Brighton Early.......Again

It is, apparently, a fine line between love and hate. And no where is this more graphically demonstrated than in Hampshire and West Sussex on the first decent Sunday of the year.

Drive past someone at 30mph, and they'll smile and point out "The funny man in the noddy car" to their kids. Drive past at 50mph and they'll yell "advice" on road safety and give you a look that suggests you're the anti-Christ.

But no amount of Daily Mail readers can keep a good blat down, and the key to feeling really smug about it is to hit the road sufficiently early that those middle-Englanders who take such offence later in the day are still asleep.

And so it was that I arrived at Farnham station just before 7am to meet Carrots and The Long Bloke for an extended blat down to a favourite target....Brighton.

Progress down through Surrey towards Hindhead was refreshingly swift, with the three Crossflows gulping up the cool, damp morning air. The further South we headed the better the road surface was too. That, combined with the recent corner-weighing and balancing the Seven received, made for some spirited driving. Now the weight of the car is evenly distributed fore and aft, the steering is more responsive and the rear end bogs down less as the power comes on.

The only down side to this is that it does encourage eating slightly further in to the usual margins of safety, something I became all too aware of as we approached Petworth and very nearly slid in to the rear of Carrot's car, being unashamedly caught out by the combination of a slight downhill gradient and a greasy surface where the sun was yet to fully dry out the road.

This minor infraction was soon counteracted by the sound of rorty exhausts echoing off the walls of the adjacent Petworth House as we pushed on to Brighton.

Over the South Downs and some classic Caterham roads, with pale blue sky overhead and a misty English Channel on the horizon, and still it was before 9am...just excellent.

Despite being a good blat, we were somewhat let down to discover the Market Diner, star of previous nocturnal blats, no longer stays open though the night and in to the next morning. Although it was only breakfast time, the cafe was shut, so by way of an alternative we ended up being the first customers of the day for The Garden Cafe in Hove which is, as the name suggests, in a garden-like setting of a local park. Just as the Market Diner is basic and almost a bit rough, like a badly made roll-up, then The Garden Cafe is a bit of St Bruno ready rubbed in an ornate pipe.

Simply a great venue to indulge in smoked salmon and scrambled egg bagels, really good coffee and a fresh spring morning, all enjoyed whilst the cars ticked themselves cool. Over breakfast we shared views on the mixed reactions the cars had already drawn that morning. I'm truly intrigued by what makes people resort to swearing or physical gestures as a Caterham drives past. Is it envy? Is it the genuine but misguided belief that anything over 30mph is lethal, or do they just not like the hint of other people actually bloody enjoying themselves? Whatever the cause, it just makes me want to get out there and enjoy the car even more so and leave ill-informed busy-bodying personality vacuums far behind.

After breakfast, which dragged on through the morning, we returned to the Market Diner to take in the "urban" artwork on the walls opposite, then dawdled along the coast to Shoreham Airport, the oldest public aerodrome in the UK. Luckily, it hasn't experienced the same success or commercial burdens of say Heathrow or Gatwick and has remained mostly unchanged since the 30s, the added bonus being it's also free of any threats of a fifteenth runway or another two dozen terminals and so gets left alone by those who hug trees. It also has no Sock Shop, Starbucks or Tie Rack, another big bonus.

With time ticking by we topped up on more coffee then split for the remainder of the day. But blatting was far from over as I had a small but crucial part to collect from Sunbury for the Land Rover, a purely functional drive.

But the beauty of blatting is that just when it starts to become boring something comes along to change all that. In this case, what came along was a dark blue Aston Martin DB9, which even on a Sunday easily qualifies for the title of The World's Biggest Car, especially when spotted in the rear view mirror.

Now, the Seven is small, compact and a bit pokey when required, and at face value a DB9 is none of these things. Monumentally rapid yes, achingly stylish yes, but nippy and nimble along rural Surrey lanes? Hardly. Oh how wrong was I and every time I leaped out for a nippy overtake, a few cars back I could see the massive Aston doing the same.

Eventually it was right behind me, but did it get past? No, in my slightly antique and smelly Crossflow I held off, and let's be quite clear here, an Aston Martin DB9.

Maybe it as the traffic conditions, maybe he stopped trying but either way by the time we reached Guildford we'd both calmed down and went our separate ways. Me first, and that's what matters. Goodness only knows what the Daily Mail would say.

All in all, a busy couple of weeks for aluminium cars.

No blog would be complete without mention of the light snow flurries that brought UK PLC to an abrupt halt a couple of weekends ago. But did it bring the Defender to an equally abrupt halt? Did it heck. The Land Rover simple laughed in the face of six inches of snow. I tried not to laugh in the face of those who, in automotive terms, put style before function and went down the German route. Alas BMW do not fit tyres called "Grabbers", they fit near-slick performance tyres with names like "Sport", or the name of a bird of prey. From the toasty comfort of the Land Rover, parked majestically at the crest of a hill, I came to the conclusion the "performance" in the title of BMW tyres refers to what can be witnessed when a company director tries to drive his 5-Series up a slight hill covered in compacted snow. Now, in those "Describe yourself" questionnaires you get in in-flight magazines, Smug isn't a box I'd usually tick but with this winter being the coldest for twenty five years, I considered the past time of rescuing BMWs and its quarter century occurence to be reason enough to feel a little bit superior. But not as much as declining BMW Man's offer of cash to drag him even closer to home in favour of rescuing a mum and four kids in an equally inept Astra. Or maybe it was the driver.

Tyred, and a bit smashed.

This month has seen some unexpected expenditure on both aluminium cars. The reasons and scale of this have varied greatly.
In the case of the Land Rover, someone and I know not who, decided to show their appreciation of traditional British automobilia by smashing the rear window and redesigning one of the tyres using a screwdriver. But it wasn’t all bad, although it was all mightily bewildering and leads me to believe the perpetrator of the act has no appreciation of aluminium cars. First there is the blatant vandalism which I suppose is just a fact of life in modern “Ing-errrrr-lund!”, but more curiously, the hoodlum who shattered the glass left everything in the Land Rover, which included a lightweight trolley jack. Leaving this behind says to me that whoever had a go at the Defender has no need of a trolley jack and doesn’t appreciate its potential value. If only it had been an iPod.
Now, losing a tyre isn’t usually too traumatic, but in the case of the Land Rover the timing couldn’t have been more critical. Of the five tyres (including the spare) on the car, three were due imminent replacement anyway, and with the act of a wanton yoof and his Stanley knife, this then meant there was only one good tyre left on the car. Annoying, but it forced me to accept the inevitable and re-shod the Landy. And it’s obviously been a while. BF Goodrich have virtually doubled their prices since I last purchased one. General Tire (as the Colonials call them), evidently, have not so time to switch brands.
After a little confusion over model years and disclosure that a 4pm appointment actually begins at 5:30pm, Autoglass replaced the rear window, and luckily for me they only stock glass with heater elements so it may be time to re-fit the heated rear window facility, dormant since the new door was fitted.
In view of the unprovoked and inconvenient attack on the Land Rover, I reviewed the concept of storing and carrying the spare wheel on the outside of the rear door. It doesn’t actually need to be there. It’s open to damage (deliberate or not), obstructs the rear view, and adds weight to the door hinges. So, as something of a trial, I’ve removed the wheel from the carrying bracket, and stored it inside the wagon then, using my air impact wrench in anger for the first time, removed the carrying bracket from the door. All in all, a good thing I reckon.
After all this I gave the Land Rover its first real clean since Christmas and its assorted outings of the Festive period. In something of a Johnny Morris moment I used a broom to actually wash the car. This reminded me of the 70s children’s TV uncle scrubbing the elephants at London Zoo whilst giving them the voice-over persona of Noel Coward. (Or Margot from The Good Life in the case of lady elephants)
So, with the Land Rover fully repaired I felt it only fair to lavish some times and money on the Seven. So at approximately 1/100th of the cost of the Land Rover’s new tyres, I acquired the switch I’ve been searching for in order to connect the heated windscreen I got for a similarly knock-down price earlier in the month, with both items being sourced through Blat Chat as always.

New Year's Freeze.

Well it's been a couple of busy weeks in areas other than aluminium cars, so a less than inpiring update.

After some intense Caterham usage, the temperature plummeted and the Land Rover came to the fore again with its traction control and ABS to overcome the sheet ice formerly known as the UK.

After Christmas Day, which this year fell on December 25th, I added the roof tent to the Defender ready for the LRUK Christmas Treasure Hunt, an event which can be traced back maybe ten or maybe even twelve months.

The treasure hunt was a great success, with seventeen surprisingly complete vehicles turning up to scatter to the four corners of Salisbury Plain. No one's car broke down, no one got stuck. Bit of a let down really but by the time we'd all defrosted the event raised a hundred quid, split between the LRUK website and Help For Heroes.

Sub-zero temperatures are actually pretty good for green laning - all the moisture is frozen out of the ground making everything more solid to drive on. It does compromise the socialising somewhat, although Land Rover drivers are, by definition, hardy souls many of whom are used to living life with permafrost in their cars so sitting around at -5 chipping beer out of a tin was child's play.

With the Defender already packed for overnighting the next night out was New Year's Eve - in Scotland. Obviously this involved a little trip North but with brilliant if chilly sunshine the scene was set for a bit of a roadtrip.

Long distance journeys in a Land Rover are more than just a journey from A to B. Rumbling along at a comfortable 60mph gives the chance to take in the view, relax a little and really travel instead of just drive.

Stopping off for a bit of a break at one of the many motorway services, clearly aimed to relieve drivers of stress and Sterling, I got the chance to discover what may be the real cause of car related climate change.

The basins in the "rest rooms" had hands-free taps. Yep, just place your hands under the tap, a sensor detects one's digits and the water flows. Ditto for drying them, with hot water replaced by hot air. And this is the problem. Whilst tree huggers around the world berate the car, they don't stop to think about all the other crap that soft-headed marketing executives firmly believe should go with owning one. The automated basins require one crucial ingredient - electricity. And that doesn't come without leaving a trail of the carbon footprints that we're all told are stamping the icecaps to pieces. So whilst society struggles to find a viable alternative to the car, its already wasting the energy allegedly freed up by banning them, and worse than that, it's wasting it on something that for centuries has been done perfectly adequately without the need for electrical input. But then again, anyone who thinks water and electricity should be mixed is clearly insane from the start.

Land Rovers don't have any fancy electric bits where they don't need them.

Pressing on through the frozen wastes of the North, one place name stuck in my mind - Ecclefechan, simply because this struck me as a suitable expletive to describe the arctic weather.

My target for the night was Wanlockhead, the UK's highest village and thus a suitable memorable location for New Year's Eve.

But this too was a bit of let-down. Although it was good to meet up with long term fellow road adventurer Wes, the inn itself was about as welcoming as a sign saying "Go away". In return, once parked up in the pub car park, I did experiment with various ways of off-setting the nocturnal after effects of several pints of Guinness without leaving the comfort of the rooftent.

New Year's Day was refreshingly clear but still cold. For the journey home I took a detour over Shap Pass, stopping at the top to take in the view of white frosted electricity pylons. Also noted was the memorial at the top of the pass with an inscription remembering the shelter afforded by local people to lost travellers in the days before the pesky M6 opened.

Arriving home well after dark the Defender was in dire need of a good wash. A day on Salisbury Plain had left it smothered in mud, then two days to Scotland and back had coated it all in salt, but in true Land Rover style it looked no less capable or indeed appealing due to its heavy weathering.

Washing had to wait anyway. Frozen hose pipes have limited uses.

Tis the season....

Ali car ownership has been a rather jolly affair lately.

After a pretty shambolic summer, now known as monsoon season, the last couple of weeks have proved surprisingly Seven-friendly. The Land Rover has seen plenty of use in keeping with the time of year. But then, that's what it's intended for - the Great British winter.

So it's good to able to report that twice in the last week the Caterham has gobbled up two whole tanks of fuel in the name of recreation which equates to a good few of hundred miles of blatting, even for a Cross Flow.

The first tank of fuel took me and the car to Central London, perhaps not the first choice for a blat. But done at the right time it can be a truly unique experience. And that time is the first few hours of a Monday morning in the run up to Christmas. I'd been toying with the idea of repeating a sight-seeing tour of the Capital like the one I attended in September last year, when over twenty cars met up and made a general but legal nuisance of themselves around town. So, in my own personal version of Jim'll Fix It, I wrapped up warm, donned my best stripey scarf and headed up the M3.

And what a treat was in store for a small car in a big city. Starting at the Royal Albert Hall I zig-zagged west across London, traversing the Thames on numerous occasions. It wasn't the fastest of blats but, with a relatively warm night for the time of year and unusually light traffic due to the impending festive season, it was no less enjoyable than an open-road trip. Speed bumps hindered progress occasionally, as did the Sat Nav's inability to keep up at times. At one point I pulled over in a swanky back street in Fulham to allow Mr Garmin to catch his breath. Expensive Victorian villas lined the street, with a traditional-looking Christmas tree in each bay window complimenting the lights strung down the street. The sodium street lights won through though and bathed everything in an orange glow. It was eerily quiet, the distant sounds of city nightlife mingling in the background. As I sat there, with the car ticking itself cool, a fox popped out from one of the front gardens and trotted nonchalantly along the pavement, completely oblivious to my presence. As he came past the car he stopped and looked - not in a startled way as you'd expect for urban wildlife, just an unassuming glance, almost looking the car over in much the same way most humans do when they see a Seven. The fox looked away briefly as a police car sirened past the end of the street, then looked back again, this time directly at me. It blinked wearily a couple of times before baring it's small but menacing canines in a wide yawn and then scampered away, again with no sign of feeling threatened.

In a strictly blokey kind of way, it was a bit of a touching moment and as the driver of a Seven I felt a certain affinity with the feral dog. We were both out in the middle of the night with just ourselves to consider and not wanting to intrude on anyone else, yet both no doubt frowned upon by local residents and Health & Safety consultants alike.

I pushed on through the City. It was really late by now so just South of Tower Bridge I lapped a roundabout, crossed back over the river then traced the Thames back as far as Westminster where I then cut up to the A4, and headed home.

As I lowered the garage door it was just getting light but it had been a great blat.

The following afternoon, after a suitably lengthy lie-in, I rolled the car out of the garage to clean off the condensed smog from the London blat. But the great weather persisted, so in a spontaneous moment of "Built to be driven, not to be washed" I chucked my favourite bucket back in the shed and strapped in again.

The roads were still bone dry, quite astounding really, and in contrast to the Cityblat the night before, I opted for some rural road time aiming for Petersfield and a frequent target from the summer - the Seven Stars.

During the run down there I noticed the instrument lighting had quit - all of it - though maybe this is no bad thing as the entire driving experience is less distracted although there is the constant fear of running out of petrol. Then again, as a Cross Flow driver one gets used to this even when the fuel gauge is visible.

The off-side sidelights had also failed, immediately suggesting a blown fuse. Bending ungraciously under the dash I gave the fuse holder a quick prod and coincidentally the dashboard lights flickered on. But typical for a Caterham, as soon as I took a step back they went out again.

It's like the damn car has some kind of comedy timing circuit somewhere.

Venturing inside the pub I ordered a Caesar salad, some real ale (ABV less than 5% for legal reasons) and some tin foil.

The beer was refreshing, the salad surprisingly filling and the tin foil very conductive, and ideal for wedging a loose fuse in it's holder.

A plot by Lucas to plunge the world in to eternal darkness.....foiled.

Slow season.

Things have slowed right down in the world of aluminium car ownership.
The cars themselves haven't slowed down, I mean come on, if the Land Rover slowed down any more it'd stop.
No, it's a weather thing. The Caterham has remained largely hibernated, whilst the characteristic ease with which Land Rovers shrug off bad weather has become so much the norm lately as to be routine. It's probably why I like it. No matter how heavy the rain, how blowey the leaves or deep the snow, there's always this underlying feeling of reassurance that the square corners and flat front of the Landy will fend off the worst that Nature has to offer without hardly noticing. The thick-set bulk of the Defender feels as right for bad weather as the stripped-out minimalism of the Caterham does for good weather. Or at least, I have a feint memory to this effect.
Two little jobs have got done. Both electrical funnily enough. More than coincidence, this is positively surprising, since fiddling with the electrical system of either car is something as near the top of my favourite things list as a Vauxhall Astra.
Where the Land Rover once had the means to heat one cigar lighter, it now has two. Easy enough wiring, but as with most things in the cabin of any Land Rover, the tricky bit was finding somewhere to mount the Siamese lighter socket. In the end, I completely removed the original single lighter socket and hard-wired the double one, originally designed to be a plug-in accessory, direct to the supply in the dash.
The result of this is a wider choice of gadgety nonsense powered by the car at any one time. Previously, the number of options was just three: iPod, SatNav or phone charger. With the cunning application of a little of the mathematics of choice, the options have risen to six, three of which are natty combinations. I suppose you could say I've doubled the car's capability, all be it in one very small area.
The Caterham has also had a capability expansion, again very easy to install - A high level brake light. This is a brake light set at a high level. Not a light to warn of stopping in the Alps.

Are we sitting comfortably?

Then we'll begin...

Earlier in the year I replaced the seats in the Caterham, with an immediate and noticeable improvement in comfort and ergonomics.

This got me thinking. And it's taken nearly six months for this to produce any results.

Land Rover seats are, like the car itself, basic and functional and most Land Rover drivers are on the whole, like the car itself, heavier than average, robust and built for the outdoors.

These two factors had combined in the Defender to see off the original seats. They were clean enough, but just a little tired and on the driver's side, the frame of the seat back was making a bid for freedom through the upholstery. The driving position in a Defender is an acquired taste too, as long as your taste is a lack of leg room and you have rounded shoulders. I suspect this may be one reason why Land Rovers are mostly bolted together - to facilitate dismantling the car from around the driver when he or she eventually seizes in the unorthodox stance.

Now, as with all things Land Rover, it is possible to spend thousands of pounds on seats and in doing so become an instant armchair expert but I simply can't see the point. Or to be more precise, I can't see the seat when I'm sitting in it so there is absolutely no point in spending megabucks.

And so to eBay. Land Rover parts sourced through the on-line version of Bargain Hunt is always a bit more of a gamble than auctions for other parts, since there will be everything from a set of "wikkid" chrome 52" wheels for a Range Rover Sport to a lump of congealed rust being heralded as a Series II restoration project.

Somewhere in the middle ground I found a pair of non-brand name slightly-used bucket seats. I should add I hate the term "bucket" when referring to seats as it conjurs up two images: An item placed next to a child's bed when they are feeling ill and are in fear of puking and, in a very similar vein, KFC family meals. I mean, who sells food in a bucket?

But anyway, by some remarkable feat of being on-line at the time the auction ended and thus able to stay one step ahead of a secretive rival, "Bidder 15". I bagged the seats for a little over sixty quid and a few days later journied down to Poole to collect them. Upon arrival at the postcode I'd been given, it appeared I'd stumbled on to the set of the next Mad Max film as a sea of broken Land Rovers rolled away to the horizon. Lightweights, Forward Controls, Range Rovers, Discoverys.....all models were represented in this rusty graveyard, some still driveable, others no more than a shell. In the midst of this, inside a large industrial warehouse-style unit, vehicles were slowly giving up their parts to donate to others still on the road, proof that old Land Rovers never die, they simply regenerate. They do fill the air with the smell of EP90 in the process though.

Like all good Land Rover facilities this one was managed by a chap wearing overalls that faded from bright blue at the shoulders to oily black at the ankles. The degree of blackness is usually indicative of time spent fiddling with Land Rovers, the blacker the overalls, the longer the term served. For added kudos, badges of long-since bankrupt British motorfactors can be added.

Now, buying from a photograph can be a little risky but on this occasion I wasn't disappointed. The seats are in fine fettle and relatively new, the only downside being they were liberally dressed with cat hair where the yard's rodent control manager had found a comfy bed. I can see where he was coming from though. The seats came with custom-made runners already attached so within an hour of getting them home they were fitted and straight away it was obvious why Tiddles had chosen them to bed down on. More legroom, better back support and raised sides mean I can now sit in the Land Rover, relax every muscle in my body yet stay upright and not fall out of the seat.

Using a fine wire brush I combed the feline calling card out of the fabric of the seat with ease (wasn't actually that bad), gave both a good Hoovering and stitched up a small split in the driver's back rest. Good as new and so much better.

There is only one small snag....

They're bright red. Mind you, red on silver has a classic Mercedes look about it and as I said at the outset, when I'm sat on the seats, they're hidden anyway.