Right after I got my driving licence (in 1970, I think), my father's second-hand Morris Minor -- 1950s vintage, SB3717 -- was available. I even found on the Internet a pic of a similar car, in the same colour!...
It's the correct vintage because it has got the two-panelled windscreen and those trafficators I mentioned yesterday:
The dashboard, instrument panel and steering wheel was also exactly as I remembered them to be. "MM" was tough; I once drove it without the engine oil cap screwed in and although smoke started to billow out as I neared home, the robust engine was back to chugging away once it had cooled and fresh engine oil added.
I wonder if my Victoria School chums -- Chong Koon, Peng Wai and Baskaran, all of whom were non-drivers -- still remember the escapades we had in MM come the weekends, when we were let out of the army camps (we were serving our NS stint then, after Pre-U and prior to university). I recall, after one particular late night out, I was so sleepy I had dozed off on the road and MM actually went over a small roundabout. The suspension held and everyone got home "shaken but not stirred".
I suppose MM was retired because, as I had blogged yesterday, it was at risk of becoming a Stone Age car, with a gaping floorboard that could not be fixed. It was a faithful steed of steel to its end.
In 1972, when I started university, I got my first new car, and registered in my name. My father very generously paid (with some persuasion from my mum, my ally) the princely sum of $5,000 for it (I wonder what is its equivalent value in 2012 terms?).
It was a mustard yellow Honda N600 (ie, 600cc) -- not to be confused with its lesser sibling, the N360 (ie, 360cc), which was almost outwardly identical to it except for what to me was a key distinguishing feature in the N600. Here are pics of three N600s I found on the Net, all in the same colour as my own car, E4220D:
So how do you tell a top-of-the-line N600 from its more pedestrian sibling? Look at the bonnet in the pic just above... there's a "power bulge", to accommodate the bigger twin-cylinder 28kW/36PS engine. While the air-cooled engine was only 600cc, it was very high revving, allowing me to easily sprint ahead of much bigger cars at the lights. Naturally, over a longer distance, it will "run out of breath'' in a drag-race.
And now, a picture of MY car, parked at the university, with my then girlfriend (now my wife) and I beside it...
But my little "Hurricane Honda (HH)" nearly caused us to break up -- all because of my rather unusual gear stick -- I mean, HH's unusual gear stick. I trawled the Net to find a pic of the front compartment of an N600. I found one from the ipocars website:
Look carefully at the pic above. The direct-shift gear stick curls upwards and so requires a certain finesse to engage into the various gears (it was still a "H" pattern but sort of in a suspended plane rather than the typical flat-from-the-floor gearbox.
I was keen for her to drive my pride of possession too, but while I could easily shift the N600's gear stick, she -- used to the orthodox gearbox in her father's car -- fumbled at mine. There were heated arguments. "It's either the car or me!" she said. L and L, you nearly did not make it to the conception stage. (But she did relent; I kept the car for almost nine years).
At some point while I was still in uni, my sis graduated and returned her second-hand Fiat 600D (yes I know, we like the number "600" in this family) to my father. I was now assigned to periodically drive this car, SU4690 . Here are pics taken from the Net of similar cars:
I chose this picture above with good reason, to show that the water-cooled engine was in the rear. We called our Fiat 600 (a bright green) "koon chwee chiah" (boiling water car) because no matter how we tried to fix the problem of radiator water leaking out, the leaks kept persisting, leading to overheating. Let's call this car by the initials KCC.
Now, KCC was also a spoilt Italian who demanded an afternoon siesta. We found out that, if we wanted the car to easily crank up, wait till the afternoon -- when the engine had been warmed up by the sun. So, mornings will see the rear cover (can't call it a bonnet, can we?) lifted up so that that spoilt brat of an engine could have its suntan.
Here's a pic (soft focus, lagi) of KCC, with then girlfriend/now wife sitting demurely atop its bonnet...
Last story to wrap up...
The first time I drove up to her house, in the District 9 area, it was announced that I was coming in my car. All eyes strained to see what kind of exoticar was this fellow who dared to court our precious angel driving. I zoomed into the driveway in HH. "Kecik, ah", they muttered (kecik = small, diminutive).
Another time, I had to drive KCC to her house. The word was that I had a second car (maybe HH was just his fun runabout, lah!).
KCC sputtered into the driveway. "Aiyee, lagi satu pun kecik!" was the unanimous refrain (translation: Gee, the other one's also so small!).
This story is of course recounted in a good-humoured way. Her family did have an impish sense of humour. I think.
Postscript No 1:
Pity I never got round to owning the N600's sports car cousin, the Honda S800 (same vintage). It was a super-duper hot rod, as this YouTube video shows...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHMIoJqO6jY
Postscript No 2:
Finally, a nod to the tongue-in-cheek title of this blog entry's header... Julio Iglesias "To All the Girls I've Loved Before":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOifaUXPk4g
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