I've finally done it! I've completed all the DVLA paperwork, the Customs paperwork and the insurance documentation and the Fiat is on its way to receiving UK plates.
This process is in fact simpler than you might imagine for a classic car. It does still require some research however. Fortunately for you, if you live in the UK and you are bringing a classic car in from within the EU, I've done the research for you.
Purchasing Your Car
All the usual business applies here when selecting your vehicle. Once you have decided this is the car for you and set about purchasing it, make sure you end up with the legal equivalent of the V5 log book for the country you're in. This is both proof of ownership and proof of age, which is very important later on.
In many EU countries the legal transfer of ownership must be carried out by a special type of solicitor (not like the UK, where a green slip and a handshake is enough!) Don't forget to check what the local laws are regarding transfer of property, and if you find you do have to hire such a parasite (I mean, individual), factor this in when setting your budget. It will cost a few hundred pounds.
Getting Your Car Home
So, vehicle paid for (corresponding backs scratched) and legal paperwork in hand, it's time to head for England! Your best bet is usually by ferry, so most people head for the nearest UK-serving ferry port. Note, if you have bought a particularly slow vehicle (such as a Fiat 500) I strongly recommend staying off European motorways, unless of course you are seeking the ultimate cure for constipation.
Fresh off the boat in your chosen UK ferry port, proudly sporting your newly purchased classic car, you can pretty much expect to drive through Customs and off home without any issues - they're not in the business of bothering people driving old cars with foreign plates. Unless afforementioned cars are stuffed with canabis.
Getting An MOT
That's the next job. An MOT should be sought immediately and can be done on the chassis number. Also while odometers reading in kilometres are technically illegal in the UK, this is not part of the MOT test, so the car will pass without modification. Do, however, strategically position little triangular bits of black tape on the headlamp glass to correct the angle of the beam for British roads, or it will fail.
Headlamps will be set up for the "wrong" side of the road. Of course, the reality is most classic car headlamps in original condition are about a dazzling as bicycle lights so, post-MOT, ghastly tape can be removed without unduly upsetting your fellow motorists. However it is preferable to set the lamps up correctly for driving on the left.
Getting Insured
Once again, UK insurance can be obtained using the chassis number. Here it is a case of "buyer beware". BIBA themselves (shame on them!) put me through to a bunch of crooks who were going to charge me £200 for one month of insurance by chassis number, on the basis it was "specialist" insurance. This is nonsense. I contacted my usual classic insurer of choice, Footman James, who immediately covered the car on its chassis number for the same fee as I would've been charged to cover it with a UK plate.
Paying Your Taxes
Or indeed, not. There is nothing to pay on a second-hand classic car, as VAT is considered to have been paid in the EU member state when the vehicle was new. And there's no import duty because you're within the EU. All you need to do is obtain and fill in all the details you can on a VAT-414 form from Her Majesty's Revenues & Customs. This is available online. It will ask you for a UK license plate, but leave this blank and send the VAT-414 with your DVLA application (covered next) and the DVLA will fill it in and forward it to Customs.
Getting UK Plates
The final step! Now you have all the information to hand the DVLA will require before they will issue a UK license plate. You need to fill in the DVLA V55/5 form (this is only available by calling or writing to the DVLA - you cannot get it through the Post Office or download it). You should receive an information booklet with this form, telling you how to fill it in, but even with that much of the information requested is not relevant to a classic car. I called the DVLA to ask their advice and they took me through it step by step. I advise you to do the same if you're not sure.
Don't forget, if the vehicle was first registered prior to November 1973 in another country you should not be due to pay any road tax. In this case the "license fee" (as I think they call it) should be £0.00.
Once this form is completed, you will need to include a cheque for the admin fee (currently £38), proof of identity (e.g. passport), proof of address (e.g. bank statement), original vehicle documentation from the EU country in which the car was purchased, car MOT, valid UK insurance certificate and your completed Customs VAT-414 form. Pop this lot in the post to your local DVLA office (in my case Chelmsford, but the DVLA can advise you) and wait.
Note this is where the proof of age mentioned at the start is very important and must be included with the V55/5. If the DVLA cannot ascertain the age of the vehicle they'll issue a Q plate, and no one wants a Q plate on a classic 1960s automobile!
De-registering The Vehicle
When I said you were done, I lied. You're finished with the paperwork for the UK, however, you must also inform the authorities in the relevant member state the vehicle no longer resides there (the equivalent to a SORN declaration in the UK). This obviously varies from country to country and you'll have to find out about this yourselves, but I imagine the consulate for whichever country is concerned will be more than happy to assist you.
And that's your lot. In due course you should receive a V5 logbook for your car, with which you can go and commission your UK license plates. We're still looking forward to this happy day, as we only sent the forms off a week ago, but we qualify for black and white plates (the same rules apply as for road tax) which will look really nice on our cream Fiat 500. Can't wait!
Monday, December 19, 2005
Monday, December 05, 2005
Road Tax
Today is a good day to rant. It's Monday morning, I have a hospital visit this afternoon (just routine, folks) and I want to be at home in bed!So, road tax. This isn't a new issue any more, but I got to thinking about it yesterday, and it really, really annoys me. Ever since the UK government began taxing motorists for the use of the nation's tarmac (as if they don't take enough tax from the cost of petrol), they have incremented the exemption year for tax so that cars over 30 years of age are tax exempt.
Why? Because these vehicles are clearly labours of love. They wouldn't be on the road at all if people weren't looking after them, they do very few miles and it's like a reward scheme for people keeping little bits of motoring heritage alive.
These museum pieces would all be on the scrap heap if it wasn't for the dedication of their owners and no one would ever see Lotus Elans, MGB GTs, Jaguar S-types, etc. - even more lowly specimens such as Mk 1 Ford Escorts or indeed, our own little Fiat 500, would be forgotten and resigned to black and white photo albums by now.
So it's a nice gesture to give people who poor their hearts, souls and wallets in to the maintenance of these days gone by of motoring a bit of a break. Great idea, no? Well the buggers stopped all that in 2004.
My 1974 Lotus Elan, a beautiful car, every bit a classic and in spite of being over 30 years old now, will never be tax exempt if the current government has anything to do with it. My father's early Jaguar XJ-S convertible, in spite of still having about 15 years to go, will thoroughly deserve classic status when it gets there. There weren't very many made. However under present legislation he can forget about it.
The government is just not interested any more. Worse than that, they seem to be discouraging any future classic car ownership. I'm sure they have got more important things to worry about, but why oh why did they change the rules when everything was going along just swimmingly?
There's also a more serious implication for post-'74 classics. It has to affect the value of vehicles built after the tax "watershed" - especially vehicles which span both sides of the cut off date. The ones registered prior to '74 must be more sought after than post-'74 vehicles, precisely because they are tax exempt.
The most gauling thing for me is my car was actually built in 1973 and was registered on 1st January 1974 as the original owner was one of these people who wanted to try and get one of the very first plates of the year. D'oh!! At least the Fiat is 1971.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Anti-Corrosion
Yesterday we braved the cold and the salt and headed up to Saffron Walden for the day, towards the north of our county. (A lovely town it is too. We went on a Sunday and nothing was open, but we will go back another weekend for a Saturday and actually see the place properly.)
It's always a bit of a toss up between leaving the car in the garage to get stale and damp, or braving the elements and running it out for a while, even if the conditions aren't the best they could be. This was one of those occasions. The sun was shining, the ground was dry(ish) and the car could do with a run, so out it came.
(An amusing aside: one nice chap, in his mid '50s I'd say, barely escaped with his life after an off the cuff comment about the car on the Saffron Walden high street. My girlfriend is, well, "protective" of the Fiat. Fortunately she didn't hear him say to me "oh, we used to have one of those - an original of course - many years ago!" I waited until we were far enough out of town to render turning back to find him a task not worth undertaking, before telling her of the conversation. At this point she started spitting something about ignorant Englanders, our car coming from Italy thus being ten times more original than any Fiat 500 sold in Britain, 1971 it was made, &c. Next time I have a conversation like this, I won't mention it.)
Anyway, all in all it was an enjoyable afternoon, but I'm less than comfortable with the fact the car is now sitting back in the garage with a light spraying of salt water under the sills, in the wheel arches and worked in to just about every other nook and cranny salt water can get at.
I was told by one of the mechanics at Paul Matty Sportscars, from where I purchased the Lotus, the best tactic for a classic car to be used all winter is putting it on a ramp somewhere and giving the entire underside a fine spraying with duck oil. I'm not sure how effective this is, but he swore by it, and in my experience these fellows do tend to know what they're talking about. This may well be an option.
I shall ring some local classic car specialists and see if they've heard of the practice. What a shame our rather handy next door neighbour, a lovely man by the name of Roger who services a very wealthy man's 14-car Porsche fleet for a living, has moved on. He would be able to tell me. I'll have to pop in to "The Welly" in Epping and see if he's about ...
Finally, confession time. I still haven't done the forms. But I must must MUST do them very soon. Unfortunately this sort of paperwork is always bottom of the list of priorities. A bit like cleaning the oven, but worse. I know it's worse, because we actually cleaned the oven in preference to facing the DVLA forms this weekend!
It's always a bit of a toss up between leaving the car in the garage to get stale and damp, or braving the elements and running it out for a while, even if the conditions aren't the best they could be. This was one of those occasions. The sun was shining, the ground was dry(ish) and the car could do with a run, so out it came.
(An amusing aside: one nice chap, in his mid '50s I'd say, barely escaped with his life after an off the cuff comment about the car on the Saffron Walden high street. My girlfriend is, well, "protective" of the Fiat. Fortunately she didn't hear him say to me "oh, we used to have one of those - an original of course - many years ago!" I waited until we were far enough out of town to render turning back to find him a task not worth undertaking, before telling her of the conversation. At this point she started spitting something about ignorant Englanders, our car coming from Italy thus being ten times more original than any Fiat 500 sold in Britain, 1971 it was made, &c. Next time I have a conversation like this, I won't mention it.)
Anyway, all in all it was an enjoyable afternoon, but I'm less than comfortable with the fact the car is now sitting back in the garage with a light spraying of salt water under the sills, in the wheel arches and worked in to just about every other nook and cranny salt water can get at.
I was told by one of the mechanics at Paul Matty Sportscars, from where I purchased the Lotus, the best tactic for a classic car to be used all winter is putting it on a ramp somewhere and giving the entire underside a fine spraying with duck oil. I'm not sure how effective this is, but he swore by it, and in my experience these fellows do tend to know what they're talking about. This may well be an option.
I shall ring some local classic car specialists and see if they've heard of the practice. What a shame our rather handy next door neighbour, a lovely man by the name of Roger who services a very wealthy man's 14-car Porsche fleet for a living, has moved on. He would be able to tell me. I'll have to pop in to "The Welly" in Epping and see if he's about ...
Finally, confession time. I still haven't done the forms. But I must must MUST do them very soon. Unfortunately this sort of paperwork is always bottom of the list of priorities. A bit like cleaning the oven, but worse. I know it's worse, because we actually cleaned the oven in preference to facing the DVLA forms this weekend!
Monday, November 07, 2005
Paperwork
Very sadly, the time has come for the Fiat to lose its Milanese license plates. Unfortunately the common market does not extend to automobiles and our little car must receive some British plates if it intends to stay here in the United Kingdom and remain legal. Up until this point, because my girlfriend is still legally a Milanese resident, the car has qualified as a "temporary export" but this grace period with the government will soon expire and we must either return the vehicle to Italy or bring it in to line with British regulation.
At least we can prove its age so it will qualify for the old black and white plates (which always look nicer) - it should be either an old J or a K registration, depending on which side of the 1st August 1971 it was "born". I'm not sure off the top of my head.
The sad thing about this is it will lose its Italian plates completely, which are originals and in the old format (with the MI denoting Milan) and even if re-registered in Italy at a later date it will be issued with a new style plate, which will be just wrong. So far as I'm aware, the Italian system doesn't work like ours (ie: you don't get a plate for the year of your car - you simply get the next plate on the list). It's a real shame, but the law is the law and we have to do it.
So this evening will involve sitting down with half a dozen forms and a black biro, signing the Fiat's plates away.
At least we can prove its age so it will qualify for the old black and white plates (which always look nicer) - it should be either an old J or a K registration, depending on which side of the 1st August 1971 it was "born". I'm not sure off the top of my head.
The sad thing about this is it will lose its Italian plates completely, which are originals and in the old format (with the MI denoting Milan) and even if re-registered in Italy at a later date it will be issued with a new style plate, which will be just wrong. So far as I'm aware, the Italian system doesn't work like ours (ie: you don't get a plate for the year of your car - you simply get the next plate on the list). It's a real shame, but the law is the law and we have to do it.
So this evening will involve sitting down with half a dozen forms and a black biro, signing the Fiat's plates away.
Monday, October 31, 2005
The Long Journey
I've finally managed to copy the journal of our drive from Milan to London in the Fiat from my Greatest Cities blog to this more appropriate home. Visit the January archive and start from the bottom of the page to read about the entire journey.
I should note that following the drive from Milan the car continued to be my girlfriend's day car for a few months, taking her to work and back as well as going on a trip to Southwell. It was around then it took the first trip to Bob.
We had to do about five hundred pounds-worth of work at this point. Half of this went on cosmetics (such as an aluminium number plate lamp), various little bits to get it through the UK MOT and giving it a good service and oil change. The other half was to replace the timing chain (the engine sounded like a broken sewing machine) and the carburettor (which had a split base plate causing the tickover rate to suffer and petrol fumes to invade the car via the heating ducts, not to mention being the original carb it was very old and worn).
And that pretty much brings you up to the first post, Introductions, with the Fiat.
I should note that following the drive from Milan the car continued to be my girlfriend's day car for a few months, taking her to work and back as well as going on a trip to Southwell. It was around then it took the first trip to Bob.
We had to do about five hundred pounds-worth of work at this point. Half of this went on cosmetics (such as an aluminium number plate lamp), various little bits to get it through the UK MOT and giving it a good service and oil change. The other half was to replace the timing chain (the engine sounded like a broken sewing machine) and the carburettor (which had a split base plate causing the tickover rate to suffer and petrol fumes to invade the car via the heating ducts, not to mention being the original carb it was very old and worn).
And that pretty much brings you up to the first post, Introductions, with the Fiat.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
In Mourning
I lost the roof rack. Some swine out bid me by 56 pence! I suppose it's fair enough really since I decided my maximum was £32 and he decided his maximum was higher and that is, after all, the way eBay works. But I'm still gutted and I'm still looking. So if anyone comes across a Fiat 500 roof rack for sale, drop me a line and you'll be on my Christmas card list forever. I will definitely be interested.
Roof rack aside, some good news. My girlfriend went out to wax the Fiat last Sunday, since it was a beautiful, sunny afternoon in Epping. About ten minutes later I heard the distinctive sound of the little Fiat engine, putt-putting away outside the front door. (She knew I'd recognise the engine sound straight away - nothing else sounds like a Fiat 500. She didn't even need to beep the horn.) I grabbed my coat, opened the door and there she was. "Hop in! Let's go for a spin!"
It transpired that unbeknownst to me, she had tried to push the car out of the garage to wax it in the sunshine. Light as it is, there is a slight incline and once you lose momentum it's game over. She gave up pushing with the car half way out of the garage and stubbornly refusing to shift any further. But before giving up completely and calling me she decided to try and start it. Remembering what happened the previous weekend, this time she didn't pump the accelerator as she turned the engine over. Bingo! It started, no problem. Suspicions confirmed. It was a simple case of flooding. Which is great news, because tow-starting the damned thing every weekend with the runabout was getting tedious, to say the least!
That's all for now, except to say many thanks to Chris and Victoria, who put up with my interuption of their beautifully prepared dinner to run to the Internet and place my final (and pointless) roof rack bid. I'm such a geek.
Roof rack aside, some good news. My girlfriend went out to wax the Fiat last Sunday, since it was a beautiful, sunny afternoon in Epping. About ten minutes later I heard the distinctive sound of the little Fiat engine, putt-putting away outside the front door. (She knew I'd recognise the engine sound straight away - nothing else sounds like a Fiat 500. She didn't even need to beep the horn.) I grabbed my coat, opened the door and there she was. "Hop in! Let's go for a spin!"
It transpired that unbeknownst to me, she had tried to push the car out of the garage to wax it in the sunshine. Light as it is, there is a slight incline and once you lose momentum it's game over. She gave up pushing with the car half way out of the garage and stubbornly refusing to shift any further. But before giving up completely and calling me she decided to try and start it. Remembering what happened the previous weekend, this time she didn't pump the accelerator as she turned the engine over. Bingo! It started, no problem. Suspicions confirmed. It was a simple case of flooding. Which is great news, because tow-starting the damned thing every weekend with the runabout was getting tedious, to say the least!
That's all for now, except to say many thanks to Chris and Victoria, who put up with my interuption of their beautifully prepared dinner to run to the Internet and place my final (and pointless) roof rack bid. I'm such a geek.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Roof Racks
Approximately a year ago, on a typically stressful visit to Ikea ( in our Fiat 500, as it happened - we only wanted some bits and pieces), we noticed some of their in-store advertising featured a yellow 500 with a roof rack, presumably transporting newly purchased Ikea flat pack furniture and happy owners home from the bustling superstore."Perfect!" I cried. "That's just what we need." At that time our only car was the Fiat (or rather, our only car in London) so if we wanted to buy flat pack furniture for example, it was a case of either hire a car or book a taxi. Neither of which are, well, cheap frankly!
Ever since that fateful day I have scoured the planet for a Fiat 500 roof rack and discovered them to be the only commodity actually and genuinely rarer than hen's teeth. I've found luggage racks galour of the variety that clip on to the rear of the vehicle, but not a single ordinary fitted roof rack.
Luggage racks are fine for suitcases and the like, but as soon as you want to transport something a little larger, say a Christmas tree, or perhaps (heaven forbid) a flat packed wardrobe, they're no good whatsoever.
After a not small amount of searching, I had all but completely given up in my quest for a roof rack befitting of a Fiat 500. Given up that is ... until today. For today I noticed someone is selling one on eBay. Hurrah!
Of course, I don't technically need one any more, but who knows when I might, and who knows who might have the car in the future and need one? And so I am going to bid for it. I won't be linking to it, however, for two reasons:
- There's no sense in pointing the competition in the right direction
- eBay links die after a few months and I'll have to remove it
Knowing my luck however, the AdSense links for this page will probably fire up an eBay link to the only Fiat 500 roof rack for sale in the known universe and I will be lost in the flood of anxious owners, desperate to get their hands on its hallowed tubular steel. Grrrrr...
By the way, apologies for the photograph, but there are so few roof racked Fiat 500s about the only photographic example I could find was this toy. I promise, should I win the roof rack, I will post a photo of it, on my Fiat 500, in this blog so anyone scouring Google for a photo of a Fiat 500 with a roof rack in the future will at least find one suitable picture!
Photograph courtesy of Scale 18.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Interesting Aside
Since this is a slow news week as far as action from the weekend goes (my parents were over for the weekend, so travelling about in the Fiat was, well, inconvenient) I figured I'd document an interesting coincidence.
I wrote a post a little while ago called Temptation where I talk about wanting to get my hands on an original Series 1 Jaguar XJ6. The photograph I chose was an L registered dark red XJ saloon.
My father read my blog for the first time this weekend and commented that this particular photograph depicted the exact make and model of car I had my first ever journey in. Right down to the colour. The only difference is the photograph depicts an L registration which is one year newer than my first carriage, being a K registered vehicle.
How about that? When I was a baby my father owned a K registered dark red Jaguar XJ6 (with cream interior, so he tells me - I couldn't remember) in which I was brought home from hospital. In the words of the great Harry Hill: "What were the chances if that happening, eh?"
He still blames my appearance for having to sell it just a few months later. I think he's joking.
Two other noteworthy items:
1. The runabout got checked over while dad was at my disposal, and apart from needing four new tyres (which is ok, because I spotted that and negotiated a discount) it seems very sound.
2. Apparently my mechanic in Nottinghamshire, where the Lotus currently resides, is finally promising to fix the fuel leak this month. Hurrah!
I wrote a post a little while ago called Temptation where I talk about wanting to get my hands on an original Series 1 Jaguar XJ6. The photograph I chose was an L registered dark red XJ saloon.
My father read my blog for the first time this weekend and commented that this particular photograph depicted the exact make and model of car I had my first ever journey in. Right down to the colour. The only difference is the photograph depicts an L registration which is one year newer than my first carriage, being a K registered vehicle.
How about that? When I was a baby my father owned a K registered dark red Jaguar XJ6 (with cream interior, so he tells me - I couldn't remember) in which I was brought home from hospital. In the words of the great Harry Hill: "What were the chances if that happening, eh?"
He still blames my appearance for having to sell it just a few months later. I think he's joking.
Two other noteworthy items:
1. The runabout got checked over while dad was at my disposal, and apart from needing four new tyres (which is ok, because I spotted that and negotiated a discount) it seems very sound.
2. Apparently my mechanic in Nottinghamshire, where the Lotus currently resides, is finally promising to fix the fuel leak this month. Hurrah!
Monday, October 10, 2005
Flashing
You learn new things all the time about old cars. No matter how long you've owned them for, there's nearly always some feature or quirk you never noticed before, awaiting discovery either by some freak of chance or perhaps by the intervention of someone more knowledgable than yourself. Here is one such example:Take a look at the picture. It's the horn and indicator/headlamp stalks for a Fiat 500 F or L (I think they're interchangeable). Those stalks look and feel pretty rigid when they are attached to the car. They certainly don't look like they're supposed to flex in any direction, so attempting to persuade them to do so was very far from my mind. Until I read Mike England's post, here on the Fiat 500 boards.
It never occurred to me our little Fiat 500, whose interior shares so little in common with modern car interior layouts, would actually have a stalk you can flex forward (like any modern car) to flash the lights. But it does!
And so when the weather turned out to be fine this weekend (better than fine actually - it's unseasonably warm and sunny and has been for days) and we decided to play with the Fiat again this weekend, I couldn't wait to try the newly discovered headlamp flashing abilities. Sure enough, it works great! And a Fiat 500 flashing its little headlamps somehow looks, well, even cuter than ever.
I think I've also discovered the reason for the starting problems as well. We in the IT profession would call it "user error" (or "luser error" if the perpetrator of the crime is particularly irritating - not in this case, I hastily add).
My girlfriend, who tends to drive the Fiat as I prefer to be a passenger in this particular vehicle (the Lotus is "his" and the Fiat is "hers"), often goes first in attempting to start the car. It usually coughs a bit for the first couple of attempts then stops firing completely. When I have a go the starter turns the engine over but fails to create so much as a hint of a spark.
Well on Saturday I believe I discovered why. I looked on over my girlfriend's shoulder as she was starting the car from cold and she was pumping away on the gas while the starter motor was turning. A sure way to flood the engine if it doesn't fire quickly. On Sunday I told her not to pump, but to turn the starter over with a little gas and then only try and catch the engine with the throttle when it actually fires. And bingo, the Fiat started without any pushing or towing.
Hurrah! I'll re-test my theory next weekend, weather permitting.
Photograph courtesy of Ricambi-Automobilia.
Monday, October 03, 2005
A Good Run
Following the panic about garages, we decided it was high time the Fiat stretched its little legs. It hadn't been used for a couple of weeks and the weather was nice and dry on Sunday morning, so we figured we would take the car up to Sawbridgeworth Maltings and have a look at some antiques. (The Maltings host a handful of different antiques stores, so if you're that way inclined and in the Hertfordshire/ Essex/ Cambridgeshire area it's well worth a Sunday visit.)
We pushed it out of the garage in to the sunshine and eagerly set about firing the engine. Or at least that was the plan. The Fiat, however, had other ideas. Having been abandoned in a cold, damp garage for two weeks it seemed to be in what might be considered as the automotive equivalent of a sulk. Arms folded, bottom lip wobbling, looking the other way, refusing to respond to cohersion of any kind.
We knew it was only being beligerant though. We'd been here before. So out came the tow rope ... again. (Push starting a warm 500 is a doddle, but a stone cold one takes more persuasion!) I went to fetch the runabout, hooked it up to the Fiat and within one length of the garage forecourt it was running. And judging by the amount of time we had to keep the choke out for (about 5 minutes compared to the usual 30 seconds) it had gotten very, very cold. Perhaps further anti-garaging evidence? Who knows.
In the end all was well. We had a nice morning out, and after a good run up the road the little car started first time in Sawbridgeworth. It developed a funny rubber-squeaking sound from the back left wheel (as you sit in the car) which concerns me slightly, but I'll deal with that another time. The important thing is that we had fun, the car had a run and everyone's happy!
We pushed it out of the garage in to the sunshine and eagerly set about firing the engine. Or at least that was the plan. The Fiat, however, had other ideas. Having been abandoned in a cold, damp garage for two weeks it seemed to be in what might be considered as the automotive equivalent of a sulk. Arms folded, bottom lip wobbling, looking the other way, refusing to respond to cohersion of any kind.
We knew it was only being beligerant though. We'd been here before. So out came the tow rope ... again. (Push starting a warm 500 is a doddle, but a stone cold one takes more persuasion!) I went to fetch the runabout, hooked it up to the Fiat and within one length of the garage forecourt it was running. And judging by the amount of time we had to keep the choke out for (about 5 minutes compared to the usual 30 seconds) it had gotten very, very cold. Perhaps further anti-garaging evidence? Who knows.
In the end all was well. We had a nice morning out, and after a good run up the road the little car started first time in Sawbridgeworth. It developed a funny rubber-squeaking sound from the back left wheel (as you sit in the car) which concerns me slightly, but I'll deal with that another time. The important thing is that we had fun, the car had a run and everyone's happy!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
