I went for a 5 minute sit down with a bunch of blondes, Red joined us, 3 hours later my sides were hurting with laughter.
Red - tell us the story about the van with the offset pedals.....
And the journey with the broken clutch cable......
And, well, there were so many.
I used to buy and sell commercial vehicles.
One day I bought a little Fiat diesel van. It was quite old but in lovely condition and it was a dream to drive, the only thing was, the pedals were slightly offset to the right, no problem once you got used to it, after driving it for a day or two I didn’t even notice it anymore
Then my brother Joe came to visit me and asked me to sell him the van. I sold it to him at cost, with the proviso that if he re sold it I would take it back at the same price
He brought it back the next day, when I asked him why, he told me this story
On the road between Worksop and Mansfield there is a very long steep hill with traffic lights at the bottom, apparently he had been going down this hill at a fair old lick.
When he tried to put his foot on the brake to slow down, he accidentally pressed the clutch instead, obviously the pedal went right to the floor without slowing the van at all and Joe thought the brakes had failed. Instinctively he pressed down even harder on the pedal, in fact he pressed so hard that the drivers seat was torn free from its moorings and fell into the back of the van, taking Joe with it
as the now driverless van hurtled down the hill toward the traffic lights, an understandably terrified Joe lay on his back in rear, flailing his arms and legs like an upturned tortoise, trying desperately to right himself and get back into the cockpit
With about 100 yards to go he managed to lean into the cab and wrench the handbrake on. The back wheels locked up and the van, along with Joe, both squealing like banshees, shot through the lights broadside and came to rest about 50 yards on. When he stepped from the van (Via the rear doors) he found he was parked neatly against the curb, facing the wrong direction. The only indication of his adventure was a huge snaking skid mark, and smell of burned rubber
After smoking a cigarette, he re-attached the drivers seat as best he could and drove the vehicle very slowly back to me
He didn’t drive slowly because of the scare; the friction from the skid had worn a huge flat spot on both rear tires causing the van to bob up and down as he drove
“It was awful” he told me “I had to drive at 10 mph and everyone who saw me burst out laughing, I felt like bloody Roy Rodgers on Trigger”
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