Collecting Winston

It was an early start, Me and my friend Stu had a long drive to Oldbury just outside of Birmingham. It was fairly uneventful drive down, I felt pretty apprehensive had I made a mistake, am I buying a complete nail of a car?

This is not the first time I have bought a used car, in fact Winston is my fifth car in three years. My first car was a Fiat Cinquecento, I got given by my missus mum it was a lovely car. It had blacked out windows in the back and speakers in the parcel shelf, I loved that car but it didn't last long before I broke it. I hit a speed bump a little too hard and snapped the suspension housing on the driver side. The suspension strut dropped and melted the front tyre while I was driving, that being said I manged to pull over safely and park it in between to drives. The first thing I did was ring my grandad and told him my car had died, so he turned up with my uncle and between they decided after much debate that the car was well and truly dead.

My second car was a Fiat Punto, which I lowered 40 mm on springs and fitted 4 6x9 speakers and 12 inch sub in the boot. It was a lovely chavtastic car indeed, well it was until I bottomed it out and cracked the rear axle. It was long after that I part ex'd it on a Ford Focus Zetec. I didn't have that 1.8 litre beast for long before it got stolen off my drive. That was a heart breaking moment, when I was stood in the empty space on my drive where my car used to be with the key in my hands.

After that came the granny magnet, a Ford Focus estate a proper family mans car which I what I needed to drive my little boy about. This brings me back to Winston car number 5, he was going to be my scum run car. I will not go in to explaining what the scum run is, you find out yourself here.

So anyway when we got to the guys house who was selling Winston, we knew we were in the right place because there was a Dodge challenger rotting on the drive. A good sign I know, that being said the bloke I bought him off was a top guy he'd put a new engine it and made sure it was ok for me to drive it home. I handed over the cash and signed the paper work then Winston was all mine, after a quick fill we were back on the road heading home.

Setting off back up home, with no stereo the next 125 miles were going to be a long 2 hour journey. The only thing I had to keep me company was the conversation with the sat nav and I can tell you that that was riveting until it eventually die. All that was left was the squeaking of the rear windscreen wiper that I couldn't figure out to turn it off. So me and Stu decieded that we would have a non competitive, within the speed limit race. Me in Winston packing a hefty 1.3 litre engine and 4 gears against Stu straight 2.0 litre Fiesta ST. Well me and Winston gave it all we had until the accelerator cable gave out, sat in the middle lane doing the speed limit obviously the accelerator pedal flat to the floor and I was loosing speed quickly. Hazards on, moved on to the hard shoulder.

What could I do, I had no roadside recovery well I'll tell you what I tried first. Stu had a phone charger plug in his boot, so between the two of us we managed to attach it to the throttle and feed the plug through the passenger window. When I pulled on the plug it rev'd the engine and I popped it in to gear and set off down the hard shoulder one hand on the steering wheel the other on the plug. Genius, know.

Well as you guessed it did not work too well, so we called our friend Damo and he came to pick me up in his sprinter van. After a little bit of improvisation Winston was hitched to the back of a Damo's Sprinter van and with "On tow" scribbled on a sheet of A4 in Biro tossed on parcel shelf, we were off. You's think that would be the end of it, home safe but no there is more. Damo and I quote "forgot I was towing you" within the first 5 minutes I was doing 80 mph on tow on the motorway in the middle lane, it got even more interesting as he became a amber gambler and cornered like a rally driver for the last 30 miles of my journey home.

Unhitched, Winston left strewn across the top of the drive I knocked on the door and Kat came to the window. With a massive grin on my face I shouted up "This is Winston" she loving replied "What? That heap of shit?"