Volvo 142
After the accidental fire ended my initial sports car venture, I decided to stick with steel bodied cars for a while. A nice (cheap) Volvo 142 1.8 litre 4 cylinder car was purchased, this being the 5th Car that I owned.
I thoroughly enjoyed driving this car & was very impressed with the handling, performance & brakes (these were solid discs front & rear). The Volvo 142 car continued my passion for cars & driving.
For the year of car (a 1970/71 model version) it had a very slick gearbox & one soon learned to double de-clutch, with heel & toe driving to get the best gear-changes. The steering allowed very precise control of your road position & I would regularly enjoy spirited driving with this car.
On one occasion I think I overtook a long line of cars, maybe a little too spirited because when I pulled in I just clipped the start of a solid white line. A police car was watching my rather fast progress at the time. He then proceeded to follow me for a couple of miles, which seemed a little strange & with no wow wow siren or flashing lights. Bear in mind I was quite a young whippersnapper at the time & a little green behind the ears. The police car then quickly accelerated & pulled in front of me, again with no flashing lights. This seemed pretty unusual at the time so I just dropped a gear, swiftly overtook the police car & carried on my journey. The police car then promptly passed me again & then I was treated to a full display of flashing lights. So yeah I then pulled over as instructed.
My first discussions with the traffic officer about my driving resulted in a strong warning to cool things & not to cross the white line. Thankful for this 1st introduction & wake-up call I carried on with my drive. I should have mentioned that my pressing on driving was along a sequence of twisting bends, which were probably some of my favourite road sections. Back in the day there were a lot less cars on the road, however this didn’t excuse my road behaviour on that day.
This car probably had several clutches fitted (new) & several gearboxes (from local scrapyards) with a lot of help from my dad. It was very satisfying when you basically turned a sick car into a born again road warrior!
Sadly this car ended its days at the scrap yard, this being a common ending for a lot of the early cars that I owned. The number plate YTF 571J no longer exists.
