16th August 2004
The telephone rang one evening a few years ago and when I answered a man with an English accent asked for my husband. "He's not here," I said "but could I take a message?" "Tell him I've bad news for him", said the voice, "the car won't be ready for him next week." "This is bad news indeed, " I said, the hair rising on the back of my neck (we at that moment had seven cars). "Tell me more." The man went into dreadful details about crankshafts and pistons and so on. I tutted and sucked my teeth in a sympathetic and knowledgeable manner and said I'd pass on the "Bad News". One of our sons had been sitting at the kitchen table reading during all this and when my husband came in a few minutes later he said, "Dad, you've been busted." This was how the first Tatra came to live with us, because its health improved and it arrived about a month later.
Old car collectors are not just problems themselves, their collections are too, because they consist of seriously big toys. The other cars were Fiat 500s of various sorts and a Volkswagen, but this Tatra was enormous. It stood four square outside the house with me trekking around it with the shopping. It was the smart car made in Czechoslovakia for decades and much loved by communist leaders. Most exciting of all, the engine (air cooled) is in the back and there is no boot so all one's junk has to come inside.
Imagine my joy when it was announced a few weeks ago that for my holidays I would be going to Bonn to collect another of these prizes, this one fifty two years old, and drive it back. Thanks to me seeing an ad for Germanwings Airways on the bus we got to Cologne-Bonn Airport fairly cheaply. It was raining, as it did all over Europe for most of July, but we got to the garage near Bonn the next morning by S Bahn and foot.
The car was designed by Hans Ledwinka, a friend of Porsche. It was a lovely dark green, stream lined, with a fin over the engine at the back. The group of men stood around admiring it. I admired it, too, but like the skunk at the lawn party I upset the atmosphere by pointing out that it had no number plates. My husband had insured the car in Dublin with the German numbers so before we could move a metre those number plates had to be found. They were found and instructions on how to get out of Bonn were given. "Turn left and left again" (and head for Dublin) and off we went in the rain, for about one hundred metres and then the wind screen wipers stopped.
Back we went and hours later, after the motor for the wipers had been rewound, off we set again. This time we went about five kilometres before the wiper on the driver's side gave up. Well, the rain was ferocious, we were on the Autobahn and the poor old thing had been doing its best for fifty odd years. I knew the feeling.
Neither of us speak German apart from "Haben sie ein Zimmer", etc., so we limped along for Belgium. The car is right-hand drive because thus it was fifty years ago in Middle Europe and I was described as totally inadequate because I couldn't accurately enough assess the speed of huge juggernauts coming up beside us - very, very, very fast. Although I was very insulted it was not possible for me to get out even at the speed we were going but at the first sign of Belgium soil we got off the autobahn.
Now, due to many motoring holidays in France (and breakdowns) my French for car parts has got quite good. First you need a shop (magasin) for tools (outillages). Then get a box (boite) of spanners (cles - you may know them as 'keys', I know them as 'spanners'). 'Par brise' means 'windscreen' - very handy, got broken often in old France. 'Amortiseurs' are 'shock absorbers', and so on.
We got a suitable cles and fixed the wiper. We decided to go on the Routes Nationale in view of the fact that a loud clonking had developed in the right rear wheel. We phoned back to base to ask if they knew what it could be. Once reassured that it could not be a drive shaft (what a relief) we went on, me swearing it was a wheel bearing, the significant other tight lipped.
In Huy (still Belgium) the sound was so bad we had lunch to let the car and me calm down a bit. I have omitted to tell you that there are no seat belts. The car is so old one is not legally obliged to have them but I'm a real believer in them and before we go on the many trips that have been planned they will somehow have to be installed.
On through Belgium to Bailleuil near Lille where we spent the night having driven four hundred and forty kilometres. Kilometres are shorter than miles but it is still a long way. We stayed in a small hotel called "Pomme d'Or" run by Marie-Claude and Doris and the Michelin Guide should say it is worth a deviation just to see the bizarre interior and meet the cat who felt she should share our room.
On we clunked the next day to the ferry at Calais but with wipers working. Up Watling Street (A5) to London to show the car to the adult children working there. The engine got so excited by London that we had to stop on double red lines - a Tower of London incarceration offence - to do something with some flaps in the front to cool the engine in the back!
After a night in London for me and the car to cool off we were back on Watling Street heading for Holyhead, another four hundred plus kilometres. Near the Watford Gap clutch slip was diagnosed and I was informed that the engine would have to come out! Shrieks from me were met with reassurances that next week would do. The highlight of this stage of the journey was lunch in the Hand Hotel in Llangollen where a jazz band of golden oldies play every Sunday. A woman, definitely seventy, sang "Am I Blue" in the sweetest voice. Sunday lunch in the Hand is worth a detour, too.
Much cheered we clunked on to Holyhead. Queuing for the ferry we met two young Czechs who whooped with delight at the sight of the car. One took photographs to show his father who had had just such a car as a young man. The Czech Republic is bound to do well when it has such exotic cars to export and Irish men mad enough to buy them. Look out for us at the next old car show in aid of a Hospice.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
