I nearly died in a French car (remember 1966?); I nearly froze in one, too. In the great freeze of ’78, lorries were stopped on the motor-ways the length and breadth of Britain. “M6 Madness!” said the headlines. Drivers were lighting fires under their trucks to unfreeze the oil. I had a blue Renault 4; it was a great cheap car that did everything except go fast. I had to go to Darlington to pick up a windshield for my company, North-East Vinyls. I didn’t think the weather was so bad, though it was snowing and cold. So, with my slippers on and just a sweater, I set off on the thirty-eight-mile trip to Darlington. I made it no bother (the 4 was basically an estate car), picked up the windscreen, and set off for Tynemouth. The weather worsened, the car started to stutter and came to a complete stop, frozen up, in between “ah shit” and “fuck me.”
I sat wondering what to do next. The trucks going past were throwing slush and snow against the car, and it was becoming invisible. I was getting to the uncontrollable shivering stage. I took the polythene off the screen, wrapped it ’round my feet, and got out of the car. I saw a farmhouse about a half a mile off the motorway, and I was just gonna start running there when a car stopped and a big mustachioed man stuck his head out of the window of a top-of-the-line Citroën GS. I recognized him, this guy was famous! It was Roger Uttley, England rugby player and Jesus look-alike. “Do you need help?” “Yes,” I said in Dutch—my mouth had frozen. He got out, tied a rope around my axle, and towed me to Birtley service station. I’ve never met him again, and he probably doesn’t even remember the occasion, but I’m here to tell you: Roger, mate, you were my Good Samaritan.
The Renault 16 was another regal car; it just looked well-dressed always. I still have my beloved Citroën DS23 Pallas, 1973 model. It’s a shame such a beautiful machine became known as the “de Gaulle.” I know he got driven around in one, but why anyone would compare a Pallas with a fat, arrogant, self-important twit, I have no idea. Oh yeah, and, according to his wife, the general was a completely useless shag.
Vive la France!
Chapter 88
Porsche Twin Turbo
SMOKING IS DANGEROUS FOR YOUR CAR
Now I know I take the piss out of Porsches a lot, but it’s only because racing against them is so difficult, because they never break, sort of. Never ever. Bloody things just keep going, as Vic Elford said to me, and he should know. (“To win races, you need the best equipment.” He was, of course, alluding to Porsches.) Vic Elford has written a great book on how to drive a Porsche. Buy it.
My very first Porsche was a stunning 944, bought in 1983, front-engined, white, burgundy interior. It had everything, including a hatchback for storage, but something was wrong, folks. Porsche 911 drivers still looked down on me with derision. You see, in their eyes, it wasn’t a proper Porsche: (a) it was way too comfortable; (b) the engine was at the front; and (c) it handled beautifully, an absolute no-no for those stupid twats. Oops. Sorry. Anyway, it was so good, I bought another one a few years later.
In 1984, I bought my first 911 Turbo. It was two years old. I didn’t want to buy a new one until I’d tested one. Which was just as well. I sold it two months later. If I drove to London, I’d get dead arse, a bit like a footballer’s dead leg, and my arse had stopped speaking to me. But the magnificence of the build quality never left me.
Moving on to 1998, I see in Fort Lauderdale a beautiful Twin Turbo white Porsche, with a huge picnic table on the back—well, a wing. It was huge. I had to have it, so I traded in then and there my two-year-old Mercedes Pimpmobile (500 SL). I’d bought it because it looked cool and it had a trick roof, the first real hardtop convertible. The only trouble was I started to notice that they were nearly all driven by beautiful blond tarts who had been given them by rich boyfriends or aging husbands. Shit. I had to get outta this fast, and there was the Porsche before me. Menacingly sexy, I just had to have it. The deal was done about four thirty in the afternoon, and I relished the thought of driving it across the Florida Peninsula, home to Sarasota.
Off I went on a small state road—dead straight and two lanes: B road, as we would call it—running right through the sugarcane fields that stretch as far as the eye can see. The sun was setting, and I was saying “Wow!” when there was the blue light. Bollocks! Pull over. Shite, not a policeman but the dreaded highway patrol. This guy was big, black, with dead eyes and big daft hat that tilted forward like he’d just braked too hard. Unlike in the U.K., American cops stay behind the car, so they can see if you’re gonna shoot them or something. Wow! became a wooah!
Cop: “License, registration, insurance.”
Me: “Here you go, officer. Beautiful evening, isn’t it, oh ally in the Second World War.” Nothing.
Cop: “You were doing eighty in a fifty limit.”
Me: “Well, officer, I’ve only had the car thirty minutes. I just bought it and I’m driving it home, and I was trying to get used to the . . .” Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. I dribbled on. The Johnson charm offensive was going badly.
Cop: “I don’t care.”
Me: “Pardon?”
Cop: “I can’t afford one, and I don’t like anyone who can.”
Me: “I’m pretty much fucked then.”
Cop: “Yup!”
Bastard gave me a ticket, but I got one back on him, because I gave him my English license, and he didn’t know what to do with it, or where to add the points, or where England is. Anyhow, I carried on driving into the sunset. Lord, I could kill a cigarette. So I pulled one out, lit it, opened my window a crack to flick out the ash. Then I thought, “You silly sod, smoking in a brand-new car!” So I flicked that bad boy out the window, proud of myself, till the smoke started rising in the back (shades of Williams). I stopped, jumped out, and there in the lap of the seat was a fire started by a cigarette thrown out of a window by some silly twat. I dropped my shorts and did what any man would do: I peed on it till it went out. Then I folded the seat down and drove home, sheepish.
She Who Is To Be Feared came to look at the new car. “Why’s the backseat down?” she asked. “It’s an aerodynamic thing,” I said. She said it sounded like a “you lying git thing.” She lifted the seat and I was copped for the second time that day. I definitely remember getting drunk that night.
* * *
P.S.: Porsche asked me how it happened. I said, “Would you believe it, the cigarette lighter flew out of the dash, passed my ear, and set fire to the seat.” The guy on the phone just laughed and said, “That’s the best one yet.” He sent me a free replacement seat in forty-eight hours. Now that’s service.
Chapter 89
Historic Racing Machines
WHEN IT’S MAGIC TIME
One of the real pleasures in my life is to be sitting in a race car at eight thirty in the morning, sun rising, on a false grid full of historic racing machines, all revving, hungry to get on the track. As they’d say in Hollywood, it’s “magic time.”
There are so many wonderful characters to get to know. (Also some miserable twats, usually Porsche drivers. Just kidding?) There’s Ward Witkowski, in his Alfa-engined bobsy; over there, Super Dave Bondon in his beautifully prepared Morgan; another Brit, Dave Hinton, in his glorious scarlet-red Jag 120; there’s Ken smiling away in his snot-green 356. Les, the pit marshal, smiles and gives the five-minute warning. If there is a heaven, then this is where I want to spend eternity.
Chapter 90
Notes from the Front Line: Atlanta
Did show last night, another sellout. Throat holding out. Tomorrow Charlotte and I’ll see my race team—they’re coming to the show. Three more to do, then home. I am bone-weary. I think I lost my sphincter in LA. I’ll have to see about getting it replaced soon, along with new eardrums and a foreskin (caught in my zip in San Antonio). Apart from that, the lads and me are feeling chipper. Just heard Wembley and Hampden Park sold out, too. That’s cool.
Day off today. I think a sherbet is in order, probably a Jameson’s.
Chapter 91
North-East Vinyls and
AC/DC
THE TWO CAREER CHOICES AND WHAT I CHOSE
My own company, my own firm, my own car. This was it! I was going solo. I rented a place right on the River Tyne, next to a car auction room; it was right on the quayside. It was filthy, it was damp, it was overpriced, and it was pre-Victoria British building at its finest. Windows you couldn’t see out of, overhead lights that took longer to turn on than a witch’s tit, and an echo like King’s Cross. I had no startup money to speak of, and no employees to call me boss. But nothing would stop me building my windscreen and vinyl-roof empire. Well, except one thing: customers.
So I had to go get ’em, and transport was key. What should I get that could act as a van and a car and be value for money? I found all of the above in one strange vehicle: the Austin Maxi. Not only did it have a crap name, it looked like a matchbox with a hard-on. It was British Leyland mustard, the color of a chemical meltdown or the contents of a baby’s nappy. The interior trim—once again, using the word loosely—was a slightly darker color called “Gorilla Minge.” The dashboard was a bookshelf with a square dial on one side, a speedometer, and that was it. The steering wheel and seats were the only thing that told you this was not a skip. But the good thing was the rear seats folded down and I could get all my stuff in there. And it was pretty reliable.
Now I needed someone to work in the office and help answer the phone calls that were soon to come flooding in. I met a great lad called Ken Walker, a big, smiling man who could drink for England. And he had a posh voice and played rugby and stuff. We arranged to meet at the pub.
“Hey, Ken, I’m Brian. How are you?”
“Fer-fer-fer-fer-fer-fine.”
Uh-oh! “So, Ken, you’ve done vinyl roofs before, then?”
“Aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-almost.” He smiled. I smiled, too. Who was gonna answer the phone?
“Can you put in windshields?”
“N-n-n-n-n-not as such.”
Ken was a bit like the way he spoke; he never quite finished anything except his pint (he was meticulous in that department). I liked him though. He was jovial and fun. We went to the office and I showed him ’round.
He said, “Th-th-th-th-th-there’s not much fuckin’ here, is there?”
“No, my son,” I said. ”But there soon will be.”
The next few months really were good. People and garages remembered me from Windshields, and I got a lot of their work: the Datsun garage, the Lada garage, and a few other prize ones. Ken’s stammer got worse when he got excited, and his head would jerk like he was hanging on to a pneumatic drill. I said to him, “Why don’t you see someone about your stutter?”
“Oh, I yu-yu-yu-used to be m-m-m-m-m-much worse than this,” he said.
“You are friggin’ kidding?” I said.
“N-n-n-n-n-no. D-d-d-d-d-dad h-h-h-had a f-f-f-friend who came to h-h-h-help.”
“What did he do to you?”
Still stammering, Ken said, “Well, he came in the house and told me to take down my trousers, I protested, but my father said to do it. I had to lean on the table and part my legs, then he heated up a soldering iron and shoved it up the crack of my backside and I screamed, ‘Aaaaaaaarrrggghh!’ Then he said, ‘Good lad! We’ll start on B tomorrow.’ ” Now I don’t know how true this tale is, but the treatment was not a breakthrough in the treatment of speech impedimenta.
Ken worked hard when you could find him, usually at the Cooperage pub, and of course, when Ken was on the phone, the bills doubled. But, as I say, I liked him, he was good company and always smiling. Well, except when his girlfriend turned up.
Cars were starting to fill the garage, and we had to tell people they’d have to wait a couple of days. It felt pretty good. The classier cars were coming in: Rover Vitesse, BMW, Mercedes. Wow, this was cool! Everything was going good. My band, Geordie II, was booked solid and very popular; the company was going great. I’d moved back home with my mother and father. I thought I’d cracked it, and to celebrate we bought a company car, a Jag saloon 420G, huge and daft. There were more things wrong with it than with Italian politics, but it was cheap and posh. People who saw us driving into the garage would say, “Look at them scruffy posh people.”
Then came the fateful phone call that changed my life forever. It was February 1980, about three thirty on a cold but sunny ordinary afternoon. “North-East Vinyls,” I said into the phone.
“Allo, ees thees Breean Yonson?”
“Close,” I said.
“Ah, güt! I am vantink you to come to Lonton to sink viz a groupen.”
It was a sexy female voice that I later learned belonged to a woman nicknamed “Olga from the Volga.”
“Which group?” I said.
“Zis I cannot tell you. It is a secret.”
“Listen to me, darlin’. I’ve already been bitten by the music factory and I’m still paying for it, so could you be a little more specific?”
“No, I cannot tell. How old are you?”
What the hell was she on about? I said, “I’m thirty-two and probably past a new band’s sell-by date.”
“Ah,” she said. “Ve haf been lookink for you for many days now.”
Shit, who was this? What did they want with me? “Listen, lady. I am not driving all the way to London to do an audition with somebody I don’t know. Gimme a clue, give me the initials.”
“Okay, okay. Zey are ze AC and ze DC.”
“You mean AC/DC?”
“Scheiße!” she cried. “I haf said too much!” (By the way, I’m not kiddin’. This is all true.) “You must come,” she said.
“I’ll think about it. Gimme a ring tomorrow.” Holy shit! I’ve just spent a year building up a nice little earner; I’ve got money in my pocket, a cute girlfriend, I’m living with my parents, and my band’s doing well. Do I throw it all away and get stung by the music business again? AC/DC were a great band and well on their way. Their singer, Bon Scott, had passed away and the boys wanted to carry on. What to do?
The phone rang again thirty minutes later.
“Hey, Brian, remember me? André Jacquemin?”
I said, “André, of course I do. Bond Bug three-wheeler, right?”
“That’s right,” he said. “Anyway, Brian, I have my own studio and I do a lot of commercials for the telly. I’d like you to do one for me.”
Wow! Nobody’s asked me to do that before. “It’s a Hoover ad, and I’ll pay you, plus residuals.” Holy shit! That was big money. And then the magic words: “I’ll pay for your gas.” My mind started buzzing. Maybe I could do the ad, then pop over to audition with AC/DC. “I’ll do it,” I said.
“See you next Thursday, and don’t be late,” he said. André was a good man; he did all the Monty Python music and songs, so I knew this was a proper gig.
Simon Robinson was a guy who did rust-proofing not far from our garage. I told him I was going to drive to London to do this gig.
“Not in that Jag, you’re not. You’ll never make it.”
Oh bollocks, he’s probably right.
“Tell you what, I’ve got a Toyota Crown, nearly new. Why don’t you take that and we can trade off the cost when I need you?”
“Done!” I said.
Off I went to London Town in my nearly new Toyota. Fifty miles outta Newcastle, and bang—a puncture in the front-left tire. You wouldn’t believe it! I changed the wheel and set off again. At Redwood Studios, I heard the music, and it was a little embarrassing. “The new high-powered mover from Hoover. What a beautiful mover!” It was riveting stuff.
I finished the ad by about three thirty p.m. and then I had to go to Vanilla Studio, about three miles away, for AC/DC. Opposite was a café, an old-fashioned one with mince pies and tea and a toothless miserable old hag behind the counter, speaking a language all of her own: “Wotcha, lav. Dat’s free paand twenny-free.” I sat and ate my mince and onion pie. The top crust seemed strangely welded to the sides of the dish, and no amount of softening would remove it, so I couldn’t get to my mince or my onions.
“I know,” I thought, “I’ll go in through the bottom.”
“Oi yew, wos gawin’ on over dare?” I gave up and walked across the road to the studio and to another life.
In the rehearsal room sat the boys of AC/DC, looking quite bored—they’d been auditioning singers for a month. When I walked in, I introduced myself and Malcolm said, “Ah, you’re the Newscastle lad,” and promptly gave me a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale. He said, “Well, what do you wanna sing.” I told him “Nutbush City Limits” by Tina Turner.
Eyebrows arched, feet shuffled, Mal looked at the band and said, “Does anybody know it?” Sooo . . . great start then. But they did start playing it, and I belted out the words. That’s when a special tingly feeling came over me. I looked around and everyone was smiling. Boy, were these guys good, and boy, did I want to be one of them.
They asked me to stay in London overnight for more rehearsals, but I told them I couldn’t, because I had to open my shop in the morning in Newcastle. That kind of stunned them a bit.
I returned home, and the next day I thought it was all a dream. Until the phone rang at one thirty p.m. The rest is history.
Chapter 92
The End
THE END
The trouble with “The End” is I don’t know where to start. Well, there you have it. My head’s starting to hurt thinking of cars past and present that have made my life more fun. The characters I’ve met, from my first days at work and before. What about Stevie Chance, at Parsons, who described fast cars as going “like shit off a shiny shovel” and the braking as “sticking like shit to a blanket”? Great lads.
Rockers and Rollers: A Full-Throttle Memoir Page 15