I like driving in my self-satisfied notion of history
On the way home, a four-pot chopper (in my day it were all H-D or arthritic English twins & singles) came howling the other way. Well, howling until Biker Bill took his hand off the throttle, at which point it went Clat! Clat! Pop! Rorp-rorp! Clat! because the carbies had been hauled out from underneath a pile of nudie-prod mags in the back of the shed, given a slap to dislodge the sleeping mice and spiders and then brick-hammered into place on the side of an otherwise blameless Kawa lump by a halfwit.
Since I had the windows rolled down (Is it winter? No. Therefore windows open.) I was able to breathe in the perfume of leaky valve-guides and serious over-choke.
You know, it's not a familiar smell any more. Back in the old days - I guess up to the early 90s when there was a mass rust-off of Kent and A-Series cars - all winter mornings were filled with the pong of four-star being coughed up by Escorts, Metros, Cortinas, Sherpas and Sierras. Pilots all heaving on the choke-knob (Well, not on the CVH engined Fords. Not when they were new, anyway) and peering through the steering wheel at the only clear spot on the windscreen.
These days you have to stand downwind of a Triumph two-seater if you want to smell history.
Since I had the windows rolled down (Is it winter? No. Therefore windows open.) I was able to breathe in the perfume of leaky valve-guides and serious over-choke.
You know, it's not a familiar smell any more. Back in the old days - I guess up to the early 90s when there was a mass rust-off of Kent and A-Series cars - all winter mornings were filled with the pong of four-star being coughed up by Escorts, Metros, Cortinas, Sherpas and Sierras. Pilots all heaving on the choke-knob (Well, not on the CVH engined Fords. Not when they were new, anyway) and peering through the steering wheel at the only clear spot on the windscreen.
These days you have to stand downwind of a Triumph two-seater if you want to smell history.