It’s been a year now since I decided that I needed a multi-coloured glassfibre bodied car in my life. So how is it going, and is the honeymoon well and truly over?
Well, the other night my wife (the long-suffering Mrs P) commented that she has never known any of my previous classics to inspire such polarised attention as the good old Scimitar currently sat on the driveway.
The reason for this statement was overhearing the Ocado delivery driver (how middle class eh?) first of all ask for confirmation that it was indeed a Scimitar and then go on to tell me how brave I am and that his brother once had one and as a result of the trials and tribulations he experienced, there is no way he would consider owning one. “Lovely car though”, he muttered before turning on his heels and heading on his way to the next delivery.
In fact, he wasn’t the first Ocado employee to comment. Several others have gone before him – all surprisingly knowledgeable about the Tamworth GTE; some even choosing NOT to remind me that a) “They won’t rust because they’re plastic” or b) “Princess Anne had one of those you know”.
The next day, the chap in the petrol station (my second home it seems these days), told me that the Scimitar was his dream car, but that he was too old to own one now. Not quite sure what he meant by that as last time I looked there was no official cut off age for being ‘daring’ enough to own one!
Oddly, it seems to be bikers that acknowledge the SE5a more than anyone else. Every week there will be several that pull alongside on the motorway before sticking a thumb up or nodding with approval. There is of course a chance that they are simply acknowledging the fact that if I did happen to hit them, the impact of the glassfibre may well be slightly kinder compared to that of steel, although, I’ll leave it to someone scientific to quote crash test figures and tell me what rubbish I am talking there…
