forcasts

[Tom Nas]

quk at isham-research.freeserve.co.uk wrote:

>While waiting to board, we often watched cars built in Germany, Holland
>and Belgium being unloaded from Ro-Ro ferries.  A minibus would take
>12 drivers aboard.  Minutes later 12 cars would emerge from the ferry
>and roar at redline in whatever gear to the pound.  The minibus would
>follow, and the drivers would then be taken back to the ship to repeat
>the ritual.  Scream, scream, scream.

I visited the Antwerp Opel plant in the late '80s, and they were stupid 
enough to let visitors near the end of the production line, where some 
primates took the cars off the conveyor belts and drove them to the place 
where they were stored for shipment. Get in, start car, rev to redline, 
lose 3mm of front tyre tread in ensuing wheelspin with lots of black smoke, 
execute handbrake turn narrowly missing a colleague doing same, roar out of 
the building. The whole hall was filled with tyre smoke, there was a 
criss-cross pattern of tyre tracks all over the floor, some ending just 
ahead of the wall.

We watched this performance in astonishment, until someone in the group 
came forward and asked the guide if this was what the dealer referred to as 
'running-in procedure', when you collect your new car.

No such thing as a 'new' car.

Tom