I bumped Gothilde (my car)

Had a minor bump tonight. No other vehicles or people involved thankfully, and no speed was involved. It was a simple (rare) misjudgement on my part but I smacked the poor old girl right into a banked up mound of ground face first. There was a massive BOOM, and the seat belts jolted us all. I was doing a turn in the road, and I sort of misjudged. This was compounded by the fact that there was a sudden drop of a few inches at the side of the road that I didn't see, so the front wheels dropped off it suddenly as I moved forward, effectively dropping/driving the car straight into the mound.

But how spooky is this. When I bought the car, the previous owner handed me a few spare parts that he'd accumulated. He seemed a bit embarrassed when he handed me a brand new number plate for her. I thought it was a bit odd that he'd have one, when the ones on there were fine. Well following tonight's slight knock, I've assessed the damaged, and thought to myself 'just need to order a number plate sometime, not urgent', because there is now a crack in the front number plate. Then I remembered I've already got one. The previous owner must have known that somehow I was going to bust the number plate.

 

You's a right lucky lad there Clue...

 

The main thing is that no one was hurt and lucky that you had the spare number plate .

 

I said you should have given Gotilda to me. You mad Moderator you

 

On the theme of minor bumps, here's some vintage Top Gear, where one of their 'trials' was to crash cheap (£100) cars head on into a brick wall at 30mph.

Fast forward to 2 minutes in to see how one of Gothilde's siblings fared. Gothilde is a 940, the natural successor to the 740, which is featured in the clip.

!

Early 940s and late 740s had a common fault in that their speedo regularly failed, which was the case with Clarkson's car, so he hit the wall considerably faster and harder than the other two cars on the trial.

Of course I hope I never have to find out how Gothilde would fare in a similar situation.

 

I knew I was right when I suggested an alternative avatar!

 

Cos I kept my jumper on all day.

EDIT; just re looked at the pic. Obviously I didn't wear my jumper on my face. Did I have my beard on?

 

Don't remember a beard, so probably not

 

That'll be why then. When my beard grows, it only grows in certain patches, and left for more than a week, forms the number 53.

 

Would you believe it. Just the lad and I this time, same road, different point. We were on our way home. There is a point where the road bends sharp to the left, but it is wide and has excellent visibility, so as usual, I took it at about 30mph. Never a problem, as long as nobody has spilled anything on the road right on the bend, and as long as the car that finds said spillage isn't rear wheel drive and front heavy.

We didn't crash.

The back end flicked out really suddenly and we were suddenly broadside to the road. Luckily I didn't panic and steered into it, but I think I over compensated as the back end flicked the other way, then to make it even more scary, as we travelled sideways, the front wheels lost grip too, so for a moment all four wheels were skidding. I steered this way and that, as the car snaked and weaved, and for a few moments the car was so far off course I genuinely didn't think I could recover it, and to be honest I'd already written off the car in my mind and my mission was simply to try to coax the skid such as to minimise the force of the expected impact. As we were travelling sideways, I was worried that the impact with the curb might roll the car, or that the sideways jolt would bounce the lad off the inside of the car, so I figured if we're going to crash, I'd try to get it as frontal as possible.

By pure luck, the wheels found some grip and after a very violent jolt, I was back in control, with my heart doing about 200BMP.

I'm not going down that road again for a while.

 

I don't know. All looked normal, but with no warning I just lost all grip. I know from past experience that you do have to be a bit careful with rear wheel drive cars, and I never test the limits of a car, ever, but I know that Gothilde is generally pretty good at holding the road, so something was clearly not right. I know it must have been a spillage because grip came back just as suddenly as it went. If it had been my tires, or the fact that it had rained a few hours ago, I'd have expected a more gradual return of grip. There was no tyre noise either, not a single screech, which further convinces me that whatever I was on, was very slippery.

 

....That was close.....good job you had your wits about youGlad you're both safe