[peiowl]

A short excerpt from my book about my first car. A fuller excerpt will appear in the Star Retro section.

"...I had no inkling that all this was in store when, at the start of my second year at university, I decided to buy a car. It was a black, two-door 1947 Ford Anglia, license plate KWB 972—an old banger... it was a carry over from the pre-war cars commonly referred to as the “sit up and beg” variety. Mum dubbed them “boxy doo-dahs.” I called it “Tin Lizzie” after the original model T, though it wasn’t even in the same ballpark where class was concerned. Advertised for twenty-five pounds, I got it for twenty.
Tin Lizzie came with a crank handle that I sometimes used because the ignition starter rarely worked. Most times, I jump-started it by letting it roll in neutral down the steep hill that led down the street from our house then slamming it into second gear when it had picked up speed. Sometimes it didn’t start and I was stuck with a broken down car at the bottom of the street. The car had a vacuum-powered windshield wiper that tended to slow down or stop altogether when I drove over forty miles an hour. But I knew Lizzie’s limits and hardly ever asked her to go that fast. ..But, damn I loved that car..."