HOLIDAY ROAD!

DAVE MORLEY GIVES YOU THE CAR ADVICE YOU NEED - AND MAYBE A BIT ABOUT LIFE AS WELL

- DAVE MORLEY

NOTHING LIKE A HOLIDAY ROAD TRIP IN SUMMER'S FURNACE TO SORT OUT WHOSE CLASSIC CAR IS UP TO THE HEAT

I caught up with a few mates just before Christmas. And, as you might imagine, the vast majority of them are car nuts of the highest order. The rest of them we allow to hang around because they buy the beer.

Anyway, we managed to find ourselves a nice house down the coast that had enough bedrooms, party decks and fridges to keep us all happy for the extended weekend, and then all agreed to meet up on the Friday afternoon.

Which we did, but what I wasn't expecting was that everybody would decide that a stinking hot day in December was a great time to dust off the old classic car and drive it through peak hour, Christmas traffic. By which, I mean I thought I was the only one stupid enough to do that. Turns out I was wrong. As you can see from the driveway shot next morning, at least three of us were daft enough to tackle this mission.

To be honest, Stu's Alfa 105 GTV was probably the most likely to make it without hassle, since the car has just been treated to a complete rebuild thanks to the work of a bunch of vandals who shall, when we catch them, be hung from their dangly bits until we're satisfied they won't do it again. May take some time.

The other thing in Stu's favour was that the GTV does not run to air-conditioning, so that free-spinning little 1750cc mill stayed happy and cool. My W124, on the other hand, does have the (recently regassed) A/C option but, in the manner of all things old and European, the air-con action is pretty lame in the first place, more or less doubles fuel consumption and will cause the temp needle to head north when sitting in traffic.

However, being the mechanical sympathist I am, I figured out that if I turned the air off in traffic and switched it back on once we were hauling down the freeway at 100 kliks, the car stayed happy. The Speaker, not so much.