Due to my recent penchant for Mk1 Cortina's, my fleet of classic cars has grown considerably over the past year. This would be ok if I had plenty of car storage, or even a workshop that I could rent for a reasonable sum, but unfortunately renting costs are ridiculous at the moment so that's not an option for me.
With this in mind, I've decided to cut down on my current collection and the first one to go is the Mk1 Triumph estate.
The car was being stored at Colin Wake's and I was going to bring it home in February, do the work required for MOT and then advertise it on Ebay. However, a friend of mine just happened to find someone that was in desperate need of a Mk1 estate, so a deal was struck and delivery was arranged.
So, I left my house around 6.20am to head to Colin's. The temperature was -4 when I left mine and the drive up the A12 wasn't a pleasant one. My windscreen washers had frozen and visibility was poor.
I arrived at Colin's where we had to load the car onto the trailer. The first obstacle was that the battery had gone flat and the bonnet had frozen shut and we couldn't open it to jump start it!
We then tried pushing the car to where the trailer was but kept slipping over on the frozen grass, so we ended up reversing the Land Rover and trailer down the track to nearer the car. Eventually we got it loaded and then went back inside for a warm up and a coffee before setting off.
We had planned to leave about 8am, but the flat battery saga had cost us time and we ended up leaving at 8.40. We headed north up the A12 and then onto the A14 where we met out first delay caused by an accident near the Great Blakenham turn off. Once past this we carried on through Bury St Edmunds and Newmarket where the temperature had dropped to -5. The Land Rover's windscreen washers had frozen up as well at this point!
There was another long delay just before the junction we wanted to turn off at Lutterworth, so we opted to come off the junction before. We then put our faith in Colin's up to date and mega expensive sat nav to find us an alternative route, only for it to send us down a farm track that was only really fit for tractors!
We eventually got to our destination some time after 12pm and unloaded the car. By this time the bonnet had thawed out and we were able to jump start the car and drive it into a parking spot. The new owner was there and he was pleased with his purchase.
We then headed back to the A14 and even managed to find a truck stop where I had steak pie chips and peas and Colin had an all day breakfast. By 13.30 we were on our way again where we encountered traffic jams at Wellingborough and Huntingdon, both which held us up considerably!
Some hours later we turned off the A14 onto the A12 and drove straight into another hold up, again caused by an accident! It seems a lot of people just cant handle these icy conditions!
Our hopes of getting home in daylight were now dashed and by the time we got back to Colin's it was fully dark. In fact by the time I got home it was 17.50 and this trip had taken the same time as the trip a few weeks previous when we went from Colin's to West Sussex, then to Norfolk, then back to Colin's. This trip was a 100 miles less!
It was a good day out though and we had a good laugh. Plus the bonus was that my fleet is now reduced by one and I no longer have to worry about storing the car or carrying out any work on it. The Cortina estate will probably be the next one to go, but not just yet.
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