time Paul and I were five years old, we could identify every car on the road.
Later my uncle contributed by purchasing an MGA and, later, an MGB. He rounded off his passions with a TVR Grantura and gifted both of us with several rides in the B.
As teenagers we became emeshed in car racing and attended events at Oran Park (the night races under lights were very spectacular) and hill climbs. On reflection, I suspect that the hill climb choice was because there was a hillclimb track close by, King Edward Park, in Newcastle and also because hill climbs were held on Saturdays and attendance there didn’t clash with our church commitments.
We slavishly purchased motoring magazines, especially Sports Car World and chuckled long and hard at the writings of Romsey Quints.
But it was at the hill climbs that our interest in racing and, especially sports cars grew. This was mainly because the Unlimited Sports Car class in that era was owned by Wollongong’s Ron Thorp in his booming Shelby Cobra 289.
By now we were living in Wollongong and Thorpie became our “local” driver. We travelled back to Newcastle every year and even parlayed our way into being Ron’s pit crew. We also took our little 35mm cameras with us and it was with mine that I took this shot of Ron exiting Perce’s Pinch in 1967.
Ron set 2nd FTD that day and, as usual, won his class.
A couple of years later we were invited to Ron’s house at Yallah to see the car and to have a ride in it around the backblocks of Marshall Mount. The sound of the four inch lakes pipes, just below my left ear. booming off the scenery, is something I will never forget.
But something had happened at Newcastle a year before. We had turned up for the hill climb only to find that the CAR event wasn’t until the following week and it was BIKES on the card. Unbeknown to us, we got to see Australian champion, Kel Carruthers, set the FTD that day, riding Jack Gates’s Honda 250. What a sound! Just a couple of years later, Kel became the World 250cc champion on a Benelli.
And it was to bikes that we started drifting. Despite continuing our passion for car racing, both Paul and I bought a bike and started riding them on the road even though we were living 300kms apart and had never discussed the matter with each other until it happened. Such are the quirks of being identical twins.
If you’d like to follow the story of my motorcycling life you can do so on my blog www.halfofmylife.com. Select the menu item called “My Motobiography” and settle down, it’s a long read.
That was 1974 and, suddenly, we are 50 years later. My motorcycling came to a painful and precipitous end on the 21st September 2024 when I crashed on a piece of firewood on the road and wrote off the bike and almost me. I had had a serious accident in 2010 and had promised my long-suffering wife then that, if ever I had another serious accident, that would be it and I have kept my promise.
With the insurance money, plus the money for my written-off motorcycling gear and the sale of my historic Honda 550, I was able to consider the purchase of another, safer, toy. It had to be an MX-5 as my memories of Uncle Rob’s front-engined, rear wheel drive cars was still fresh. Plus, Paul had bought one some years before and always raved about it (though he never let me have a DRIVE in it). So, with Paul’s help and advice from MX-5 friends, Bryan and Ann, I started trolling the For Sale sites for a suitable candidate. It didn’t take long and I settled on a 2010 “C” model with all the fruit.
“Wow’”, you must be thinking, “What did you think when you drove it for the first time?” Well, it took some time before I could drive it at ALL. The combination of my injuries and my doctor’s injunctions concerning not exerting myself meant that it was some months before I got to plunk the posterior onto the leather seat. And, even then, he restricted me to very short distances of driving for some months as well.
Once “let loose” so to speak, (on New Year’s Eve, no less) I immediately found what my uncle had found some 60 years before. A sports car is addictive. Sure, it took some getting used to, I’d not driven a manual for AGES and the long throw of the clutch pedal and its offset to the right was tricky. My big feet kept getting tangled up with the pedal and the foot rest and I began to despair of ever making smooth down-shifts.
By a bit of experimentation with the position of the seats suddenly showed that the process was much easier and I haven’t missed a shift in a while.
My daily driver is a 2013 VW Golf, a car that has more than enough “sporty” to satisfy but it didn’t prepare me for how DIRECT the MX-5 is. Think it and it goes there, sometimes even more quickly than you actually want it to. Choosing the right line has become even more critical than it always has been and, I have to say that, I am nowhere even close to confident enough (as some who have travelled behind me on group drives have undoubtedly noticed).
The assistance and advice that I have received from my local MX-5 chapter has been invaluable and that has eased the process considerably.
But the rewards are immeasurable and I am so glad that, some 60 years after I first thought how nice it would be to own a sports car, I have found out just how nice it really IS. My wife loves driving Dolly (she’s Dolphin Grey, you see) as much as I do and now, instead of saying to her, “I’m going for a ride.” as I’ve done for the last 50 years, I now say, “I’m going for a zoom.”
