Crazy Irish Kids - How they sort out a car clamp

My wee brother back in Ireland is a total car nut-junkie. Here's how he got himself out of some car clamp bother recently. Mad bollox!

Click Here If the video below does not play...youtube has been fecked this week!

1991 Jeep Cherokee Limited

Impulse shopping is not something I indulge in often, I can walk around a GAP sale and want a hundred things and walk out with out spending a dime, but put $3500 in my hand and point me in the direction of a four-wheel temptress and I'll blow the whole lot in seconds.

My CRX was going fine, no problems at all other than it wasn't a Jeep Cherokee. I started snooping around the classifieds on Sunday mornings and logging on to AutoTrader way too often. I was getting the bug, every time a Cherokee drove past me on the road I was salivating.

I needed some expertise help as I wanted a good, clean, reliable car. My friend Adam was the right man for the job: he was from Iowa and drove an old truck, the perfect Cherokee hunter.

The first one we looked at was a mess, they were looking for $800 for it and Adam said it wasn't even worth $500, so we let it pass. There was another one close by so we headed over there to check it out and the lady at the door said the car would be back in a few minutes. So we waited and ten minutes later the $800 piece of crap showed up again. We jumped into Adam's truck and got the hell out of there.

Half an hour later we were in a much nicer neighborhood and looking at an immaculate 1991 black and gold Jeep Cherokee Limited. I literally jizzed in my pants at first sight.

I should have played hardball and haggled the price down, but I didn't I just told the guy I'd be back in a few day and have all the paperwork ready.

I never got a chance to feel buyer's remorse as the entire KC area got hit by an ice-storm and the Cherokee's four wheel drive proved invaluable. I was an errand boy for my friends and one of the few people able to show up for school at Park. With five seats I was able to bring loads of chicks out to the bars, to paraphrase Swingers "I was so money."

I once came to a road blocked by a timber log and with images of the A-Team van crashing through a secured gate I backed her up and bust through...it was a priceless moment in car ownership.

Fast forward 6 months and the Cherokee is parked outside my new girlfriend's house (this one became The Wife). I got up in the morning to drive to school and looked out onto the street and didn't see it. At first I thought I must have left it at work the night before, but no, I drove it home and parked it right out front. It was stolen, bollocks.

After a lot of BS with the police department in KCK I found her at a wrecking yard, compacted by about 3 feet. I could have cried and the pisser was I'd just paid $300 on new brakes and rotors. It was a short lived relationship with the Cherokee, but not a moment of regret.
Check out this fast Cherokee

Here is the inspiration for most of my Jeep driving

Rally Breed

 

Pictures Sourced from - Mitsubishi EVO, Corolla Twin Cam, Opel Manta

Ford Escort Cosworth

Kenny McKinstry goes “right into crest, left 90, ” Gwendaff Evans in a pink Ford Escort Cosworth spitting fire from its exhaust around Phoenix Park, David Llewellyn in a Castrol coated Toyota Celica leaping into the air at 100 miles an hour: poetry and mechanical madness embraced by a small, esoteric segment of the populous.

As youngsters our Dad brought us into the fold and we embraced the culture like hungry pups on a fat nipple. Up the back of Clar chapel, inches from the graves, perched on a freezing-cold stonewall. Marshals in yellow bids blow their whistles and yell for people to get off the road. The first car to come around the corner is a wee Starlet, hammering on at a speed that is was never meant to do while picking up groceries from the car park at Dunne’s Stores. Followed by a black Opel Manta, spiting chips in the air from the back wheels and a fat lip stuns me for a second, a cool drip of blood mixing with the taste of adrenaline.

A while later and arses still numb from the cold there’s another stage down towards lough Eske. We park and walk along with the hoards of rally nuts. License plates from the North, from Mayo, Galway and Cavan, attracted to the thrill of speed in their wanna-be rally cars – Subaru’s and Twin Cams, old 3 series BMs and a souped up old-school-Supra.

We get a great spot where we might see a car roll on a high-speed natural chicane, so Dad says. The first cars come through cautiously, just nipping the green edges of the road, then the big boys come rallying through at blistering speeds. Modified and broken exhausts howl through the ears at deafening decibels and sure enough the back diff of a Twin Cam can’t control the power and she slides off, the driver barely straightening her up inches from a solid famine wall.

The blood in the veins of these men is like thick oil, lubricating their hot, over-boiling hearts. White knuckles, pace notes, adrenaline at full pump, eyes darting to see over the next crest, a special breed of evolved man, evolved from farm lads and mechanics, soon to be engineers. Men that consider a Massey Ferguson an alternative mode of transport.

Another day and my arse is still cold sitting on the wooden-slat seats of Mondelo Park. Will Gallop’s 6R4 is blazing around the place like a demented supersonic gnat. More than 420bhp ripping through the back wheels in a wee car based on your Granny’s Metro was complete insanity. Banned from group B rallying years ago and found a new home on the rally cross circuit. Along with old RS 200s, Audi Quatros and Lancia Delta Intergrales.

We walk through the infield to warm up; Josie McCloskey has a funny hat on, looks like a tire warmer and big Pat Johnson is cracking another joke and Jimmy is egging him on. Dad and Derek are watching a pit crew re-treading tires as it looks like it’ll be wet.

We had to leave the house at five this morning to get down here in time for the qualifying. The big 5 series BMW was redlined all the way out of Donegal, across the Petigo Road, never under a hundred through Fermanagh and up to 150 through Cavan. A few years later on the Virgina Road a wee boy would be killed and the cops would put an end to the speed too late.

The drive down had been as exciting as some of the driving that day, until Gollop celebrated his win by doing donuts on the manicured grass in the in-field. Totally maddened the folks in charge as they called out over the loudspeaker system for other drivers to refrain from doing the same, but the crowd was going wild. Grass roosters were shooting twenty feet up the air as he ploughed the field with his Metro.

The night before the Birmingham motor show we drove down to Dublin in the Pajero and Dad got pulled over on the Virginia Road and when the young Garda asked him if he knew how fast he was going he said “No” and the cop said “86mph” and Dad stupidly replied “I didn’t think she would go that fast” and the cop said “That and plenty more.” Then he gave the whole people dying on roads speech. Dad had a silly grin on his face ‘cause he knew he was in trouble.

The next day in Birmingham as we walked through the parking lot of the NEC admiring all the fancy cars, a security man came up quietly behind us ready to apprehend the three of us! We had to quickly explain that we were just car enthusiasts and we’re on our way into the show. He looked at us like he didn’t believe us, but after a long awkward moment he let us go and just told us to not look so obvious, especially with those Northern Irish accents, must have thought we were a bunch of terrorists! So off we went to hear Jeremy and Tiff do their car stand-up routine.

Will Gollop was in there to meet us in his usual black, red and gold livery, but this time plastered all over the body of a wide body Peugeot 306, a total beast of a machine. He was putting around 600hp down around the track, setting a pretty amazing pace. Then came a whole herd of blue Scoo-barus with 555 logos and the essential gold wheels. I think wee Colin McCrae was behind the wheel of one of them, years before he would become one of the most famous men in racing with video games based on him, bags of world titles under his kilt and a persona that made you wanna be him flying through a forest road with NO FEAR. Like many bright stars, his burned out early, fecking helicopters.

Back in ‘88 or ‘87 his Dad, Jimmy, battled Bertie Fisher in their near identical blue and white Sierra Cosworths in the Circuit of Ireland. Our hometown of Killybegs was a stopping point for them and Derek and I were in car-porn heaven with all the mad rally cars parked in the town. That weekend was the first time I saw a real M3 in the flesh, or a Cossie for that matter. I stared at them in awe, as a French farmer might a UFO if he found it in his asparagus patch. I reached out and touched them, slid my hand over their big rear spoilers and could still feel the heat radiating off their exhausts. These were the fantasy machines that only existed on telly or in a magazine and now here they were in fish-stinking-Killybegs. A visit from the Pope would have extracted less revere from me.

You don’t see the likes of them anymore, only an EVO or STI can instill that kind of passion in a young boy’s heart these days. I’ll glance at a Ferrari when one passes me, like once every three months on average, it’s the least appreciation I can give a piece of art. But five or six Scoobie and EVOs could pass me in a single day and I’ll stop and stare, crane my neck, nearly run off the road looking at them every time, much to the annoyance of my wife “Jesus Christ, just dive!” You know when archeologists and the like find some fish off the waters of Africa that they thought had been extinct for millions of years, but then it’s in some fisherman’s net, a living fossil, well, that’s kind of what EVOs and STIs are. Supras and Celicas are gone, M3s have become soft luxury cars. The last of a dying breed, I lament and paraphrase; Where Have all the Good Cars Gone.

Richard Burns died not long ago, McCrae is driving the big gold wheeled Subaru in the sky. None of the newer drivers make me wanna use their name in my head when I’m driving. We, the rally breed, need new heroes and often in a time of need they come from the strangest place, like Krypton, but this time it might be America, the good old US of A. They aren’t known for their rally skills, but your man Pastrana having leaned his skills from McCrae knows how to fling a car around. And he’s got the youth and charisma to spawn an entire generation of rally half-breeds. The next day I’m trying to go sideways in my M3, I think I will be him in my head; fast, ferocious and fearless. Until my wife yells at me.

Maybe what I really need is to go on a man trip with Dad and Derek. Find some nice cold, soggy weather and stand around with my hands in my pockets for a ten second glimpse at the arse end of a Corolla Twin Cam. To stand among men who worshiped the back-wheel-drive diff of a carbureted, not injected, Twin Cam 16v. Men who after the races will drive home sideways, with death only a heart beat away.

1996 Fiat Bravo

 

picture sourced from 

This is the same color as mine and ironically this one ended up in a wreckers yard too

I don't know who the wee fauline is, but my Bravo never looked this good

With the payments from Black Beauty (Citroen AX Gti), I got to drive away in a brand new Fiat Bravo 1.4. It was "lilac" blue, very light blue, almost gray, not a definitive color, the kind of color you can never make your mind up about.

It lacked the raw power of the Gti, but the creature comforts were a thousand fold improved. I could now talk to the person in the passenger seat and the radio was built into the car and worked.

I put a pair of DTM style wheels on her, had the bumpers and mirrors color coded and that made her look a lot more sporty, nothing like the full Arbath kit, but sexy all the same. The calmer nature of the car, seemed to calm me down too, I didn't drive quite so hard.

There were no real problems with the Bravo except that when I put it in reverse the horn honked. The dealership in Sligo had to completely rewire it at no cost to me.

I took her on a road trip to Edinburgh in Scotland and it was a pleasure to drive on the motorways and really fun on the small cross country Scottish roads.

I went off to College later that year and everyone in the house would use the Bravo, it was the perfect car for sharing. My sister put a scratch up the side of it and my mother ran the oil almost bone dry, but neither of their abuses amounted to squat compared to my brother Derek's experience.

I came home from college and Derek and the dogs met me at the front of the house as I came walking up the lane.

"I've got good news and bad news for you. Which do you want first?"

"I'll take the good news first" I said naively.

"Well, your air bags work and the bad news is your car doesn't"

Lots of explicative followed and total disbelief.

Derek had borrowed the car to got to Dublin with his girlfriend and on the way home in County Cavan, they went flying off the road, down a steep field and smashed into a tree. The car was totaled.

They towed it to a wrecker's yard in Inver and it was sold for as scrap. I saw it a year later all fixed up in Letterkenny and I felt a tingle of want in me, I even had the spare key on my keyring still. But she was gone, she was someone else' trouble now. Derek was a bollocks, but at least he wasn't killed or maybe I should have killed him.

Here's an appropriate video of a Bravo in a field

1993 Citroen AX Gti

Some Portugese kid's car, but identical to my one and look sitting next to it is a lilac blue Bravo

 

I drove my AX like this a little too often

Photo courtesy of www.cardomaine.com

You never forget your first, whatever it may be. I was eighteen-years-old and Dad and I went on a mission to find a little  hatchback for me to get around in while I was out of school for the year.

I had a Corolla or Civic in mind, or even a good looking Corsa/Nova. Something with a 1.2 or 1.4 engine to get me from A to B and sometimes to C.

Outside of Bundoran we found a beast of a Opel Corsa that someone had given a dose of steroids to. It had giant flared arches and bull wheels that would have fit a NASCAR, it was completely mad looking and I wanted it at first sight. Dad talked sense to me and we got back in his car and went further up the road.

In Sligo we stopped into the BMW dealership to see if they had any trades about the yard. They didn't have much, but Damien the salesman did mention that they had just got in a 1993 Citroen AX Gti on a local trade.

She was a beauty. Black as night, alloys, sunroof, an exhaust you could shove your fist up and electric everything inside. I didn't think Dad would go for it, but he said to take her for a test drive.

It went like a hot snot and sounded like a bad tempered child screaming in a grocery store. Dad drove it back to the dealership and said "Don't you think it's got a bit too much power?" I looked at him, pleading and an hour later we hit the road back to Killybegs and I was behind the wheel of The Black Beauty.

Life with the AX was schizophrenic. When it was just me in the car driving like a mad man racing whatever came along it was great, listening to the booming exhaust. But put a passenger in the front seat and it wasn't so great. Conversation was nigh on impossible and I couldn't get the radio to work most of the time, so I had taken to strapping my gettoblaster into the back seat for I.C.E.

I went everywhere fast. To and from work, over and back to Letterkenny to my girlfriends and up and down to Dublin. The AX was a little work horse when it needed to be.

Then on a rainy night on the way to Donegal Town, coming around a bad bend in Bruckless I lost control and sent my Black Beauty into a ditch. Bollocks.

I got her towed out, brought to a fix-it-man to get the dents out and then to a French car specialist to service the damage. That's when it was discovered that the car was bent, not from my accident, but from the previous owner. The guy at the Frenchy garage told me I'd been driving "a death trap."

A big denial from the BMW dealership followed, but a few phone call with a "I'm gonna sue your fucking arse" tone from Dad and they agreed to take the AX back and put the payments from the last few months towards another car.

It was a sad day departing from the AX, it was like dropping off your dysfunctional child at the orphanage in exchange for the golden child, little Peter Perfect.