Conspiricy theory
Earlier in the week someone had kindly commented on one of my old bike photos from the early 70s/80s and I was wondering if the bike was still being ridden by someone.
I knew there was a way of looking into this on the Governments website in the UK.
www.taxdisc.direct.gov.uk/EvlPortalApp/
I found that my Suzuki cafe racer that I designed and built was in use for another 10 years after I sold it and hopefully its now in someones collection on a Statutory Off Road Notice rather than having been broken up or whatever.
As I can remember nearly every registration number of every vehicle I've driven and had half an hour to spare, I did a check on each one with some quite interesting results - especially the BMW.
Choosing this vehicle was a total mistake and came in between my first two Skoda Octavia vRSs and despite costing over twice as much, was half the car, so to speak.
A motor industry insider once told me something in confidence, which I took with a pinch of salt at the time although its always been at the back of my mind.
The vehicle check showed that after I got rid of it its never been on the road since - which given the car was only two years old when I waved a cheery goodbye to it, seems a bit odd. So a number of possibilities I think:-
Its now preserved in a museum as a classic (probabilty - absolutely zero)
Its now preserved in a museum as a warning to other hapless customers (mmm)
Some farmer is letting his twelve year old kid use it on the farm because it was absolutely useless on the road (whilst the last bit is true, the probabilty is zero to slight)
It got written off (possible, because despite being a 4x4 its ability to grip the road with those 19" alloys and that low profile tyre combination was abysmal)
Someone disliked it as much as I did and a. pushed it off a cliff or b. torched it (probability - very high - even if this isn't the answer, it should be)
or.......................
my friend was correct. Which is amazing, if true.
But don't ask me what it is......cos I can't tell ya.
Conspiricy theory
Earlier in the week someone had kindly commented on one of my old bike photos from the early 70s/80s and I was wondering if the bike was still being ridden by someone.
I knew there was a way of looking into this on the Governments website in the UK.
www.taxdisc.direct.gov.uk/EvlPortalApp/
I found that my Suzuki cafe racer that I designed and built was in use for another 10 years after I sold it and hopefully its now in someones collection on a Statutory Off Road Notice rather than having been broken up or whatever.
As I can remember nearly every registration number of every vehicle I've driven and had half an hour to spare, I did a check on each one with some quite interesting results - especially the BMW.
Choosing this vehicle was a total mistake and came in between my first two Skoda Octavia vRSs and despite costing over twice as much, was half the car, so to speak.
A motor industry insider once told me something in confidence, which I took with a pinch of salt at the time although its always been at the back of my mind.
The vehicle check showed that after I got rid of it its never been on the road since - which given the car was only two years old when I waved a cheery goodbye to it, seems a bit odd. So a number of possibilities I think:-
Its now preserved in a museum as a classic (probabilty - absolutely zero)
Its now preserved in a museum as a warning to other hapless customers (mmm)
Some farmer is letting his twelve year old kid use it on the farm because it was absolutely useless on the road (whilst the last bit is true, the probabilty is zero to slight)
It got written off (possible, because despite being a 4x4 its ability to grip the road with those 19" alloys and that low profile tyre combination was abysmal)
Someone disliked it as much as I did and a. pushed it off a cliff or b. torched it (probability - very high - even if this isn't the answer, it should be)
or.......................
my friend was correct. Which is amazing, if true.
But don't ask me what it is......cos I can't tell ya.