Sometimes things go badly wrong, and when they do the effects can be embarrassing. For example, I was working for Autocar magazine on the day when the senior staff writer smashed a brand-new Porsche 911 Carrera 4 into the back of a still warm Ferrari 360, just a few miles from Modena. The Ferrari PR man didn't even know that we were carrying out a twin test, which made the call to Maranello even trickier.
Not surprisingly, it caused widespread amusement and the UK's top selling national newspaper devoted a whole page to the fiasco. It was a cock-up maximus, but we still got the story. Look closely at the eight-page feature and you'll spot that it only contains pictures of the front of a Ferrari and the back of a Porsche.
It would be easy to spend this column ridiculing others. Recently, for example, an English hack smashed up a Renault Clio V6 on a test track because he had "sneezed" at an inappropriate moment. On another occasion, a work-experience boy managed to write off a Mitsubishi Evo VIII before he'd even been offered a job.
But it would be wrong of me to highlight the folly of others without recalling a few "incidents" of my own. Take, for example, the time when I decided that I'd impress my girlfriend by going off-roading in a Vauxhall Frontera on a Sunday afternoon. I'd progressed about half a mile along a muddy track when I entered a puddle and... got stuck.
We had to walk 2 miles to get help, during which time my girlfriend lambasted her "man." Vauxhall sent a 4x4 expert who arrived a day later and drove the Frontera out. He then revealed that what I thought was a legal "green lane" was actually the grounds of Blenheim Palace, Winston Churchill's family home.
Two weeks later I confirmed my status as the office muppet by getting myself locked in an Audi A6. I was at the Millbrook test track north of London and I'd accidentally shut the trunk door with the keys inside. "Don't worry," I said to the work-experience chap, "I'll open it with the central locking." So I clambered inside and closed the door, only to hear a telltale kerchunk as the deadlocks snapped shut.
Everything seized up and I was left knocking helplessly on the window. The work experience guy stared back and asked why I had a job and he didn't- was this really "work experience?" All I could do was to call the Audi press office on my cell phone and beg them to send the spare keys. Then I called my boss to say that I was stuck in my test car, that the keys were locked in the trunk and that it really wasn't my fault.
That was years ago, and I was beginning to think that such incidents had become a thing of the past, until I visited the Swedish Rally. Pausing for photography, I was asked to turn my Peugeot 307 CC in a tight lane. I tugged at the handbrake and the car slid through 90 degrees before I applied the brakes. Then, in a moment of pure slapstick, the ABS kicked in, the car slipped forwards and I ended up face down in a ditch.
The photographer remained surprisingly calm, given that we were in the middle of nowhere without a shovel, food or water. We set off walking and a after a few minutes met a red Volvo containing an elderly German couple. "Patrick has tractor," they said. Who Patrick was I had no idea, but he sounded like manna from heaven.
We returned to the car and the couple reappeared to announce that "Patrick komme." Five minutes later, Patrick and a tractor did indeed "komme" and hauled us out.
The car was undamaged and my embarrassment was alleviated by news of the plight of a Norwegian TV crew. They'd parked their helicopter and gone off to film the action, only to return to find a chopper-shaped hole in the ice. The pilot had unwittingly parked on a frozen lake and they'd lost the lot. As I said before, it really shouldn't happen to a motoring journalist.
We Hear...Kemp Automobile Museum Coming to Chesterfield VillageBeginning this fall, one of the largest collections of vintage Mercedes-Benzes in North America will be on display at Chesterfield Village in the new Kemp Automobile Museum. Located in metro St. Louis, Mo., the new museum will showcase more than 40 Mercedes from the Kemp Collection, including a working replica of the 1886 Benz 3-Wheeler and a 1931 Mannheim Cabrio (both pictured), plus other luxury vehicles from Italy, the UK and Germany. Chesterfield Village: 16955 Chesterfield Airport Rd. along Hwy 40 (I-64), St. Louis, MO.
Quattroporte Wins Red Dot Design AwardThe new Maserati Quattroporte has received one of the most sought-after design prizes in the world: Red Dot: Best of the Best. This seal of quality is awarded every year by the Design Centre of North Rhine/Westphalia in the international "Red Dot Design Award" competition for exceptional design quality. The Design Centre received a record number of 1,673 submissions from 148 designers and 449 manufacturers in a total of 32 countries in this year's competition. Thirty-three products received the "Red Dot: Best of the Best" award for being the top contenders in their category.
Smithsonian Journeys Offers English Motorcars TourDuring this grand survey of English motorsport, participants will trace the English motorcar from its historic roots to modern forms, visit some of the world's finest automobile collections and experience the exhilaration of racing at its best on this 10-day tour with Smithsonian Journeys from September 3-12, 2004. Travelers will enjoy private VIP and behind-the-scenes tours, and meet the people who create and design the motorcars of today, while enjoying luxury accommodations, fine dining and intriguing, informal lectures by the Smithsonian Study Leader (and ec contributor) Ian Adcock. The tour travels to Brockenhurst, Goodwood, Beaulieu, Broadway, Gaydon, Malvern, Coventry, Sparkford and Castle Donington.
The tour cost is $5,950 per person, without airfare, based on double occupancy; and $6,500 per person, including roundtrip airfare from New York. For reservations and info, call (877) EDU-TOUR (877/338-8687) or visit www.smithsonianjourneys.org.