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The Worst Vehicle I Ever Owned
How generic British amateurism and apathy conspired to create a mobile death-trap
For those of us fortunate enough to be born in the affluent countries of the West, there generally comes a time when we acquire our very first automotive means of transportation. No more bicycling in the rain. No more waiting for rattly old busses that arrive late or never arrive at all. No more noisy trains crammed full of beer-sodden soccer fans vomiting on the floor. The moment we get our very own personal private independent means of getting from one place to another, we experience a kind of small-scale Nirvana.
Unfortunately, Nirvana in my case was rather more rusty and decrepit than one may have hoped for. At age seventeen I wasn’t interested in sporty cars; I wanted something practical. As my entire life up to that point had been highly unstable and unpredictable, I wanted something in which I could, if the worst came to the worst (as it had so often done in the past), exist. I wanted something I could sleep in, get dressed in, and even eat in. And so I wanted a camper van.
Yes, gentle reader, even back then I had absolutely no idea what would be considered attractive to women. If there’s such a thing as a “chick magnet” then rest assured, a camper van is most certainly not it. Especially when that…
