When a race team starts rebuilding an old banger using non-standard parts, you never really know with any degree of accuracy what you’re gonna get until you take it out for a good run…
Our Porsche from 10 years ago had been traded in for a used Scooby (Ed: Subaru in slang, apparently!) that turned out to be a complete bag of hammers and after a whole bunch of mechanics having unsuccessfully messed about with it, was traded in for a steady and reliable VW that got us back out of the championship.
The garage decided to change the head mechanic yet again and a relatively new young mechanic with very little experience of running a big dealership, appeared from nowhere having been found in a small garage under the arches just behind a big casino in London.
Many on-looking customers were not too impressed with this new young mechanic but as it turns out he really knew his VWs and he got her running like a dream…he then swapped the 4 cylinder turbo for a French built VR6 engine and all of a sudden was giving some Porsches, Jags and even Ferraris a good run for their money.
However, when running flat out one day towards the end of the season, something went bang and the old trusty VW limped home from somewhere in Liverpool leaking a bit of oil…but credit where credit’s due…she’d been running like a dream for most of the year and outperformed many more expensive cars with much bigger racing budgets…so well done Mr Pardew…very well done indeed!
Having stripped down the engine during the closed season waiting for new parts to come, the lead mechanic was told at the very last minute no new parts were available, and the engine was hurriedly put back together again using the same original bits but for some reason developed a dodgy miss-fire.
With the race season now well under way, the trusty mechanic just can’t get the engine running anywhere near as good as last year. When anything goes wrong the mechanic isn’t able to replace the parts with genuine VW parts and has to do with some cheaper components that simply don’t seem to perform as well and the warranty is now null and void.
At this point in the film something within Herbie normally sparks into life, he starts flying past the Jags and Porsches again and the baddies eat dust…but I’m not so sure which script we’re working off this year and there’s also another twist in there which could lead to us losing two major components in January.
Irrespective of what happens in January, Pardew needs to sort out this very annoying miss-fire. At the minute we’ve got Ford Escorts and Vauxhall Corsas overtaking us and the Ferraris, Jags and Porsches have already lapped us.
Any ideas as to what’s causing the miss-fire and what can put the script back on track please let us know!
Herbie Rides Again Part II coming your way soon…..fingers crossed!
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