[BITList] BP Monstrosities

[HUGH MCINTYRE]

Tuesday morning, 7.45

Robbo,

It poured all night, so everywhere (what I can see from the windows) is soaked.

I've been trying to visualise your BP twin-steer single-drive vehicles that couldn't cross a ditch.  I'll hold the images in my mind till you find a photo.  It has suddenly occurred to me that they were fuel supply vehicles to BP service stations, and that, in a way, has spoiled it.  Bang goes a picture of Australian roads full of them.

Your experience with the Aussie version of Jim Becket, you sitting on the bonnet of his car, etc, in slight measure parallels one of my own.  We had driven to Greenock in the old DAF and parked somewhere in town.  We did our shopping, put the stuff in the boot, the car started, but wouldn't move.  It didn't take long to see the accelerator pedal was doing nothing, ie, it dangled.  A quick look showed the cable to the carburettor had snapped.  Following this incident I always carried a front brake bike cable, but at the time I had nothing like that in the "get me home" stuff in the boot.  I removed the broken cable halves, and the rubber grommet through which it passed on the bulkhead, then looked for a substitute.  It was either string, or one leg of an old pair of lady's tights, I don't remember which, but I tied one end to the spring loaded carb lever, passed it through the bulkhead, and tied it to a small spanner. After a bit of practice, Janet was in the passenger seat pulling the spanner, while I steered, braked, and shouted orders, always forgetting the accelerator pedal didn't work.  We got home, but it was a hair raising journey.

Hugh.
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