Joplin Jalopy

At four years of age, my bedtime story that night was not from a book. My mother opted instead to tell me one from her own life.

“At your age now”, she said, “I hoped, wished and prayed for a palomino mare.”

I never interrupted her stories, yet was somehow inwardly and secretly silenced, imagining a palomino mare. Ma Cook’s little boy could think of nothing more beautiful. The next morning, I dumped my wax crayons onto my bed, and drew one. The horse, said my mom, could improve, but I had the colours right.

That was threescore and sixteen years ago, or (the coder in me says) 0x4C years, in hexadecimal. Strange that 76, seen in Hexadecimal, looks more like four years ago. Feels about right!

If cars had not become a thing, fifty years after my Mom’s wish in 1920, Janice Joplin may have sung “Oh Lord won’t you buy me a Palomino”

But cars were around, and Janice did not want a Pontiac Palomino with a 5.1 litre V8. She wanted a "Mer Say Deez Bayanz."

I would have, too. The Pontiac Palomino was ugly as sin to my eyes. Cars though, are not always about beauty. My first was a Jeep. A real one, a 1947 Willys side-valve, with plenty of low-end grunt. I pleaded the 5th when my mates bragged how fast their cars would go, but I pulled a few of them out of the mud with mine. Sweet!

It was many years before I got another car after the jeep was “borrowed”. I bought a Fiat 124 for my small family in Durban. It was fantastic, surging up Field's Hill at 70mph plus in top gear, could fit a large Yamaha Bass Amp ( known by the band as “the wardrobe”) in its boot. As with all Fiats, it had huge space in the cabin, too. It was traded in for a Cortina Mk3, after the Fiat got us to our new gig in Pretoria.

I became a Ford man for some years. The Ford Cortina took me 323,000km. It was replaced by a yellow Escort Mk2, a fantastically lively and drivable car. A thief agreed and it was soon replaced by a Sierra 2.0 GL,

which took me 429,000 km until a drunk bent it nearly double in Hillbrow one New Years Eve. Struggling without cars (try being a musician without one), it was a while before I could afford another.

That was a blue Citroen GS Club 1220, a car that astonishingly outdid my Sierra for comfort. It was written off in a head-on, a mistake by the other (inexperienced) driver, and it was some time before I was able to replace it, with another similar make and model, bright yellow this time. Its GP number plate began with 'DYL' and I passed it on to my daughter, who promptly dubbed it DaffoDYL, and cut her driving teeth with it as a student in Makhanda. Those GS Citroens did not have the strongest steering setup, and it had to be garaged for that, but otherwise, it served well and gave me a wonderful drive through the Karoo to Makhanda. For speed and cruising, the Sierra was unmatched, but the buzzy little air cooled boxer Citroen GS literally rode on air, and the harder I worked it in baking Karoo heat, the happier it purred. Amazing. A drunk young student lady crunched its rear end one night. It was innocently parked off the street on a wide sidewalk. Still, the student dronkie managed to mount the kerb and write it off.

I had by then a third GS, a white one. It took me 80,000kms or so, until it popped a cylinder head bung on De Waal Drive one day, and dramatically retired in an F1-sized cloud of blue smoke. I did not have money to repair it, though it was not a massively expensive repair. I have never owned a car since, but did have the use of my son’s Renault Sandero Stepway for a few years. I drove it all over SA. It was a great surprise, a happy all day cruiser, incredibly economical, and an easy driver. Cruise control in a car at that price has spoiled me for cars ever since, and its electronics carried me through a scarily greasy mud pond on a Karoo farm road without any driver input. It had a little turbo lag, but I soon worked that out. It had averaged an astonishing 5.5 L/100km through its lifetime when it was sold. Of all the cars I knew, it was the easiest to de-mist in wet driving, something that all my airport hired Toyotas were hopeless at.

Need for Speed

Overall, the Sierra was my favourite family car, and all my Fords were beautiful to drive. I was lucky that my 2 litre four was light on petrol. I got 6.9 L/100 km on the down trip from Jhb to PMB once, but that was because I had time and was trying hard for economy.

Nippiest in traffic was the Fiat 124, closely followed by Ford Escort. Nothing could beat the Sierra as a long-distance cruiser. It never gave me back problems, even after ten-hour stints. It used low revs at 120, was quiet and competent, and, with its long wheel-base, very easy to handle on muddy roads in rain.

The Sierra was not nippy, but it was the fastest of all my cars. On a trip from Jhb to Gaborone, a traffic cop stopped as I left Zeerust.

"Floor it all the way to Kopfontein Hek" he said. "Terries were reported, and there are no speed traps. Do not stop for anyone, or anything".

I gaped, and stared at his uniform. "Nee, boet, sierias" he said. "Kapituit". It was slightly more than 100km. Usually I covered that section in about one hour and twenty minutes, but that day, on good tyres, I gently urged the Sierra up to the 175 kph mark, and even beyond, for one section where I thought I spotted movement in the bushveld. I did it in 38 minutes. Thankfully, no AK-47s, not a camo uniform in sight.

It was not the fastest trip I made. Late one afternoon in Yeoville, Jhb, a friend and I climbed into a Ford Sapphire and shared a moonlit drive through to Cape Town. There were few trucks on the way, not a single pothole, the moonlight was bright enough to drive without headlights (we tried it for fun), and we completed the trip in 10 hrs 40 minutes.

A possibly mad driver who once wrote for the Rondalia Toerklub magazine described a quick trip between Cape Town and Jhb. It was in a Jaguar E-Type, with a companion. They did it in 7 hrs and 52 minutes, and had to replace all four tyres immediately after.

My moonlit trip to the Cape was not my fastest ride ever. That honour goes to a silky smooth Jaguar 3.8S that purred up to me while hitch-hiking on the Great North Road to Rhodesia in 1965. Its driver was puffing a cigar, and wearing those driving gloves with naked fingers gripping the wheel.

"I drive very fast. Don’t get in if you don’t like speed"

I got in. It was still a long way to Bulawayo, and I had stood at the roadside for a long time. I wanted to be at Beit Bridge as soon as possible after dawn the next day. It was already dark. Nineteen minutes later, he dropped me at the turn-off to Tshipise, and his Jag vanished in seconds. We had covered 38 miles, its piercing Lucas headlights searing through the night. By my arithmetic, that is 120 Mph (2 miles per minute) average. Short, but the most breathtaking ride I ever had. I stood in the starlight chuckling before settling under a thorn tree to doze the night out.

The F’s - Ford & Fiat

Choosing between Ford and Fiat is surprisingly difficult. I exclude things like resale value, and stick only to living with the car, and driver dynamics. Ford makes drivers' cars. All the Fords were a joy to drive. Their road manners, gear shifts, pedals, mirror positions, all added up to a very nice place to be in for long trips. The first Cortina shocked the entire industry with its luggage space, true of the Escort that followed, and the Sierra outdid them all. With rear seats folded, it became a competent gig van.

I had previously driven a Triumph TR2, the legendary British sports car. It was a fantastic drive, but felt heavy, and rather weirdly, the Fiat 124 handled better than it, leaving me pondering the fact that the Triumph engine block was said to be the same as that on a "Vaaljapie" (Feguson Tractor).

The Fiat was also the easiest to tune, and the first car I had with disc brakes on all four wheels. That alone put it way ahead of other cars of the time for safety. It was also the first car I drove with synchromesh on all four gears, and shifting gears was wonderfully light and quick. It handled so well that I thought at first that it had independent suspension on all four wheels. It didn’t, but the coil-sprung live rear axle rode surprisingly well. The cabin was also uncannily huge for the outward size of the car. It wasn’t the most frugal on fuel, but it compensated by going like the clappers and I liked that Italian stallion exhaust note. The Fiat's rather unfair undoing was that it spent its years in Durban and East London, while the Fords were all highveld cars, so it met a premature end, thanks to rust.

The C’s - Citroen

All three of my Citroen GS Club 1220s were mid-70s cars, picked up at bargain purchase prices, worked on by Citroen specialists, for a very low resulting total purchase cost. Only the final one bowed out with engine problems. Repairing their hydro-pneumatic suspensions was surprisingly reasonable. You could point out that other cars seldom needed suspension repairs, but in fairness, other cars ride like ox wagons on cobbles. Every car I step into after my Citroens feels like a cheap bone-breaker.

So they were the most comfortable. As for luggage space, they beat all the others. Their suspension was such that I could fill the boot with bricks and the car still rode at the same height above the tar as when unladen. Amazing. They also had discs on all four wheels, and gear-shifts were not up to those of the F’s, but pretty good all the same.

And, now ... ?

So, at 80 years of age, which car would I buy? It depends where I find myself. If there is ride-hailing available, I would not bother buying a car. My years of living in Jhb showed that I didn’t need a car there, and using ride-hailing turned out to be easier and cheaper. But I currently live in a peaceful part of the Garden Route where ride-hailing is unavailable. Things get delivered. I rarely need a car. When I do, I make a plan with other people, and so far, that works. Just as well, because I really can’t afford one. But, if I could, what would I buy to drive to sit and look at the sea, visit the clinic and the occasional coffee house?

An old Citroen hydro-pneumatic suspension, of course!

They are neither frugal on fuel nor quiet, but no modern car can match their comfort and boot capacity. Even better than those, though, are the refuelling moments. The attendant clips the nozzle into the filler, heads for the bonnet, and has eyes like saucers as s/he watches the car sag to the ground the moment s/he leans for weight on it.

"Eish, what did I DO?" s/he asks.

"It's ok. Don’t worry, it does that”.

Finished, s/he swipes my card, chats gaily to a colleague, and then a hand, leaning on the roof, recoils quicker than a striking puff adder as the car floats upward.

"Don’t worry" I say, gliding away. "It does that!”

I know, next time the Citroen floats onto the forecourt, all four attendants will gather around, chat, watch the car seem to die, and then watch it resurrect. Everone smiles. I like a sense of occasion!