Goaty Steve Buys a Car

I never considered my Rover 220 a particularly troublesome car but it was probably this one in which the image of Unlucky Alf inveigled itself into the collective memory of various close compatriots. It was a British Racing Green 220 GTi model bought when 2 years old with some 44,000 miles on the clock. It had a small dent in the front wing which the seller offered to either fix or knock £200 off the price. Well, £200 is £200, isn’t it? And it was a very small dent. This turned out to be a quite un-Alf-like decision. But small beer compared with what was to come.

The servicability misfortunes were mostly minor. A new alternator – ok, that wasn’t minor – and a broken clutch cable. Two weeks after the cable was replaced it went again. I was ready for a major argument with the garage until it transpired that it was the clutch cable housing that had sheared and not the new cable. And generally parts during scheduled servicing were pricey; I blame Honda for that, this being one of the joint Rover-Honda designs.

Then the other incidents started to happen. One Friday evening I parked outside my outside house, shot in to collect some things for a long weekend away with the future Mrs Alf, came back out 40 minutes later to see the car in the parking bay at the front of the house now somewhat askew. When I looked round the back I realised something big and heavy had clearly reversed into it. Even with some good fortune it was only the rear bumper that needed replacing yet this was still some £300 plus for parts, labour and spraying. That made it an insurance claim and I was to become something of a regular at the local body repair shop.

Next the car was stolen outside a friend’s house when we went round for dinner. I had a bemused look around the flats’ car park as I realised that some scroat had clearly made off with it. The police called later to stay it had been found abandoned by the side of the A14. The bonnet and windscreen were damaged as were the radio/cassette and door locks and ignition switch. Everything was repaired without a problem (well done the Co-op, shame you were so expensive when I bought the ZS), I got a new radio/cassette and I even had the dent on my wing repaired. That £200 saving was worth the chance.

Three months later it got broken into again! This time it was outside Mrs Alf’s flat overnight and the incompetent tw*ts didn’t even have the decency to steal the car after breaking the door locks and wrecking the steering column. Again. Another trip down to the bodyshop and another complete set of door locks. By this time you can imagine how thankful I was not to have been a cheapskate and protected my insurance No Claims Bonus.

The next one, sadly, I couldn’t blame on the criminal fraternity. During the heavy rains at Easter a few years back (after having nothing else to do all day, as will become clear, I recall well from continuous news it was the time of the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement). We’d been to friends in St Ives the night before and on driving home around the St Ives ring road, approaching one of the roundabouts, I saw ahead a large puddle of water. Ok, it was around 20-30 yards long, but another vehicle was stopped ahead of me at the roundabout and I assumed it had just driven through. How deep can it be, thought Alf? However, even a dip in the road before a climb up to the roundabout was enough to leave around 2 feet of water. The car went in up to the middle of the wheels and promptly stopped. To cut a long story short we trudged back to our friends’ house and begged a bed for the night. By morning the water had gone but the car was still immobile and it was an all day wait for the AA relay van due to the huge number of other calls they had received. Rather than being an electrical problem the engine had actually ingested water and when it tried to compress it had bent a con-rod. A nice job for the village garage and touch-and-go whether the insurance company would pay for repairs rather than scrap the car. Happily, it lived to drive again.

And so a couple of years later I sold it. To Goaty Steve. It was fully serviced, had a veritable library of servicing paperwork to accompany it and still Goaty Steve rather unreasonably expected a full year’s road tax. So, with 105,000 miles on the clock I bade good-bye. I warned Goaty that there was a bit of a whine on the clutch but it hadn’t got worse over the past 10,000 miles.

So of course the clutch failed a couple of months later although as that was the original clutch (as far as I am aware) that wasn’t bad going. Even if Goaty Steve didn’t see it that way. Anyway, we now live only a few streets away apart and he still lets me buy him beer from time to time.

But worse was to come during its Goaty career. During the 2002 World Cup Goaty and I met up one lunchtime to see an England game and Mrs Goaty was running him home. She turns up in my fine old 220 with all the coaching strip hanging off. All I can say is that Goaty Steve was quick to point out that he wasn’t reversing when it was all ripped off. It finally expired after a head gasket failure and was deemed beyond economic repair.