Tags
As kids we all believed in dragons in the forests and monsters of the sea. What do grown men still believe in when looking at cars? We all know that clever car salesmen would not dream of starting a car yard without also decorating the yard with flags all strung around strings leading to the ‘special car’ usually elevated on a kind of scaffolding or throne. It all goes without saying that all cars for sale must have their bonnets open as well. Why?
What are the expectations of those interested in cars of finding underneath those bonnets?
This morning I promised to walk to the Moss-Vale shopping centre to buy our special Sunday treat, not a car, but a much more modest item, croissants that a Vietnamese bakery excels in making here locally. On the walk to the bakery one passes two car sales yards. The first on the left side is huge. It sells both second hand and new. Hondas, Hyundai’s, and Subaru’s. All bonnets ajar as if yawning, greet those that happen to drive or walk by. Below the bonnets and at the front there appear increasingly aggressive looking grills. With some squinting and going back to the years of ‘monsters in the sea’, they are looking like predatory fish, a mixture perhaps of shark and piranha.
The second car yard sells Skoda’s and Peugeots, new as well as second hand. Perhaps in keeping with a more modest and aesthetic Euro approach, there are no flags but just open bonnets. This morning I noticed a young couple standing in front of the first and very large car yard. The girl was standing somewhat away and was kind of moving both her arms up and down and sideways as if exercising or perhaps showing a bit of impatience or boredom. The boyfriend had his head hidden underneath the bonnet. Now, this head under the bonnet has always intrigued me. What are they hoping to see there? It is only ever men that look under the bonnet. Is it a sex differentiation thing? Are they doing a kind of metal muff diving here ( scusi signorina), or is it a genetic predisposition, afflicting both hetero and homo men? Surely all cars have an engine under the bonnet and what can you ascertain by just looking?
Only once have I seen a woman under a bonnet. Her car had broken down. I stopped and she was wiping the air-filter with a pink shopping bag rag. Trying to clean up a bit, I suppose. Her battery lead had disconnected and after I fastened it she managed to start the car and drove off.
After I bought the croissants this bloke had his head under another different car bonnet and the girl friend had given up her arm swaying, was sitting somewhat uncomfortable on a thick chain swinging between the car yard’s posts separating the yard from the grassy knoll. She was facing the road.
I just walked by
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Although I am familiar with the workings of the infernal combustion engine, I’d much rather talk about the artwork… Who painted it? It’s fantastic!
🙂
LikeLike
The woman with the broken car wiping something with a rag under the bonnet, was just another stressed woman who reached to her wettex and started cleaning…that’s what women do, doing something practical, something that has to be done…all this cleaning is her meditation, her prayer…when the work is done, often the solution has also been found!
I remember Jeannette Howard saying that when things looked bad she put on her washing machine. The French born American writer Anais Nin said something similar ,mending socks or doing gardening or polishing furniture…
LikeLike
Mrs Howard would have had the washing machine going hell for leather when her husband was PM!
LikeLike
That explains why his shirts and tracksuits were always so clean… and I think she might even have put little Johnnie himself in the wash too… He wasn’t a dirty rotten bastard; he was a clean rotten bastard!
😉
LikeLike
..Rehonong…der.
LikeLike
Re-honing of the master cylinder was next on the list. I smashed the car just as I had made my last ‘easy-term’ payment. I was heartbroken. It was my first car at the time I dated a girl that I took to Woy Woy after a Willy Willy. I was so proud of my single spinner Ford V8
I never looked under her bonnet as well. (And I so badly wanted to).
LikeLike
Great pity. Woy Woy after a Willy Willy! Still didn’t find the latch to her bonnet….
LikeLike
Ah stories from the above ground cemetary.
LikeLike
Just think, Big M, if Gerard HAD looked under said lady’s bonnet, he’d have had a ‘free willy-willy willy’ in Woy Woy to cope with!
😉
LikeLike
…mmmm, Gez willy nilly in Woy Woy?
LikeLike
I can’t say I ever bought a car because of a look under the bonnet. Pacific Auctions on Parramatta Rd used to be where I bought them. They gave some very vague mechanical report and then you just became the owner if you were the highest bidder. They used to sell dozens within a couple of hours and they had a team of boys driving them in front of the crowd. Any blue smoke or if the car had to be pushed or caught fire was immediately a negative.
‘Pacific is terrific’, was their motto.
I bought a zephyr ute there for $60.-. It went for years. So far, we have never bought a new car yet. There is plenty of time.
I remember pulling the head of my pride and joy, a single spinner ford 1950 V8 and do a valve grind and new rings with the help of a friend. I ended smashing the car because of brakes that I had to pump. A leaky master cylinder!
LikeLike
Rehonong a master cylinder is a lot easier than valve grind/new rings!!
LikeLike
…metal muff diving. MMMmmmm.
On a more serious note. I used to do all of my own car maintenance, back when there were carbies, plug ‘n’ points, condensors, and so on. Now there’s a plethora of unrecognisable, computer chip driven stuff, that’s completely foreign to me. So, why do I want the bonnet open???
By the way, what’s the idea of covering the car sales yard in hessian when there’s a sale on? Are they slaughtering beasts, or vegans? Buggering paedophiles?? Burning effigies of parliamentarians??
LikeLike