Old Movie Guy’s excellent trip down memory lane, ‘A Night at the Orchid’
https://charioteers.org/2011/01/21/a-night-at-the-orchid/
seems to have veered off like an errant Vauxhall Victor into a discussion of what we were driving back in the day. Please have a look at OMG’s post to get the flavour and then I’d like to know a) what you were driviing then and b) what you’re driving now, as I’m wondering if the flair, style and romance has gone out of motoring, or, if as Bearsy says, nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
Me, back in the day, had a real babe-magnet
Land Rover Series IIa
Today, it’s still the much more comfortable
which I’ve owned since new and is as sure-footed as a mountain goat on the rough tracks up to The Cave.
OZ
Boadicea's Chariot 
Great spin off Oz, started my motoring life with a 1949 Ford Prefect, the Zodiac you know about, Others include Mini Estate with Cooper engine and wide wheels, souped up Ford Anglia 105e, Morris 8 drop head with twin carbs, advanced ignition, curved back and motorcycle mudguards on front. Now?……prepare to weep for the lost joys of youth….Mercedes Benz 220 E Class.
A Beetle, 200 deutschmarks, (about £20 back then,) and it spent more time over the pit in the Troop hangar rhan it did on the road 🙂 Got an extra hundred for it when we left Herford, though, after all the work we’d put in on it.
Ah, missed the ‘now’ part. Audi A4 – traffic/roads in Cyprus are not worth anything more – and a 12-yr old Toyota Landcruiser, kept in the village for running around the mountains. (Here in Bucharest my work-car is a crappy Peugeot, in Moscow it was a BMW 5 series.)
My most favorite car was my Mini 850CC, my brother destroyed it on me trying to do a jump across sand dunes like in a Caltex commercial. I also had an Austin once, never drove it, just paid $50 dollars for it so I could take it apart and learn how cars worked, brilliant engineering, very simple and easy to maintain. I had over 50 cars since and untold motorbikes.
Now I own a 1998 Proton Satria, a 2009 Holden Captiva, a 1998 Holden Vectra (the best) a 2009 Toyota 4 Wheel drive, a 2001 Holden excel and a 2008 Subaru Liberty 🙂
Donald – I had an Austin 1100 and couple of Minis before the Landy, including a rally-strengthened Cooper ‘S’ with twin fuel tanks, twin carbs and needle roller bearings to support the wider wheels. For the past forty years I have been wanting to meet and slap very hard the ‘designer’ who put all Minis’ oil filters right above the front subframe so that on cold November Sunday mornings you couldn’t demount them without the oil running up your elbow and into your pullover. Barsteward!
OZ
OZ – I really can’t remember the engine bay in my Mini, I just loved it because it was little and cool!! mine had a button on the floor between the seats and after one turned the key you had to push the button to start the car. the rear windows were “push-out” ones and it had the biggest steering wheel I’ve ever seen, it was massive.
It even had a AM radio!! Wow 🙂
First set of wheels for me were attached to a 1949 BSA Bantam. An ex Post Office telegraph boys M/C but painted green. I paid £15 for it in 1961. I drove it out of the garage without ever having ridden a M/C before! I ran it for around three months in the Torquay area before the police stopped me and charged me with carrying a passenger without a proper pillion seat and with only a provisional license. After a court appearance and a fifty bob fine, i got rid of it after that!
Sticking with two wheels, in Cyprus, I lashed out on a new Lambretta 150 for a cost of £125 in 1963. It took me all over the island! I didn’t move onto four wheels till 1966 when it was a new mini 850 for a cost of £425 in France. Both of course were tax free. Now, it’s a sedate Mazda3.
OMG – A 220 E class? Given up, have you? 🙂
Bravo – Audi A4. You too?
Toc – Mazda 3 – Shudder!
Donald – “OZ – I really can’t remember the engine bay in my Mini, I just loved it because it was little and cool!! Mine had a button on the floor between the seats and after one turned the key you had to push the button to start the car…” Very big question – Are you that old, or was the car?
OZ
OZ, I think I had it in 1972 or 73, it was second hand then, I don’t remember what year the car was, I take it by Tocino’s comment that it was an early 60s model, personally I’m 54 years old, 55 in a few days 🙂
Now, a Renault Kangoo, then, a Leyland bus.
Oz
Not quite. Going to Las Vegas with the family in August to celebrate the big 65, spent a happy hour this morning sourcing a car for a day or two. It’s a toss up between a 59 Caddy soft top and a ’32 Ford Hot Rod.
First car before I was allowed access to the Zodiac was a secondhand 850 Mini, whose engine blew up rather spectacularly, whilst travelling at as great spped as the Mini permitted!
Present transport: an elderly 740iL owned since new in 1998, and a 535D M Sport(2008). Zodiac owned since 1963 for warm sunny summer afternoons only…
OZ, like I said, roads/traffic in Cyprus are not worth anything better. If I had me druthers, and my permanent location was somewhere where you could enjoy driving it, I’d get one of these:
As it is, the A4 does for downtown, and the Landcuiser for the mountains 🙂 (One more dent makes no difference whatsoever.)
My Dad bought a new ‘push button’ Mini some time in the very early sixties, if memory serves me right. So, going back to the original question, do you prefer the Mini or your current crop of Nipponese rice cookers? Style or functionality?
OZ
PS. It’s the Autobiography version.
“Toc – Mazda 3 – Shudder!” Probably far more reliable that your Rover? 🙂
I would still to this day prefer the Mini, it had something that today’s cars don’t have, “Character”, today’s cars are far too …something … but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
OMG – You need to be told? Go for the 32 Ford my man, it’s a classic Americana vehicle, the 59 is too poofy. 🙂
OMG My bro-in-law has a couple of aged four door 1961 Lincoln Convertibles, which he refers to as alternative Jewish Canoes – must be some in-joke in American motoring circles. He used to cannibalise one for spares to keep the other operational. It was the same model I believe which was transporting John F Kennedy, when he was assassinated in Dallas…used now for ceremonial trips to the Icecream shop with his grandchildren!
CWJ
The Lincoln is an iconic vehicle for the very reason you mention, the assassination of JFK, He is one of my all time heroes, I might get to feeling a bit sombre if I was in one of them 😦
Tom – A leyland bus? You old hippie, you. 🙂
OMG – Either way you deserve a classic. Stroll on!
CWJ – Love the idea of the Zodiac “just for summers.”
Bravo – The Autobiography version would be a given, but is it a ‘Sport’ (which is for footballers) or a ‘proper’ one, which is the one I’d buy when the lottery numbers finally come up. It’s difficult to tell unless they’re side-by-side, when it’s blindingly obvious.
Toc – The RR Classic is surprisingly reliable. The new models à la Bravo have all sorts of electronic bells and whistles which are all the more to go wrong, but if you can afford one in the first place then you can afford the servicing bills.
OZ
Hey, apart from Araminta on OMG’s post, where de laydeez at?
OZ
Hello, OZ.
I’ve become very boring in my latter years, so at the moment, we have a Honda Civic Hatchback thingy, a BMW Tourer, and in a barn somewhere is a 1970 Jaguar something or other.
I drive the Civic normally, this is the second one I’ve had and it is by far the most boring of the collection but the most reliable.
Araminta – “Honda Civic Hatchback thingy” What? no mention of a twin turbo, 3 inch exhaust, headers, 6 speed synchro box or 80% racing fuel? 🙂
No, Donald.
None of those things, I’m afraid. I did say it was boring, and to add insult to injury it’s an automatic gearbox. 😦
Hiya Araminta – The Honda thingy you can take or leave to be honest, but the BMW Tourer sounds more interesting. I like the throwaway line, “and in a barn somewhere is a 1970 Jaguar something or other.” My Great Uncle David always had Jag MkIIs – the models later the getaway car of choice for villains in the Sweeney and beloved of Inspector Morse.
OZ
OZ, there are a lot of LRs knocking around Cyprus, of all ages, if I could have bought one instead of the Landcruiser, I would have – still and all, even for the Landcruiser, the toolkit is a hammer, screwdriver and spanner adjustable:-) (+ the obvious – masking tape and WD 40, of course.)
I honestly can’t remember what the Jaguar is but I hate it. It is only driven about once a year,and the last time I went in it, the brakes failed, and I narrowly escaped death. We all refuse to go anywhere near it, but it’s the last Classic Car of the collection and HE will not get rid of it!
I used to drive a 1948 Land Rover with a canvas top, and a rather uncomfortable bench seat.
The first time I went to fill it up with petrol I couldn’t find the petrol cap and neither could anyone else. I had to take it to a Rover garage and they showed me where they had hidden it!
VW GOlf Diesel. Reliable and good in snow. Can’t compete with this lot!
Nor should he, that is a classic, the differential in those things is used to make some of the best hot rods ever, very nice cars, they just require a lot of maintenance and tender loving care
Bravo – I don’t expect modern Landcruisers are any less complicated than a modern RR, but if you go back far enough any Land Rover can also be dismantled and repaired with a hammer, spanner adjustable and a tin of WD40.
Araminta – As you probably remember, the petrol tank and associated filler cap were under the driver’s seat, with another under the passenger’s seat if you bought an ex-military version. The tank changeover switch was on the bulkhead. The bench seat was the mutt’s nuts as you could fit two ladies in the front and six on the bench seats in the back. Happy days!
OZ
Under the drivers seat? 🙂
Pseu – Very sensible for your present duties, I am sure. Perhaps a Golf GTI next time, hmmmm, but what did you drive when you were younger and less responsible?
OZ
I do remember where the filler cap and tank was located, but it took a while to find it, the first time!
There was a great deal of head-scratching, and “I dunno” involved though, OZ.
Yes, Toc.
Not really obvious though! 🙂
OZ, of course, the reason I didn’t buy a LR was that, although there are lots of them knocking around Cyprus, of many and varied vintages, they are as scarce as hen’s teeth on the market – people don’t give them up, they just go on and on. One of these times I’ll be around when there’s an auction on one of the Sovereign bases…
Speaking of easy fixin’.
Hee hee, LW, but if you want proper well ‘ard :-
Listen to the commentary for the weights of the various pieces of kit. This competition was stopped a decade ago on elf ‘n’ safety grounds.
OZ
Bearsy and Boadicea’s current chariot –
Oh Jeez, Bearsy – Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me that really isn’t The Chariot with all that recycled Tic-Tac dispenser on the front? Sob! It’s so bad I need to go and bleach my eyeballs. I so much preferred the Consul and the Triumph, but there again what can you expect from some bastard that cut me up on the A3 50 years ago in that ‘orrid orange car.
😀
OZ
Sorry OZ, but I don’t understand what that means. It’s a Ford Territory, 4.0 Litre, Aussie outback-capable, tough version of the effete Pommie Range Rover. What’s your beef? 😕
… perhaps you refer to the plastic-based safety crumple-zone? You’d prefer a solid roo-bar, I suppose?
Hee hee, Bearsy. Tic-tacs are small, oval-shaped mints that come out of a plastic dispenser rather like big artificial sweeteners and I was referring to the ‘plastic-based safety crumple zone’. You’ve been reading that sales brochure again, haven’t you? I’m sure it is fine for the CBD, but, yes, I would want something much more substantial, albeit less urban stylish, on the front if I was venturing into ‘roo territory.
Give me an effete Pommie Range Rover any day. 🙂
OZ
Bloody Toorak Tractors! 😦
RRs struggle with back streets, and fall to pieces on unpaved Aussie roads, OZ; they can’t even venture into the real bush. The Territory, on the other hand, laughs at such experiences. I don’t know where you get the ‘insubstantial’ bit from – let’s have a little competition next time you’re here! 👿
Territories are also half the price of that imported lemon, which is important to an impecunious Bear! 😆
Try it on corrugated dirt roads !
Bearsy, whilst I allow that the Range Rover has also gone a bit ‘Toorak’ in recent incarnations, the RR Classic such as mine was the epitome of 35 years of development, which is probably about 34 more than the Ford. I would additionally wager that the approaches to your spread are somewhat less ‘of the bush’ than that to The Cave.
https://charioteers.org/2010/05/17/a-lope-to-the-cave-for-janh/
Nighty night to you and a cyber-hug for Boadicea.
OZ
Oh dear, you’ve gone all touchy. Sorry OZ, I’m sure your Range Rover is infinitely superior to my poor man’s Territory, and that Portugal has far more rugged tracks than Australia could shake a stick at.
I genuflect to the demise of humour.
Again.
😥
Rest assured, Bearsy, my Honda Civic thingy is by miles the worst car on this thread. 😉
But do I care?
No!
Bearsy, my dear chap – that comment is unworthy of you. I’d hoped you know me better than that by now, but I apologise if my goodnight message caused offence – as always with me, none was intended. I’m going to bed now only because it’s approaching 11PM here, pitch black, five degrees C, blowing a rainy gale, the fire has gone out and I’m knackered.
I would hate to end what I hope has been a fun post on a sour note. Gizza kiss 🙂
OZ
Nighty night, Oz, and it’s been an interesting post.
Never criticise a man’s car.
You can criticise his wife, his education and his kids, but never his car or the size of his manhood.
I should know by now.
Sigh. 🙄
Good for you, Araminta.
Didn’t cause me offence, OZ, but I thought I had inadvertently offended you. Hence my effusive backdown – I find I avoid black eyes that way. 😀
Kiss? Grrrrrr!!!
Night, Bearsy.
Sometimes it’s much easier being female. 😉 I cannot get excited by cars any more but then it’s all down hill really after the heady days of Healeys and TR’s.
Oh dear, oh dear, boys!
My first car,after driving my father’s, was blue with four wheels and an engine. I then moved on to a white one with a sunroof – very useful for sons keeping an eye on their father’s hot air balloon when we were on retrieve. Then a red Fiesta with the same equipment. In other words they all got me from A to B. What more does one need?
Night Minty, night OZ.
Araminta – Well, I suppose a Honda Thingy must be a bit of a disappointment after Healeys and Tr’s.
Sheona – Where have you been all my day and, having personally been responsible for lots of photographs of meat to be left on the Photo Comp post, where’s your’s?
Bearsy – Nighty night. I really am going this time.
OZ
p.s. Mwhaaa! xx
OZ, I tried to have a word with some local muntjac deer about starring in my photo. They were very unwilling. And the sun has hardly shown itself for days and I couldn’t manage to post a photograph here anyway, so I gave up. Sorry.
An Austin Healey Sprite then MG for years, now a manual Accura. Is that Toyota? Some Jap crap anyway, it was a spare one lurking so I misappropriated it rather than spend the money on buying a new one. I don’t believe in wasting money on cars they depreciate!
Spousal unit has a large Ford 4×4 as we are off road a lot up on Mt Baker with all the trimmings.
Not actually interested in cars, as long as it goes! I prefer manuals to automatics.
Mine looks like a rolling greenhouse, full of potting supplies, wellington boots and dead bulbs etc etc. All cars are full of mud from 3 dogs. One thing, no one ever wants a lift unless they are desperate!
Explorer? (Spousal unit’s 4×4)
Bearsy – Did you know that parking a Ford on your driveway diminishes the value of your house by whatever its price is thus making it worthless? 😦
On the other hand parking a Holden in front of you house adds to its value by at least half a million and gives it a touch of class rarely understood by Ford owners 🙂
(Just giving you readers an understanding of how the Holden/Ford argument in Australia approaches the Kiwi/Aussie love affair 🙂
Donald – before I retired, we had one of each, which as you know gives double odds of achieving a sale to an overseas buyer for a motza. Now I’m a Senior, Centrelink stands the penalty, not me. 😆
OZ, Silly me, by RR I thought you were referring to one of these:
Christina – your car’s contents reminds me of my brother in law, whose modus operandi in his younger years, when instructed to clean out the mess in his car – cigarette ends, empty beer and coke cans, paper handkerchiefs, and empty Big Mac boxes – was to open the windows and use the leaf blower – it’s surprisingly effective if somewhat unorthodox.
I had an open top MGB very much like this one after I left UNI and had done a couple of years work.
A real babe magnet but not much use as a passion wagon 🙂
Bum, can we have an edit button for our own comments, please, pretty please? 🙂
WordPress do not provide this facility; there is nothing we can do about it.
Mornin’ all
Sheona #61 – Anything from your own archive will do for the photo comp. As for posting, if all else fails read Bearsy’s excellent tutorials on the subject. 🙂
CWJ – Silly you indeed 🙂 There is only one RR. Anyway, I read somewhere that English toffs refer to their Rollers as ‘The Royce’
FEEG – Good choice, but I take your point on the passion wagon problem unless you were dating Olga Korbut. A cousin of mine had a bright yellow (and I mean YELLOW!) MGB GT V8 with the horrible American bumpers. Better than that, another cousin still has a Jensen Interceptor squirreled away awaiting restoration. I had a go in one of those back in the ’70s. What a beast!
OZ
🙂
But I would say that my present day Focus is faster, corners better and is far more usable as a passion wagon, although I am far too old for that sort of nonsense now!
Bearsy and OZ: Just for the avoidance of doubt, I understand the Top Gear guy calls the Range Rover “The World’s most unreliable vehicle”.
Land Rover and its derivatives at one time had almost 100% of the serious off road market, their current market share in the more challenging environments is less than 5%.
My winter ride is a Dodge 2500 4X4 pickup truck with a 6.8 litre diesel, if I can’t get around the expensive SUV’s stuck in snow I simply drive over them.
LW – Whilst I accept the quoted sales figures from the ingrates in the motor industry, I presume you write of the brand-franchised American-lite version of original, one and only British Top Gear, just like every current SUV and generic rice-boiler is a genetic throwback from the original, one and only Range Rover. Top Gear still uses Range Rovers as camera cars and chase vehicles so they can’t be all bad, and Clarkson has done a couple of very favourable reviews.
You know the rules – image of Dodge 2500 Penis Substitute required for perusal and inevitable p*ss-taking. 😀 and I do mean 😀
OZ
OZ: Well I watched the show in High Wycombe last July so I suppose it was the UK version, Clarkson was vitriolic about the poor old tractor.
You need a picture of my car? I’m with CO, it lives outside and never gets washed and when I do freshen up the inside I do it with the pressure washer.
It’s 11F degrees outside this morning (about -12C) I’ll see if my Japanese camera can handle that.
Whimper! Might need some automotive and meteorological Viagra here. 😦
OZ
Oh look, a half-tilt land rover!!! We had one of those, OZ. Circa 1953 and we had it for a couple of years – late seventies. The funniest windscreen wiper and a big round heater which was quite noisy and really chucked it out the heat. The draughtiest, most fun vehicle we ever had.
Under the bonnet was a revelation. Everything was so big and spaced out. It was like an engine for Beginner Mechanics. It needed an Imperial set of spanners. None of your metric rubbish.
My first springer spaniel Scamp used to sit in the front but also loved skidding around in the back poking his head out.
My God LW you have a Dodge pick-up? I drove one of those once. It’s like driving a Subaru and a tank you are so far off the ground. Fantastic fun though. You really don’t feel much of what you’re going over, what with the suspension and those massive tyres. Very bouncy 🙂
OZ, the things I do for you, it’s coold out there.
The Pontiac Vibe AWD is on the left
The supercharged Buick Park Avenue is in the middle
The beast is on the right
I’m 6’2″ in my socks, with the cap on it just fits in the airport parking garage, 6’8″ clearance
Cheers, LW – I’m duly impressed. Whereas your Beast might be fine for the wide open spaces of the Eastern US, if you visited The Cave you’d have to walk – low overhanging boughs on the access track, not to mention 300′ drops into which the offside wheels of your vehicle would probably fall. Sky…trees…ow! Sky…trees…ow! Sky…
OZ
Oh Jan! Half tilt…imperial spanners…springer spaniel!
You’re pressing all the right buttons here, sweetie. 🙂
OZ
Now then lets talk about something far more interesting like the contents of jewellery boxes.
On second thoughts with you lot being of the ‘wrong’ sex, lets not…….
I don’t think you are allowed jewellery boxes are you?
Oy OZ!
What happened with the film day with the new lady at Christmas?
We never did hear the sequel.
I have two ‘jewellery’ boxes as you call them stuffed with tie clips, livery pins and cuff links dating from the year dot. Happy memories with each one.
Tine, personalised cigar humidors.
Sorry, Christina, nor will you. Like any gentleman, a Wolf never tells. 🙂
Is a jewellery box the same thing as an Orchid Ballroom?
OZ
LOL wicked wolf!
ps: I thought the spanners would get your juices flowing. 😀
Jan – I really must put aside all impure thoughts. You’re a bigger flirt than Val, you, and that’s saying something! 🙂
OZ
Well I’m glad whatever happened at least happened!
Bravo, like that answer!
Land Rovers are one thing, and I’m quite prepared to doff my hat to them and their history. But Range Rovers were created for the green wellie brigade who know naught of farming, nor real terrain.
LW’s Dodge gets a guernsey from me, I’d love to be able to afford one (if they do a RHD version).
Just a thought Araminta. That series 1948 model would be worth more than a few quid now being one of the first.
Too right, Toc, but then all the cars we had in our youth would probably be worth a few quid.
Bearsy, Sir, I beg to differ. The original design by Charles Spencer King (hence the limited edition CSK Range Rovers) was an up-market farmers’ runabout with pkastic seats and rubber floors that could be cleaned with a hose.
Unfortunately, other designers of what became SUVs and rice-boilers hijacked the idea into suburbia long before Range Rover Ltd caught on, hence the current sales figures.
OZ
What is a “rice boiler”, figuratively speaking?
No – A non-farmer’s pretend vehicle, to appeal to the landed gentry. Real farmers stuck to the Land Rover.
Dead on Araminta. Kids in my time even had Austin7’s . Lol.
OZ,
Do you work for Land Rover? If not, you should do. I would be pleased to see anything that shows Land Rover to be better than a Japanese vehicle. We are talking British crap here. 🙂
Bearsy and Toc – Like most things the Brits originially invented for the rest of the world to beat us at, cricket included. 🙂
OZ
Nighty night all 🙂
OZ
Night, OZ – I still don’t know what a “rice boiler” is. 😦
Sad to say that is very true. Hang on to your L/R it could be worth something at some time. Don’t hold your breath though.
The real rice-boilers?
Love the music, Donald. What is it, and who’s playing? It seems vaguely familiar.
Bearsy – No idea, it reminded me of the Pink Panther movies but I just don’t know
Bearsy: “Rice boilers” (or in the US “rice burners”) are Japanese designed or built cars, Toyota, Honda and their overpriced derivatives Acura and Lexus, and Subaru, Mazda etc. The name is also applied to Japanese motorcycles as opposed to real bikes like Harleys. Incidentally my Dodge truck was built in Mexico, funny old world we live in.
Thanks LW, much appreciated, the term doesn’t appear to have percolated downunder yet.
But – why?
So the Japs eat rice. Big deal. So do the Chinese, the Koreans, the Indians, the Pakistanis, the Thais, the Cambodians, the Vietnamese … It seems like a rather stupid racist taunt – or is there something cleverer about it that I lack the wit to appreciate? 😕
Hello Bearsy, Wiki. (the authoriy?) would say that it is racist, but as you say there are lots of rice eating folk out there (me included). It is certainly a somewhat childish taunt, with more than a hint of Jealousy or xenophobia about it, (plenty of both going around over here especially in the gearhead community).
It is less often aimed at aunt Ida’s Honda Accord sedan than at the “Boy Racer” modified cars that are certainly prevalent on the roads, usually noisy 4 cylinder Asian jobs with modified exhaust pipes and Nitrous breathers.
Adding fuel to the “fire” Italian Motorbikes are often called spaghetti burners.
And Alaskans call their sled dogs “Fish Burners”.
Oh, all right, I won’t call the automotive clones from Nippon ‘rice boilers’ any more, although even I eat rice and pasta occasionally. Jeez, what is the world coming to? 😦
Having said that, it rather surprises me that someone who was himself so outspoken last night against an Aussie ‘yooman rites’ claimant should be so offended by such an innocuous phrase as ‘rice-boiler’, which doesn’t even refer to a person. 🙂
Anyway, if them’s the rules, any references in future to Scousers and wheel hubs or wolves and bad attitudes will be distinctly frowned upon. I know my rights, innit.
OZ
Oh FFS, I’m not offended, and no, it’s not the bloody rules. Boadicea runs the site, not me.
I was asking a question – which LW very helpfully answered, giving me all the information I could possibly wish for (thanks LW). An ordinary question – got that?
I suppose you’ll be doing the Sipu-Kilcourse indignant semi-flounce, next. Doh! 🙄
For heavens sake, OZ! It was a simple question, asked in a civil manner – that’s all. Just as the question on Sipu’s post was.
Sometimes I wish people would just read what is written rather than assuming that it has other connotations.
And if I sound “p*d off” – I am. There are enough problems in running this site without people going looking for problems that aren’t there.
The next question is
What would you like to be driving next?
I’d like to be taught by the new Stig and have a go at being
“A Ma in a Reasonably priced car.”
Could be fun