APOCALYPSE? NOW THEN….
Deep in my impressionable past lurks a favoured short story concerning a stout police sergeant on a standard issue, un-sprung bicycle. The premise of the tale was that policeman and bike spent so much time joined at the saddle that an infinitesimally small yet relentless degree of molecular transfer actually took place; the rozzer became part bicycle, and vice versa.
On that basis, I’m slightly disconcerted to report that my arse is now almost entirely constructed of laminated ash.
On a positive note, this automatically equips me with the built in comforts of a wooden loo seat wherever I may roam. Less wholesome, though, is the enforced inclusion of a can of Pledge in my potty based paraphernalia to ensure my rump remains in spanking condition.
Now, I’m not sure if this ash based abhorrence is actionable. But if my solicitor gives it the green light, Top Gear, I’ll see you all in court. After all, it was your idea to send me on a 3500 mile trans-European sprint in search of the perfect solar eclipse. And it was definitely your idea to travel by Morgan.
Following idle threats of Ferrari, Nissan Skyline, Mitsubishi Evo and the like, the purgatorial pin ends up in the Morgan because, chortles the editor, “It’s the newest car around.” Which, of course, means it looks 60 years old straight out of the box.
This, then, is a full four seater based on the ever greenwood 4/4. Gone is the old rear bench seat, to be replaced by two lowered, folding, individual seats. In two seater format, this leaves all baggage resting atop the equivalent of a thieves’ pick ‘n’ mix parcel shelf. For, even with redesigned hood and window panels in place, the Morgan is easier to break into than a lidless dustbin and the only security on offer throughout comes in the shape of a lockable glove box.
Beneath a Tuscan villa’s worth of louvers lurks Ford’s 4-cylinder, 1.8 litre, 16 valve, 114bhp Zetec block which delivers passable power to the rear wheels via a 5-speed gearbox and suspension famous for its ability to communicate quite clearly to you whether the coin you’ve just run over is showing heads or tails.. And, underneath it all, we find the legendary 72 piece ash frame that has, of late, become so much an integral part of my life…
Now, my knowledge of astronomy is limited to two important facts: Firstly, Patrick Moore couldn’t knot a tie properly to save his life and, secondly, it’s always possible to tell which side he slept on last night by looking at his hair. The broader picture is somewhat harder to grasp. All I know is that a selection of celestial bodies zoom happily about up there without biffing into one another, and will continue to do so until long, long after I cease rubbing beeswax into my bottom.
However, extensive, bearded research reveals that, by a thrilling coincidence, the diameter of the sun is 400 times that of the moon and it’s also 400 times further away from us than Neil Armstrong’s footprints. So when, every now and then, the moon passes precisely in front of the sun, all the lights go out.
This latest eclipse will smear a skid mark thousands of miles long, but only about 60 wide, across most of Europe. Sadly, someone else in the office has discovered that the point of maximum eclipse will occur in deepest Romania where there’ll be 23 seconds more darkness than in Penzance. Needless to say, then, I’m not off to Cornwall.
A wild guesstimate affords me three days to get into position atop a small hill in the village of Ocnele Mari, Transylvania. But the best I’ve ever managed in a Morgan to date is to drive it gently round a selection of England’s more green and pleasant parts, so I’ve no idea how it’ll cope with a long haul, how quickly we can cover the ground and, indeed, whether the car will make it at all…
Sunday morning dawns dull and wet; ideal rag-top weather. By the time we’re half way across northern France, it’s raining hard. Inside the car. Despite the fact that it’s the full 20 minutes plus Band-Aids to take off, the hood fits as snugly as a tarpaulin thrown over a haystack. At speed, it strives to turn itself into a scale model of a stone-age burial mound; a 100mph Solisbury Hill. And the junction of screen and hood positively welcomes the water in; within seconds of the downpour starting the cockpit air is thicker with spray than the perfume section of a large department store. Three tiny windscreen wipers look like they’ve been constructed by those Vietnamese kids who carve helicopter gunships out of old Coke cans for the tourists, and prove about as useful as an Austrian navy.
Furthermore, most of the width of a Morgan is on the outside; great for firing your Tommy gun at Al Capone from the running boards, not so clever inside. Cramped footwells leave nowhere to rest your clutch foot, and the seats are to ergonomic efficiency what a magnifying glass is to safe eclipse viewing. Despite sitting, to all intents and purposes, in each other’s laps, driver and passenger must still shout to communicate. Flat out, wind and tyre roar completely blanket the Zetec’s muted burble. So fitting a stereo in a Morgan constitutes optimism akin to a mouse crawling up an elephant’s leg intent on rape.
None of which, of course, matters a fig to the average Morgan owner. This is a car for pottering indolently, lid off, down leafy lanes to your favourite weekend hideaway with carefully selected squeeze in the passenger seat. It is supposed to look, and feel, like a 60 year old car. Motoring from a gentler, perhaps more civilised age. On that basis, I can understand the appeal. But I suspect even the men of Morgan themselves, whilst confident of the car’s capacity to survive such an outing as ours, might blanche somewhat at the thought of actually having to take part.
The Germans, however, just love a Morgan. Everywhere we go -which effectively constitutes exciting motorway fuel and snack stops- I’m forced to whip out the Chamois to wipe off the enthusiasm of partially masticated bratwurst flecked all over the bodywork by broken-English-whilst-munching admirers.
By early evening, the sun’s out in force, but we’re buggered if we’ll take the hood off. You develop a strange momentum when travelling long distances in a hurry; just another 100 miles, then another… And stopping for anything but
fuel is right out. Nevertheless, it’s still late evening as 720 miles clicks up on the odometer and we burble up to our hotel deep within southern Germany’s Black Forest. This is prime sky staring territory, and the hotel is infested with an American group chaperoned by veteran eclipse gazer Bill Kramer. Americans do not, let’s face it, travel well, and Bill’s attempts to chat with us are endlessly interrupted by a stream of vexing questions from perplexed group members: “Will I be cold tomorrow? Why doesn’t anybody speak English? Is the sun hotter here? What are trousers?” and suchlike.
When we explain that, unlike the world and his wife, we’re not camping locally but have decided to forfeit a wok in the Black Forest for the very epicentre of the eclipse, Bill tells us that NASA are only predicting a 60% chance of clear skies at our destination. Then an irredeemably gloomy Romanian exile in the party points out that “you don’t have chance to arriving by Wed-nes-day” anyway. Instant panic. And a dawn departure planned. As we creak off for a short night’s limb straightening, one jaunty American asks “Do Morgans still ride like a date rape, buddy?” Yup. And thanks for the reminder…Buddy.
Monday morning is cloudless, and it is the work of but many IQ taxing minutes to fold the Morgan’s hood away, stash the window panels, er, wherever, and find out if we can travel at undiminished speed whilst tanning. Answer yes. Sort of… Austria turns out to be rather beautiful in a cloying, chocolatey, every window box groaning under the weight of geraniums sort of way. Trouble is, when you’re helming a Morgan at over 100mph whilst being lashed to death by your own quiff, tourism comes pretty low on the agenda.
It requires huge concentration to drive the car at speed for hours on end; the big wheel must be fought, Fangio like, every inch of the way. Slowing down merely allows the front end to pick up on the frequency of road surface undulations bounced in by countless lorries, which sets it leaping up and down like a blue movie on fast forward.
I can tell you little, then, of Austria except that every valley is identical to the one wherein bike straddling Steve McQueen tried to jump the barbed wire in The Great Escape, and that it’s much, much noisier than France or Germany: Lid off, the Morgan’s less noisy than yesterday. But the surrounding traffic’s another matter… You have no idea how much racket a speeding tyre makes until you drive past one or two (thousand) two feet from your ear.
Covering Europe quickly by motorway is simplicity itself, though. Just aim for the big cities and then fail to visit them en route. This is certainly the preferred way to dispatch Hungary; hot, flat, dull, nothing to see. Er, well, not absolutely nothing, in truth. For, when the motorway expires for good just east of Budapest, progress slows to an agonising crawl which is, I suspect, only partly due to traffic: Because every lay-by we pass from here to the Romanian border three hours away is occupied by a remarkably well constructed gurl in a bikini and high heels; like coming across an endless succession of Miss World contestants who’ve become badly waylaid on their way to the swimsuit section of the competition.
Merrily measuring our progress in belle dames sans merci rather than milestones, we inevitably fall foul of the police. Stopped on the basis of some entirely fallacious charge -wearing a luminous watch in a built-up area did the
damage I suspect- we’re yelled at a lot and fined about £15 which goes straight into the top pocket. Thieving bastards. Still, I’ve been warned about this, and told it only gets worse in Romania…
“PAPERS” screams the huge moustache in the border booth. “REGISTRATION PAPERS OF CAR” bangs a great, hairy fist on the counter. Two hours of light queuing brings us face to face with a man who should definitely push his bed up against the wall so that he can only get out of one side in the morning. Now, we don’t have registration papers for Morgan’s prototype No.2. We have a chit that says we are who we are and that it’s OK for us to drive the car implausible distances all over the shop. This is “NOT CORRECT”. And the “Now look here, my good man…” approach is ill advised if your dodgy visa doesn’t let on that you’re a journalist. Since arguing will probably bring on the buckets of iced water plus cattle prod we do the British thing; say nothing and look at shoes. For about an hour.
Mercifully, moustache eventually unearths a chum who deems us non-subversive and, five minutes of assorted rubber stamp flamenco later, were in. Straight to a hotel in nearby Oradea.
Whenever a guide book tells you that ‘This is a proud race who fiercely guard their traditions and independence’ you just know this actually means ‘Here’s a third world country full of deeply rude people whose only interest in you is to stiff you out of as much money as possible by any means possible’. Not, of course, their own worthless currency; it just has to be the Yankee dollar. On First showing, then, Romanians are a proud race who fiercely guard their traditions…
“Just go away and don’t cause any trouble” the receptionist tells snapper Phil when he enquires as to breakfast times. “I’m sorry?” he counters. “GO, AWAY” she explains. Still, at least there are two Kalashnikov toting guards in the car park to guarantee the car will still be there in the morning. Unless, of course, someone makes them a better offer than the “deposit” we’ve already handed over.
“Speed limit is 15kph in town and 19 on roads” the uniformed female shot putter had told us at the border last night. Happily, she meant 50 and 90 respectively. Unhappily, her original figures prove nearer the mark. No longer constrained by the Soviet hammer and sickle, Romania is still very much a scythe and pitchfork economy; the countryside mostly untilled. Hay seems to be the major crop, and this mostly makes its way down the middle of the road at marginally less than walking pace disguised as a giant, glam-rock hair do on hooves. Private car ownership is still a rarity so, aside from legions of previously owned bullock carts, lorries are the other major road users. The slowest, noisiest, dirtiest lorries in the world; each one a 5mph soot factory with a horizontal chimney. And head height in a Morgan matches lorry exhaust height to the inch. There are no mysophobic Morgan owners; Phil and I spend a cheery morning turning black, inside and out.
Every single scarce private car is a Renault 12, re-badged a Dacia (so that’s where they all went…) Each one you overtake is replaced by an identical one -even down to the colour- blithering about in front of you. Which elicits an uncomfortable feeling of never really making progress. Romanians are
superbly dangerous drivers; the verges are littered with chickens and the roads awash with people playing chicken. The concept of safe overtaking seems completely alien here, and after a couple of Andrex share bolstering moments we’re forced to tiptoe round every corner for fear of our lives.
Yet this would be ideal Morgan touring turf were it not for the fact that the roads have now degenerated to a point which truly can only be described as FUCKING AWFUL. That legendary Morgan suspension, confronted with roads modelled on a 1:1000 scale relief map of the Himalayas, begins to supply us with rather more information than is palatable; the car makes progress like a frog in a sock.
By mid-afternoon, we’re vibrating wildly through the forested hills of Transylvania. Dracula country. Which is surprisingly dull; no eerie hill top eyries in evidence at all. Besides, Bran -the castle attributed to the great haemoglobin gourmet himself- is an entire mouthful of loose fillings away, and actually has about as much to do with him as All Bran. His real name was Vlad Dracul; a 15th century prince who used to drive a wooden stake non-fatally through the backbones of his enemies and then sit down to dinner with this sickly side show. Pity he didn’t own a Morgan; he could have just taken them for a nice long drive.
But in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. And in the land of the barely rolling Renault 12, the Morgan attracts one hundred times the attention any Ferrari could ever muster on the King’s Road. As we shudder into Ramnicu Valcea on Tuesday evening, barely able to believe we’re just 3 miles from our destination, a parade of cheers and wolf whistles marks the progress of our increasingly swollen egos through the town. And it’s always the women.
Now, I need to talk about the women for a moment. And not because I’m the sort of man who thinks ‘harass’ is two words. The ancient seer Nostradamus predicted that, when the world ended with a heavenly cataclysm, civilisation would start again in Romania. So it’s vital that, in the event that this eclipse will actually re-boot the planet, Phil and I check out that with which we’ll have to breed willy nilly; purely in the interests of the survival of the human race, you understand.
When it comes to ex-eastern Bloc women, years of watching armoured cars with hairy bumpers entering the Olympics has always conjured images not so much of horse-play as horse brasses. Wrong. The women are stunning. Almost universally. And standard daywear of nought save naughty nightie and high heels leaves nothing -or rather, everything- to the imagination. Come on cataclysm.
“You drive all way from England?” they titter. Yes, we blush. “You mad. How old old car?” they enquire. Two weeks, we simper. “No understand.” they frown… Nope, me neither. But that’s a Morgan for you; it either makes sense to you or not.
And so, after a somewhat Spartan night in nearby Bistrita monastery, we finally trundle into the one horse hamlet of Ocnele Mari. The point of greatest eclipse is actually a mile up a dirt track, so we must abandon the Morgan to the busy fingers of the local urchins… Well, at least that’s where NASA says it
is. The Japanese disagree, placing the epicentre two kilometres hence. But since NASA have put a man on the moon whilst the Japanese have only managed to install him in a Suzuki Jimny, we’ll go with the Yanks.
Car safely holed up with the world’s friendliest family in the village below, here we are on top of a small hill beside the ‘Lady’s Lake’; actually a lady’s swamp with bits of Renault 12 sticking out of it. The entire local community has puffed up the hill, including the mayor and the local priest, armed with all manner of eclipse friendly spectacles. I’ve opted for the full welder’s mask. Cue all round Darth Vader impersonations and giggling.
We’re lucky. The cloud cover of dawn rolls away just moments before the moon starts nibbling at the sun’s extremities, and I spend a happy hour lending my mask to the most scantily clad Romanians I come across. Finally, the big moment; all 2 minutes and 23 seconds of it. The air changes to a gloomy hue I’ve never seen before and over the horizon, travelling at about 1600mph, races a silent shadow. Darkness, just brighter than a moonlit night, arrives so suddenly I find myself listening for an audible thud. Now, at this point I’d hoped for a reverential hush as cocks crow, dogs howl and astonished wildlife tumbles from the trees. Fat chance. The hillside erupts to a cacophony of celebration and applause (er…) accompanied by the daft American winding of arm held by ear that suggests the owner has a clockwork head. “YEAH. ECLIPSE… WHOOOHOOOO. WOW… ECLIPSE. YEAH” explains the man next to me. Odd. He’s Romanian, yet chooses to get over-excited in English. “Yes, thank you, I know” I mutter.
It is, I confess, absolutely spectacular. And weird. One of the most alien sights I’ll ever witness leaves me, for once, dumbstruck. All too quickly, just as suddenly as it began, it’s over. A bottle of the local fire water, Palistra, does the rounds. Carefully does it; the penalty for driving with so much as a drop on board here seems to be… death by chickens, or somesuch. Come to think of it, the penalty for simply living around here seems to be a risk of death by chickens: Having just sprinted across Europe on an exclusively junk-food diet I ask a local if there’s a good restaurant in Ramnicu Valcea where we can all go and celebrate the fact that we might have to start breeding with the natives willy nilly at any moment. “In this hot weather” he explains, “it is not good to eat the food; the meat is unsafe.” Come, come kind sir. Surely there must be one place you could recommend? “Yes. The MacDonalds is very good.”
And then the phone rings. London calling. Bugger. No cataclysm. No breeding; willy nilly or otherwise.
Right. That’s it. Enough. I’m going home. We pause only long enough to collect our luggage from the monastery where the nuns -believing the eclipse to signal the coming of the Antichrist- have hidden under their chapel pews throughout, and pay them 3 million lei for our, um, cells. This works out at, oh… about three turnips a night. As if to give credence to their fears, an astonishingly powerful storm breaks overhead; lightning you can read by to the accompaniment of the Grand National run round your bed on corrugated iron. None of which distracts one nun from counting a shoebox worth of currency with a speed and un-saintly alacrity to put any bank teller to shame, before re-joining her pals under the pews.
The return journey seems even longer, were that possible, than the outbound slog and is enlivened only by the fact that the Morgan trim starts to fall apart around us like a flower arrangement in a thunderstorm. Mercifully, the Ford based bits keep throbbing away unfazed and, three days later -haemorrhoids now the shape of flying saucers- we splosh, knackered, across the Channel.
Timeless as canal water, English as sixpence, the Morgan marque runs on and on. Judging by our reception across the 3571 miles of Europe we’ve covered this week, there will always be a big enough market for this wire-wheeled dinosaur to keep the order books brimming. And, let’s face, any Morgan owner contemplating such a journey would allow weeks rather than days in which to enjoy the somewhat slower pace of rag-topped motoring from another era which the car so beautifully encapsulates. For myself, though, you can stick it where the sun don’t shine.