More shite

Sometimes when the weathers shitty and your having a dull day you get something that brightens the cockles of your heart.

Pulling up at some lights I noticed a car pop next to me, young lad slumped low in the seat (steering wheel higher than his head !) one hand resting on the wheel in the casual style they try to adopt.

I noticed his blacked out windows, large wing on the rear, obviously custom body kit and alloys worth a considerable amount more than his car and you could hear the exhaust popping away like popcorn in a robots belly.

The amusing bit to the situation was that I then noticed a "GT" badge stuck on the boot and actually managed a little chuckle to myself as I noticed the next two words, the first one was "Toyota" - now bear in mind I drive a Toyota, it's OK and does the job but that wasn't the real reason I laughed.

The next word was "Starlet" and before the one person who sometimes reads these rambling words actually writes back and says "Toyota made a GT Starlet" - yes I know they did, that wasn't actually what made me chuckle.

You see I know Toyota made a GT Starlet, if memory serves it was a 1.4l engine with a twin mode turbo so you could be in low mode for some shopping and popping around town then press the button and go into high mode.

In fact I quite fancy one on my Avensis so even that wasn't why I chuckled - so what was it ?

The young lad had obviously gone to a lot of trouble and expense on his N registration Starlet putting a custom body kit on etc, the bit that made me chuckle was ..... he left the 1.2 sign on (and stuck the GT letters on wonky - not to mention they were in a different font and character size to the "Starlet" letters).

So this poor young lad had spent his life savings on a car worth probably £250, put alloys on worth more than his kidneys and lots of other bits, not to mention the bonnet with large air scoop.

The final nail in the coffin was when the traffic lights changed to green, with a Roar like a thousand angry bees his exhaust fired into life, I think we was probably at 10  or 12 mph when I leisurely pulled past him then as I heard him go up into third gear to try and coax some life out of it I allowed my bumbling 2.0 Diesel to leave him so far behind his tax will run out before he catches me up again.

God bless the tinkers, had it been a true Starlet GT I think the shoe would have been on the other foot, by the time my 2.0D had got to 4000 revs I think he would have been gone. In reality although he looked the part (did I mention his suspension lowered to the lowest point possible?) it was like owning a fighter plane but finding instead of a jet engine someone has swapped it for a propeller.

The update after this though, he was in fact faster than a Kia I came across a few minutes later, bear in mind he was on a dual carriageway so had the national speed limit I clocked him at 17mph for a while and he eventually went up to 25mph before he turned off at a set of traffic lights, almost hit a car, then stopped totally trying to work out how to get over a level crossing, tried to turn into a good yard which had a large gate closed over it then I followed him past a speed sign that showed his speed as ... 19mph  !!!!!