In the week before Christmas I finally said goodbye to my old shitheap Volkswagen Polo, but having been so busy since it’s only now I get the chance to look back on our time together. Here goes.
I got it off some guy from dundonald through gumtree for 300 quid after having been to see a few others (one of which was a registered write off, which still baffles me as to how it got insured) and it seemed a decent deal, it was only supposed to last 6 months or so before we got something else when I got a new better job. Things didn’t really work out like that though.
So, after nearly three years my old faithful companion failed it’s mot quite spectacularly and was resigned to the scrap heap.
Now, it reads like this mot was carried out the week before and the destruction was quick dignified process, it wasn’t, it lay in my drive, sorned for four months since that failure and replaced with a newer, bigger Peugeot as my main mode of transport mainly due to a mixture of laziness and bad luck. During that period it got used as an aid for me painting the outside of the house. One for throwing the dust sheets in so didn’t have to keep them in the house and also I rolled it in against the foot of the big ladder so I could go up and do the apex safe in the knowledge the ladders wouldn’t or couldn’t slide.
It was a v reg with no power steering, electric windows or CD player. Everyone you told about the lack of power steering said the same thing about having arms like Popeye. Popeye is one of those references that everyone uses when it comes to getting muscles, like Freddie Mercury is when you grow a tache, even though you would think by now they are maybe outdated. I didn’t get arms like Popeye, to be honest you hardly notice the lack of power steering and just get on with it. I mean you park about four spaces away from other cars in supermarket car parks in the hope that no one parks beside you and you don’t have to manouver too much when getting out and you try not to reverse park at anytime. But it’s fine, its all about adjusting.
The lack of electric windows wasn’t really an issue either, sometimes I wished I could open the passenger window while I drove but mostly I worry about stuff getting sucked out if they are open like on a plane so it actually worked out well. The radio being a tape player was interesting as we had got a house which we hadn’t moved into and in amongst the shite that was left by the previous owner was a New Kids on the Block tape which got a fair few airings in the polo before a CD player got fitted.
Other improvements I made were to stick my KFC personalised registration on it and also I debadged it. Or what I would consider debadging. I didn’t do that for any other reason than so folk didn’t know I drove a shitey 999cc motor or know the actual age of it through the dated font of the writing of 1.0l and polo that was on the boot.
When we got it I stayed down in Prestwick so it regularly made the journey back and forth to Killie. One of the first times I drove it up the bypass (keeping at 50) I thought I had broke it as it the rev counter was way up over seven thousand. I cursed the bastard that sold the heap of shite to me only to realise that instead of fifth gear I had put it in third.
More regularly it went the Dundonald way to my work at Moorfield. I always saw the same guy standing for his bus at 7.21 in Gatehead and wondered what he did for a living? Where was he going? When we moved up to Killie I didn’t use that road anymore and I never saw him again. I don’t really think about that much anymore, apart from when I just typed it out here, probably wasn’t worth mentioning.
It got me to a few comedy gigs, one in paisley where I drove up a one way street and another in Irvine where on the way back I passed the police who had comes off a bit of the road due to a deer being hit by a car or van and killed. It was genuinely strewn all over the road. Bits of leg and intestines all strewn all over the road. I was a bit worried as I approached as I assumed the police were doing spot checks and my motor in my mind was in ill health. But that was unfounded. Poor deer mind you.
Took it to Biggar for a wedding once, gunning the shitheap at 70plus for miles on a motorway was a bit different from scooting it to and from my work which is five minutes from my house. During the reception I nipped out to sit in the driver’s seat and listen to the last five minutes of the Barcelona v Manchester United final at Wembley through a fair amount of white noise. I mentioned the radio earlier but forgot to mention that mw didn’t work particularly well. In fact it didn’t work full stop if the engine was on but you could hear some when engine was off but it was through heavy static. So I found out about Barca’s win that way.
You might think I should just have used my phone to follow it through Twitter or even some sort of tv app but Biggar is pretty much north Korea when it comes to phone coverage so that couldn’t happen.
The old Polo even helped me up a few rungs of the manhood ladder when I changed the tyre. A tyre which burst on the way to my grans but I didn’t notice until the way back when
I could hear a grinding noise and couldn’t get it up to 50mph on the bypass back home. I assumed the engine was on it’s way out and frantically tried to get it hone without it blowing up. Once in the drive I jumped out and noticed it was down on one side and realised my mistake. The sparks must have been flying out the back as it grinded away on the wheel.
Luckily it never caused any problems, one of the advantages of not having a nice alloy wheel I suppose and the next day I put on the new tyre and reflected in my manly achievement.
Finally, I never had oor Cody in the car until the day before it’s road tax expired and I sorned it for good. So I took him a drive to Morrisons. Was good, wish I had done it sooner. He enjoyed it too, wee bit different from his usual mode of transport.
So that’s about that, sadly I never even seen it go. Was out driving around Kilmaurs trying to get my kid to go to sleep and came back and it was gone. What’s worse is that it was put on one of those carrier things and my wife says it went on the front overhanging bit.
Which is probably a load of shite now I think about it cos there is no way they had one of those vehicles in my wee cul-de-sac. I should probably find out exactly what happened but then again, do I really care? Best to draw a line under it here and now. Ta ta old pal.
The nhoJ 