Those poor rear-springs. When we loaded up for the Easter run back home with 3 people in the front and the back full, the exhaust, already low-slung, could not have been more than two or three inches off the ground. Even taking sleeping policeman diagonally, useful if you're built low to the ground, I could hear it scraping away.

And then it happened. I knew it couldn't last. Well actually, I thought it could, but Malcolm the Garage Man and El Guru had kept telling me it wouldn't.

Prices began to rise. I was no longer working, but had become a POOR student. With carburrettors at £80, master cylinders at £75, I could survive while I took pieces off the spare cars "up the back". But after two days sweating over the rear springs (and destroying two heavy duty sockets as well - I was very impressed), I was forced to fork out £150 on a new pair.

City driving had taken its toll too. The engine was about to kaput (you can hear the whoosh whoosh of leaking exhaust valves on starting it) and needed a reconditioning. Over the summer of 89 I started saving up.

The kingpins were ruining the tyres, and with lateral play its £160 for the pair, and more for the labour, and no way of getting spare ones off the other cars. It was the last straw; the MOT had arrived and the Beast, used and abused by years of "enthusiastic" driving, was not going to make it through.

So on the farm it stays. I intend to leave it until I leave University. Mean the duringwhilst (bad grammer), I'm driving a beat-up VW Polo (Change of tools - imperial to metric). It's quite fun - faster accelaration at low speeds, and it goes. But it's not the same, and I must admit I regard it somewhat as a "throwaway" temporary car.

Feeling very depressed, I begin to understand why El Pater gets very upset with British car manufacturers who don't support their products. VW are very good about it.