Tag Archives: cars

Riding Shotgun

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Another re-cycled post to save ink, pixels and perspiration. I tried to reason with these ous, but would they lissen to me?

~~oo0oo~~

My lift from JHB dropped me off at home. The dorp was empty. The city of sin and laughter was somnolent. Soporific even. Where WAS everyone?

I phoned 2630 pring pring pring. Or was it 2603 priiiiing priiiing priiiing? I forget. Can you fetch me? No, get yourself here quick, we’re going to Warden to scare some guineafowls. Now.

What could I do? The imported white Ford Econoline 302 cu. inch V8 van was in the garage, I knew where the keys were, and the folks were away. And after all, I’d only be using it to get to Gilliann then hop into T’s bakkie and away we’d go. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, and I’d better borrow Dad’s cheap Russian 12-gauge shotgun, too. And take a few beers.

As I drew up next to the prefab on Gilliann a cry of Perfect! A real shooting brake! went up and six pre-lubricated gentlemen holding shotguns and beers piled in, calling Tommy the German Pointer in with them. No, guys, hang on, I said feebly . .

The day at Roest was a blur but the drive back came into sharp focus. We ‘had to’ pull in to the village pub. The dorpskroeg. I, of course, had suggested we go straight home, but that went down like a lead balloon. A vote wasn’t taken and I lost, blithely ignored. Overruled. In the pub the barman took one look at us and refused to serve us. Someone who shall remain nameless but whose surname maybe started with a Gee and ended with a Zee, fetched his shotgun and casually aimed it at the expensive bottles of hooch above the barman’s head whereupon said barman suddenly remembered our order and delivered seven beers pronto. When we decided we’d like to play snooker, same thing: It was a No until a The Simpsons-like character aimed a shotgun at the white ball and the cues were produced with alacrity. And chalk.

When to my huge relief, we finally got going, the G-man, who was riding shotgun on my right (the van was Left-Hand-Drive), sat on the windowsill and three of Warden’s four streetlamps went ‘pop’. There he is, in the window, next to the weapon in question. Tommy’s wondering What.The.Hell!? The guinea is mortally wounded, deceased and bleeding on the van carpet.

– riding shotgun –

Now I KNEW I was going to jail forever. Putting my head down and roaring for home I wasn’t stopping again for NOBODY. Except the gentle tickle of a shotgun against my ear persuaded me otherwise and I stopped as instructed with my headlights shining on Eeram. A firing squad lined up, three kneeling in front and four standing behind them. This is for Ram, guys, he’s getting married in Bergville next weekend! BLAM!! The ‘Ee’ disappeared, and there was just ‘ram’. In honour of Ram’s wedding. Nor do I believe it. Maybe it was a dream?

I finally got rid of the miscreants, got home and looked at the van. Holy cow! Dog hair, guineafowl feathers and the mud and the blood and the beer all over the carpets and upholstery of Dad’s white Ford Econoline V8 camper van! 302 cu. inches. I set to work cleaning it. And cleaning it. And scrubbing it. Still it stank of that mixture. In desperation, I took a jerrycan and spread petrol liberally on the carpet and scrubbed again.

When the folks got home I made a full – OK, partial – confession: Dad, I spilled some petrol in your van, but I’ve cleaned it all up. Sorry about that!

~~~oo0oo~~~

  • the mud and the blood and the beer – Johnny Cash –

~~~oo0oo~~~

Old Harrismith Cars

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A post for you, if you’re A. Ancient; B. A Harrismith, Vrystaat okie; and C. A nerd or a petrolhead.

Who drove What cars When, back in the day. And: WHAT COLOUR were they? Also, for extra points, can you recall their number plates?

Old bullets – and those of us who spoke to dear-departed old bullets – remember that Harrismith was OI before it was OHS – Oh, Aye! It was indeed. Here’s a picnic on the slopes of the mountain back in those days.

– 1939 2-door Chev like this one, I wonder? –

Vic Crawley bought Sep de Beer’s 2-door Chev 1939 number plate OI 1

Abe Sparks, the Mayor of Swinburne – silver? Rolls Royce pickup conversion (Abe with stetson hat, cowboy boots and string tie with a semi-precious stone clasp; Lulu looking swish next to him)

Beno Sammel – big Packard, according to Dad

– Dr Leo Hoenigsberger

Dr Leo Hoenigsberger drove ‘a big old German Sperber’ according to his grandson Leo Caskie Wade. Sperber means sparrowhawk

Pikkie Loots’ grandad’s ‘lovely old blue Desoto Suburban – probably late 1940s model – OHS 555 ‘State Express’ (remember the State Express 555 cigarettes – they came in a tin?).

Pikkie also added: What about the Herringtons, Charlie and George? They had a few cars between them. At least one Karmann Ghia if I remember. At van Niekerk (Dries’ brother) – a Porsche. Ronnie (Hector) Pienaar’s Alpha Romeo. Abel Caixinha’s uncle’s beige station wagon. Hoender’s (Gerrit – Ritger? – Kock) Volvo B16?

Annie Bland – beige Chevrolet Fleetline 1948 OHS 974

– I put a milk can in the back so it would like the Simpsons –

Joan & Vera Simpson – grey Morris Minor pickup, milk cans on the back

Martha McDonald & Carrie Friday – British racing green 1938 Buick Roadster coupe. See the feature pic above of their actual car, lovingly restored by Ty Terreblanche in PMB.

Charlie Crawley & Michael Hasting’s ‘s flatbed truck – dark green, wooden bed Chev (1934 – 35 according to Dad);

JN ‘Koos’ de Witt – big black (de Soto?)

Alet de Witt – VW Karmann Ghia

Biscayne

Max Ntshingila (Max Express bus fleet owner) . He drove a sleek yank tank and I thought I’d never get to know what it was. Then I met his son Thembinkosi, and he told me: A gold Chev Biscayne

– Parisienne – the Canadian Pontiac –

Hec & Stel Fyvie – a white Pontiac Parisienne and a lang slap off-white Merc 220S that Tabs drove; Tabs’ red Datsun 1600 (was it a SSS?) with the round rear lights that the girls at NTC in PMB called a Ferrari; Then Tabs had a green Datsun 1800 SSS which Geoff Leslie called his ‘Triple Ess Ess Ess’

Patrick Shannon – Chevrolet El Camino pickup (I saw him using it as a pick-up, too!)

Other farmers’ cars: I remember Bertie van Niekerk getting out of a huge car wearing a huge hat, but details are missing. Someone will know; I also have a mental picture of him wearing a huge hat and coattails sitting astride a horse and looking down at the admiring throng . . by die skou, I suppose. I remember Chev Kommandos, one driven by an Odendaal, one by Hertzog van Wyk

Ronnie van Tubergh – Ford Ranchero pickup

Piet Steyn – grey Borgward

Chev sedan – Fleetmaster? 1948?

Gretel Reitz – black VW Karmann Ghia; Dr Frank Reitz – big old black Chev OHS 71, seen here parked in the shade of the big old trees on the banks of the Tugela river on The Bend.

Dad Swanepoel – beige Morris Isis OHS 154 – dark blue VW Kombi OHS 153 – light blue Holden station wagon – white Holden station wagon – white V8 Ford Econoline, all OHS 154

Mary Swanepoel – green & black Ford Prefect – light blue VW 1200 Beetle OHS 155

Jannie Jan Bal du Plessis – green Datsun 300C

Jes Hansen – Harrismith’s first Hino pickup; small and grey, I seem to remember;

Charles Ryder – lime green Volvo 122S – whattacar!

Teachers’ cars: Bruce Humphries – new white Ford Cortina; Heilige Giel du Toit – old black Mercedes 190; Ben Marais – blue VW beetle; Ou Rot Malherbe – little green Fiat 500; Ou Eier Meyer – something with wings – a Zephyr? Daan Smuts – white VW beetle;

Cappie Joubert – green Ford Zephyr 6 with wings; gold ‘stompgat’ Zephyr 6

Our Automotive Designer

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Harrismith had a very successful sportscar designer! Sheila reminded me on her facebook. He was a big mate of Polly du Plessis. They called each other Sissel Pud (du Plessis backwards) and Tweedie (de Witt backwards). Verster was captain of the rugby team and Mary Bland’s boyfriend. He dopped a few years and was in JC when she wrote matric. A real gentleman, says Mary. When she left to go nursing he said, ‘My fear is that we don’t meet again – worse, that we’re living in the same city and we don’t even know it.’ Sensitive soul.

Here’s the story of Verster de Witt – or the parts I could fish out:

Two Stellenbosch university pals wanted to make a great sportscar. They were Bob van Niekerk and Willie Meissner. In 1958 Meissner went to England and saw a new technology called fibreglass. He wrote a letter to Bob van Niekerk asking him to come to England to study fibreglass crafting. Bob hopped onto a Union Castle ship and joined his mate. In those days that was called ‘instant response’: The letter took a week; the response took a week; the ship took a month; Bang! Two months later there his mate was, ready to help.

Bob recalls: ‘We had full confidence in our ability to produce the mechanicals and a good chassis, but needed someone to put a ‘face’ on it – a good looking design. As luck would have it, Willie knew a lady Joan, nee Peters, who was married to a stylist working at Rootes who would hopefully stop us from producing a mediocre, unattractive body.’

Mary & Polly in Harrismith schooldays

His name was Verster de Wit, an ex-Harrismith boykie and good friend of our Polly du Plessis and Mary Bland-Swanepoel. He very soon had them building quarter-scale models with plasticene during the week in their one-roomed flat in Earls Court while he was off working in Coventry on the Sunbeam Alpine. Fridays, Verster would come down to London to inspect the work they had done. When they got to scale model number 13, it suddenly all came together, and ‘a unanimous decision was made to progress to full-scale.’

– Bob van Niekerk racing a Dart –
– a 1962 GSM Dart –

‘We rented a garage in Gleneldin Mews in Streatham and built the mock-up using wooden formers and plaster of paris. The first body came out of the mold in April 1957 and was sold for 75 pounds, which helped to pay for my trip back to Cape Town where Willie had started the Glassport Motor Company (GSM).’

They considered what to name their cars: Cheetah, Mamba, Simba, Zebra, Kudu, Lynx or Tyger? Eventually they called the open top the GSM Dart and the hardtop the GSM Flamingo. On returning to South Africa, they built four prototypes in 1957, and the first production car rolled off the line in early 1958. In total, 116 GSM Darts and 128 GSM Flamingos were produced from 1958 to 1964. Actually, the GSM club tracked down many of them and reckoned there were a few more than that.

The GSM cars were astonishingly quick and agile and won a lot of races. In their first nine hour in JHB, a Dart beat Sarel vd Merwe in his Porsche into second place; they were followed by an MG, another Porsche, a Volvo and an Alfa Romeo!

But perhaps the best story was after they had sold 41 cars by 1959, for racing and road use in Cape Town, they decided they could also be sold in England and Bob set sail with a complete body and chassis kit on the Union Castle liner. In England Bob was introduced to Mr John P Scott at Windsor Garage, West Malling in Kent. Scott agreed to give him a place to build a car and fund all the parts on condition that Bob built the car in 10 days! AND that he entered it in a race at Brands Hatch! AND that he won the race! What a tall – almost impossible – order!

Bob accepted the challenge and worked day and night to complete the Dart by the Friday before the race. On the Saturday, April 18, 1960 Bob found himself in the middle of the grid on an unfamiliar circuit in a brand new and untested car. He steadily worked his way up into first place and won the race! He actually did it! Setting a Brands Hatch lap record that stood for seven years! A delighted Mr Scott then established a GSM production facility in a 5000 square foot factory behind the Windsor Garage to produce the first batch of cars. They couldn’t call them Dart in England, so they used ‘Delta’. Records are vague – it seems somewhere between 35 and 76 GSM Deltas were made in Kent.

The little cars developed a legendary winning reputation in the UK, Europe and SA. To show they weren’t only about racing, the Flamingo was marketed as the road-going version:

In 1964 they ran out of money.

~~~~~ooo000ooo~~~~~

Aftermath with Verster de Wit: 1976

A GSM club was formed in JHB and they tracked down Verster at his home in Kosmos on the Hartebeespoort Dam. He and his new wife Eva hauled out a suitcase full of his photos and sketches of his design days in England and in SA. They regaled the club members with tales of the hours of dedication and hard work Verster had put into his automotive design career. Another well-known design he had also been involved with – in addition to the Sunbeam Alpine – was the Humber Super Snipe.

In the 1980s the design got another lease of life when Jeff Levy got Verster to help him make a series of accurate replicas known as Levy Darts.

~~~~oo0oo~~~~

Anyone who knows more, I’d love to hear from you

~~~oo0oo~~~

archive.org

wikipedia

wheels24

motorsportmagazine.com

carmag.co.za

cartorque.co.za

~~~~oo0oo~~~~

Koos Kombi

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Today Mother Mary took a break from playing the piano. She suddenly remembered a time Mona du Plessis came to her after a ‘do’ at the town hall. These memories come and go so she must tell them as she thinks of them.

Mona said to me – says Mary – “While we were at the town hall Kosie took the kombi, loaded up the de Villiers kids and drove to Joan and Jannie’s where our kids were. Then they all got in – Mignon, Jean-Prieur, Sheila, everybody and they drove up and down Hector Street!”

Of course I remember doing stuff like this – I loved “borrowing” the kombi – but I don’t really recall any specific accomplices! I spose it looked a bit like this:

Koos Kombi full_2

Doories Daze

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On 2018/12/18 Stephen Reed wrote: Had a late afternoon chat with Kevin ‘Stanrey Kraarke’ this afternoon . .

( that would be a phone call across the Tasman Sea )

I replied: Ah, good to hear the ancient old bullet is still alive!!

Hoezit Kev!!? ( I have cc’d him here – Kevin Stanley-Clarke, pharmacist and our older boet in res, back in the day).

I can’t think of Doories without thinking of you, the green TAV 5556 Datsun from the metropolis of Grootfontein, the chocolate Alfa Romeo; and old Krazalski, Wartski, What-ski? – those are wrong – what ‘ski was he, your boss?

– Doories student cars – and Ponte; Check out our salubrious quarters –

I can still see the meticulous care with which you changed the crunchy, notchety gears in the Alfa, and remember how you taught me if you open the window you must also wind down the rear window three inches, then the breeze won’t muss your blow-dried hair.

Often when driving I remember your sage advice: WATCH OUT for old toppies wearing hats! Mostly nowadays I see the old toppie wearing a hat in my own rear-view mirror! Gives me a bit of a start every time: Who’s that fuckin old fart? Oh, OK – only me . . . . As for Forever Young! I think we still are! Well, I think we should keep imagining that!

Oh, and we musn’t forget the outbreak of Dobie’s Itch in the Doories Res! Kev rushed back to work and got going amongst the pots and stills and fires and wooden ladles, pestles and mortars and other witchcraft paraphenalia he and Wartski used to keep in their secret Doories factory; he came back with a double-strength potion stronger than anything Dumbledore could have made, and CURED the dreaded ballache! He was our hero!

Stephen Reed wrote: By gosh, we had a few laughs.

Another one: Sunday morning, Kevin having a sleep in – eyes closed …

Are you sleeping Kevin?

Kevin: one eye slightly opens, ‘No No … Just coasting . . ‘

I wrote: Ha HA!! I’d forgotten these! Exactly right!!!

PS: We were so lucky Stanley-Clarke decided to stay in Res that extra year while he re-wrote ?pharmacology? I mean, he could have stayed with any one of a dozen beautiful chicks. They all wanted his moustache! And we would never have met him. It turned into a magic, unforgettable year, and he was no small part of that!

Stephen Reed wrote: Bullshit.

HE was lucky to have had US there.

Bloody boring time he would have had otherwise . . .

I wrote: Ja!! Too True My Bru!

And now here’s the man himself:

Kevin Stanley-Clarke wrote: Kia Ora both of you; What a wonderful surprise hearing from the DOORIE BRO’s in particular the very Articulate Rhodes student Mr Koos Swanepoel himself, from Harrismith; and the attention-to-detail Mr Stevie Reed the boat builder raconteur himself from a little town in the free state that eludes me at this time!

This really made my day – thank you both for all the very happy memories and to think I could have missed that wonderful year if I had passed Pharmacology first go – and to think it was 45 years ago which has basically passed in a flash.

My boss in the very clandestine factory in Doories was Mr Pogeralski – so Pete, the grey matter is still intact;

As for that ointment which I prepared it was Whitefields ointment aka “Ung acid benz co.” Had I given that to you today I would be in serious trouble with “Health and safety”, “Quality and risk”, “Public safety”, you name it! But it certainly works.

Yes, and how can we forget the times we all went to the Jeppe Street post office to use their services “pro bono” utilizing your unbelievable skills with ‘the long tickey” to gain access to their phone lines – Hello World.

Also will never forget the rugby test at Ellis Park “pro bono” an absolute blast – thank you both for the wonderful memories that always bring a smile to my face. Which was it? –

British & Irish Lions27 July 1974Ellis Park, Johannesburg13–13Draw
All Blacks18 September 1976 Ellis Park, Johannesburg15 – 14 South Africa

And Stevie, can you remember the movie we went to on a Saturday morning at the Cinerama we saw “Papillon” ??

I could go on forever – The Dev ? The Bend ? and many more. May leave that for another day.

Take care both of you and please keep in touch

Kakite Ano

Dee Student aka ‘Giscard . . . d’Estaing’ – Kevin Stanley-Clarke

~~~oo0oo~~~

Notes:

Ellis Park “pro bono” – Less than fully legal entry to the rugby stadium for a test match; ahem . .

The Jeppe Street post office and the Hillbrow “pro bono long tickey” – Less than entirely legal as well, say no more . . . ahem . . There were consequences! I got a phone call in the holidays in Harrismith from the GPO: Are Your Name Swanepoel? Did you phone a number in Oklahoma? I meekly coughed up for sundry long-distance international ‘trunk calls’!

Aside: While shaking a tin collecting money for our eye clinic charities outside the big old Jeppe Street Post Office one year, a pigeon shat on my shoulder. I took that as an omen from above and went and handed in my tin.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Martha and My Man Friday

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This beautiful 1938 Buick Coupe was a regular sight on the streets of Harrismith back in the Sixties.

Martha McDonald and her friend Carrie Friday used to cruise the streets going nowhere. Mom Mary called them Martha and My Man Friday after Robinson Crusoe. She says Roy Cartwright coined the nickname. Roy ran the Tattersalls horse racing gambling joint in town and was full of wit.

Years later Sheila found out that Pietermaritzburg car enthusiast and restorer Ty Terblanche had found it, bought it and restored it to its former glory. Well done Ty! What a beaut!

1938 Buick coupe2
– here’s the actual Buick we frew wif a stone decades ago! Martha and My Man Friday cruised around the metropolis of Harrismith ca. 1960’s –

With childish logic and mischief we’d occasionally throw it wif a stone (as we’d mockingly say). Always missed, mind you.

The redoubtable Martha McDonald, asked one day if she had any children replied in the negative, adding loftily “My husband is too much of a gentleman.”

~~~oo0oo~~~

Here’s a better angle to showcase those beautiful lines:

Buick 1938

From the front it’s much like other cars of its era, but from the side and half-back you can see why it gets so many oohs and aahs!

Buick sports coupe 66s 1938
1938 Buick Century Sports Coupe 66s interior (I’ve made them look RHD)

edit March 2019: I read in ‘Blafboom’, Leon Strachan’s first book about Harrismith, that Martha had actually bought this gorgeous 1938 Buick Century Sports Coupe 66S from Nic Wessels; and that she lived in Murray Street.

for images, my thanks to conceptcarz.com and powerful-cars.com

~~~oo0oo~~~

Later, Carrie Friday became an organ donor:

– the Methodists get a new organ for Mary Methodist to thump out her hymns on –

This year when Mom Mary put on a pirates eye patch to play the piano as she sometimes gets double vision ‘and I can’t play if there are two keyboards,’ I reminded her ‘But you used to play a double keyboard, Mom!’ She couldn’t remember that, so I must show her this picture of the My Man Friday organ.

– Sheila video’d Mom wearing a pirate patch –

~~~oo0oo~~~

The Marvelous Brauer/Stromberg

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Very few people realise just how good the Stromberg is. One of those very few is Brauer. He knows, as he invested a large portion of his student fortune in one at The Rand Easter Show one year (or was it the Pretoria Skou?).

We watched a demonstration in fascination. I mean EVERY time the good honest salesman hooked in the Stromberg the engine ran sweetly and WHENEVER he unhooked the Stromberg it spluttered and farted. Brauer was SOLD. He just KNEW this was the answer to his faded-blue Cortina with faded-black linoleum roof’s problems. Instead of taking it for a long overdue service and changing the oil, water, filter and spark plugs, he would sommer just fit a Stromberg. What could possibly go wrong go wrong, and who could doubt this:

Stromberg

~~~oo0oo~~~

Here’s an email thread that sparked the discussion of the amazing Stromberg phenomenon:

2015/08/30 Steve Reed wrote: Re: Fat takkies

Further proof that nothing stays the same. From our youthful past, it was always a “given” that the back takkies would be fatter than the front …Specially if you have the windgat  version. Now the Audi RS3 has em 2cm fatter  in the front than the back if you have the windgat version.

Really…I am getting too old for all this.  Do they have to mess with everything?

Me: Yep. Because they can . . .

I remember the mindset change I had to undergo when diesels started getting status. Ditto when auto boxes started making more sense than manual? Had to quietly swallow a few ‘definite’ and ‘absolute’ statements made in ignorance!

One of my fascinations has been looking up when the first ____ (whatever) was ever fitted or used in a car.

First electric car – 1881 in France

First patent for seat belts – 1885. But still not compulsory when we grew up and STILL not compulsory throughout the USA today. Politicians in many states wouldn’t dare vote for such a law!

First petrol-electric hybrid – 1899 Lohner-Porsche Mixte

First modern hybrid car – 1904 Auto-Mixte (Belgium)

First four-wheel drive car – 1910 Caldwell Vale

First 8-speed manual – 1931 Maybach DS8

First diesel engined production car — 1935 Citroen Rosalie

First automatic transmission – 1939 Oldsmobile Hydra-Matic, also the first 4-speed automatic.

First trip computer – 1958 Saab GT750

and so on – almost always WAY before I would have guessed !

Brauer: A glaring omission has been noted from your ”when was it first fitted” list:

THE FAMOUS STROMBERG

Do you recall how I had Alan Saks (the great car fundi) going  on this one . . ?

Me: I do. Didn’t we see it some show or other? A great demonstration. If it had been a religion I’d have converted. I would be a Strombergie now.

Who would think Pretoria would have a skou!? What is there to show?

So Alan was not an all-knowing deskundige after all?! Even HE could learn a thing or two?

Brauer: The one and only Pretoria Skou. ca 1976. Alan had driven my Cortina a few days prior and was subjected to the stop/start lurching. He had many remedies and suggestions. I obviously thanked him for his advice, BUT ALSO ENLIGHTENED HIM re: THE NEWLY PURCHASED SOLVER-OF-ALL-CAR-PROBLEMS . . . THE STROMBERG. Remembering the  “God-ordained” visit to the Skou and that Stromberg stand where we witnessed the justifiably impressive presentation of a product that should have outstripped Microsoft in sales.

To which he chuckled and shook his head in disbelief. I hauled it off the floor behind the driver’s seat to show him. I remember a few choice expletives . . “complete f…ing piece of sh-t” etc etc.

So that weekend I started installing said Stromberg, which involved a rare opening of the bonnet (a procedure I normally advise against to any motoring enthusiast). For starters (no pun intended), after glancing at the oil coated sparks, I thought that while the bonnet was open I might just clean the sparks and set the gaps. Before removing the Stromberg off it’s familiar position of lying on the floor behind the driver’s seat I thought I’d take the Cortina for a spin to see if it still could go after my risky DIY service.

Shit a brick . . it flew! (“why the hell didn’t I do that long ago!?” rolling through my thoughts as the apparently turbocharged Cortina used our sedate suburban streets as its new-found race track).

After getting back home I parked the car and almost forget what I’d started . . THE STROMBERG.

I quickly installed it on-line on the main spark lead and couldn’t wait for Alan’s visit that arvie. Chucked him my keys and said he should take the Cortina for a spin to see if he could tell if the Stromberg had made any diffs . . . The rest is folklore history . . he was stunned into silence, well for at least 3 minutes – but a Saks record nevertheless.

Steve Reed chipped in: You will laugh out the udder side of your face when you read these glowing endorsements. I think I am going to buy one online right now.

stromberg

Me: Brauer, you forgot to put in the most important feature of the Cortina: The colour. What colour was it?

(I read about a popular radio talk show in the States: Two brothers had a “Car Experts” show. People would phone in and ask about the problems they were having with their cars. Long technical details of what the clutch and carburetor and shit were doing and where the smoke was coming out of etc etc – and the one brother would ask “Tell me: This Corvette of yours: What color is it?”).

.

It was light blue.

– the Cortina after the stromberg was fitted –
– before stromberg –

~~~oo0oo~~~

Power Brakes and Brauer Breaks

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While staying at 4 Hillside Road Parktown we prepared for the holidays. I was taking the delightful Cheryl Forsdick down to Port Shepstone in Natal where she was meeting her folks, the redoubtable Ginger, fierce platinum-haired mine manager of renown, and Mrs F.

It was the grey and grey Opel Concorde OHS 5678’s longest trip and at the last minute I started to worry about the brakes. They weren’t the best. So I toddled off to the spare parts place and bought what they said would fix them.

21st birthday present!! An Opel Concorde DeLuxe 1700 in sophisticated tones of grey and grey. Note my reflection in the gleaming bonnet!

The day before we were to leave I stripped the drums and put in the new shoes. Does that sound right? It was a fiddly job and took ages to get right, the springs kept springing. Testing them entailed many trips up and down Hillside Road under the closed arch of the big old London Plane trees. Luckily it’s a cul-de-sac. Jamming on brakes I would go screeching into the left gutter, then I’d go home and adjust the whatevers and then go slewing into the right gutter. Then beertime came and it had to be good enough.

– watch out! he’s on the move! –

A raucous year-end party ensued and unfortunately Brauer had invited himself. So even more beer than normal was swallowed and cleverer and cleverer.

In the wee hours he spotted the grey and grey Opel Concorde sitting sleekly in the driveway, poised for its long journey to that last outpost of the British Empire. His drink-addled brain (brain?) had recently been thinking (thinking?) about the Mercedes “pagoda roof” sports car classic and he decided my car needed a conversion, so he danced on the roof in his old blue suede shoes (think I’m kidding? I’ll show you a photo). And the more us sensible people told him to stop the more he danced. You know how he is.

He thought he was doing this – and in fact had the cheek to suggest I should pay him for enhancing the Opel:

But in fact he did this (actual footage):

I had to lie on my back on the seat and push up the roof with my feet the next morning so we could sit in the thing for our southward safari. I was careful to use the brakes as little as possible all the way through the Vrystaat vlaktes, down van Reenen’s Pass and on to the sparkling Indian Ocean where the sharks (but not yet the Sharks) were awaiting their annual dose of Vaalie flesh.

~~~oo0oo~~~

– rooftop dancers –

~~~oo0oo~~~

Casa Blanca Roadhouse, Joburg

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As students 1974-1977 we would frequent the Casa Blanca roadhouse at the foot of Nugget Hill below Hillbrow when the pocket money arrived from home. Squeezed into Joz Simpson’s lime-green VW Beetle or Steve Reed’s beige Apache or Bobby Friderich’s white Mini Cooper S or Glen Barker’s green Toyota, we’d ask the old Elvis-looking guy with a cap, flip-up sunglasses and whispy whiskers for a burger n chips plus a coke; Or a cheeseburger chips n coke 70c, or – as Steve reminded me – “if we were flush, the Dagwood with everything including the runny fried egg. Sheer luxury. Messy, but worth it!”

I don’t have a pic, but here’s the Doll House in Highlands North so long. We called it the Doll’s House. Were we wrong?

Every so often you’d be asked “Move forward” and you’d inch forward to make room for new arrivals behind you, till you reached the “finishing line” where you handed back the tray Elvis had clipped to your half-rolled-up window and drove off under the big sign on the wall: QUIET. HOSPITAL.

Deja Vu

Many years later (OK, twenty six years later!) work took me back to Jozi and I had time to kill in my hired car so I drove around Doories and Yeoville and Hillbrow. Lunchtime I pulled in to the Casa Blanca and I SWEAR there was the exact same oke who had served us twenty six years earlier, with his SAME cap, his SAME flip-up shades and his SAME whispy whiskers! Astonishing!

I told him cheeseburger chips n coke and how long have you been here?

“Thirty six years,” he said “but I’m just filling in now.”

Charged me 70c. Plus twenty six years-worth of inflation.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Borrowing Dad’s Car Started Long Ago

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1024px-Peter_Paul_Rubens_-_The_Fall_of_Phaeton_(National_Gallery_of_Art)

Helios gave his son Phaeton permission to drive the Sun chariot around the Earth. Helios was the Sun God, and a son of almighty Zeus.

Talk about “Don’t Spare the Horses”! Typical youth, the lad Phaeton took some sporting chicks along for the ride, lost control of those horses and the chariot ran amok. The world was at risk of being incinerated!

Grandfather Zeus was thus forced to kill him. Zap! He killed his grandson! Zeus could gooi a mean lightning bolt if you pissed him off.

I’m sure glad the punishment became a bit milder in our day, a few millennia later.

Come to think of it, we never did get punished. Never got caught, actually, though I can’t imagine our folks didn’t have a shrewd idea of what was happening – at least an inkling. See, we used to say we didn’t steal our parents’ cars. We ‘borrowed them on the non-permission system,’ we’d say. In the early days of illicit driving I used to drive the old blue VW Kombi OHS 153 around our large garden at 95 Stuart Street.

Round the circular driveway, out into Hector Street and back in again. Back near the garages was the washing line and the kombi just fit under it. Except I’d forgotten about the flip-up airvent on the roof. It caught the wires and pulled down the washing line poles. Some feverish spadework got them more or less vertical again and the old blue kombi was parked back in its exact spot outside the garage.

Another time I reversed into the tap at the horse trough, the pipe broke and water sprayed out in a long arc. It was evening and the folks were out. Parking the kombi I hastened to the tap and straightened the downpipe, getting drenched in the freezing water – it was mid-winter. That caused less water to gush but there was still a very visible spout. Rushing down to the front gate I found the stopcock that turned off the main water supply. That fixed it and I went to bed before the folks got home. The next morning I rose very early and turned the stopcock back on. “Hmm, the pipe must have frozen and burst last night” was the consensus at breakfast.

My butt was saved by Harrismith’s frigid winter weather!

~~~oo0oo~~~

*Some apparently did, though, as my friend Fanie Schoeman hastened to inform me here.

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Later we were showed how to do car borrowing PROPERLY by Steph de Witt!

More than once. And again. And again.

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‘Son borrows Dad’s car’ predictably caused South Africa’s first serious automobile accident – 1903:

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On 1st October 1903, Mr Charles Garlick driving his father’s new 24hp Darracq with his friend Harry Markham and chaffeur Snellgrove as passengers, entered the Maitland level crossing from an open gate, only to find the opposite gate closed. Before they could open the gate or reverse out of the crossing, they were hit by the Johannesburg Express traveling at full speed.

Snellgrove was thrown clear, Garlick suffered minor injuries and Markham, with his arm already in splints from a previous engine-cranking mishap, had a badly broken thigh.

It was announced that the Garlick workshop would undertake repairs to the Darracq. A new chassis was obtained from Paris and the final result testified to the efficiency of Cape Town’s first motor repairers.

  • From ‘Early Motoring in South Africa’ by R.H. Johnston

~~~oo0oo~~~