So having ditched (not literally) poor old "Fireball" I was out looking for another. Prices at the time were low, and I managed to buy a Rover 100 for £600, from Wellyn.

This one was a rather yucky shade of grey-green, and the body wasn't quite centralised on the chassis, and it was a 100 rather than a 110, and it sounded rough, but there were no nasty deep clanking sounds, it had a huge spotlight, and a good radio, and what youngster wants more? And it had syncromesh!! "Fireball" had had a little, but the 100 I had learnt to drive on had had none, and just the expression on my fathers face was painful at times. The driving instructer during The Test was impressed though...

What with one thing and another, it only had minor servicing, like timing and approximate mixture adjustment, before one evening I took it on a journey to Great Yarmouth, from where we live in Leighton Buzzard, with my brother Tim. We were to pick up El Guru Pater arriving in a ship from Holland. I had noticed previously that when I reached about 70-75mph, the engine would give up power, and even if I then let off the accelerator, it would proceed to overheat (at least as far as the temperature gauge was concerned) about 20secs later.

I thought I would keep it to just under 70, but even so, on cresting the first major rise on the motorway, it over-heated. I pulled over to let it cool. On moving away, my brother noticed a curious cloud of white smoke following us. Opening the bonnet (we did stop first) released a big ball of smoke - probably an Indian sign for something? Most of the smoke seemed to be coming from the oil evaporation thingy. Whoops.

I shrugged my shoulders - there was nothing we could do on the spot. I just had to get to Great Yarmouth - I had confidence that El Guru would get us back! So we continued, the car coughing & spluttering and myself & my brother overdosing on lead (that probably explains a few things...) as the smoke came through the pedal & wiring holes between cabin & engine. The windows were fully open to let the smoke out - and even with both of us hunched up in coat and woollies, we were considerably cold.

It actually went rather well, but I restrained myself and kept to 40mph, filling the boot with oil cans every petrol stop. I often wonder what other drivers must have thought of this ghostly grey-green Rover floating in a cloud of low-lying, dense, white, swirling smoke in the dark.

We got there.

Checking more carefully, the smoke wasn't all coming from the evaporation column thingy, but was spraying up from where the rocking exhaust cover had been blasted to bits. So stuffing in bits of paper (with the usual exclamations associated with burning your hand on the exhaust manifluft) we toddled on home, stopping every now & again to replace the bits of paper which soon fell out.

El Guru for once couldn't provide an answer off the top of his head - which surprised poor little me. The Garage Man on the other hand told me the spark plugs were not of sufficient quality, and had probably been the cause of loss of power at 70mph. The rest is conjecture, but the pistons now represent some pretty good chunks of swiss cheese. It still goes, but tends to explode in the sump under too much load (flying dip sticks again!) and gas masks are recommended. So much for that.

So I bought another one...