If I Were a Rich Man
Or
My Ideal Car
My ideal car is a modified Yellow Bedford HA Telecom’s Van from the nineteen eighties. I took a liking to them when a Bedford HA featured in the TV series, ‘The Beiderbecke Affair’. That was back in the eighties and ever since then I have wanted one, but not enough to actually do anything about it, to be honest it may be just an idle daydream. Also I’m not sure that even if I did get one the modifications I envision are really possible. Thus this has remained an unspoken desire until now, although I did tell my wife about it after we had been married for several years. She listened with quiet concern but has never referred to it since.
If you are old enough you may remember the Bedford Telecom Van, it comes from the glory days of British motor manufacture when new motor vehicles started to rust as soon as they pulled of the Show Room forecourt. They were very simple in design, a large rectangular box for the back and cab, and a lower, medium sized, rectangular box for the engine. They had chrome wheel hubs, and thin chrome bumpers, with a narrow grill across the front of the engine between the two round head lamps. It is such a basic and practical design it looks like it was drawn up on a scrap of paper by men in overalls whilst passing time on a cigarette break.
The Bedford HA van is practical not gimmicky, honest not artful, it has no ‘go faster stripes’, or faux-futuristic bolt-ons. Nobody would believe it could make them seem faster, or sexier, or cooler. It is the sort of vehicle that can pass or park unnoticed, even the blank expression on its nose seems unassuming. The Bedford HA makes no effort to appeal because it presumes it will not, it is like the dog at the back of the Rescue Centre that sits quietly whilst others bark and jump up for attention. That’s why I like it.
However, my ideal Bedford HA van, in mundane Telecom livery, would be a carefully concealed bluff. If I were a rich man I would take my rusty old Bedford to a custom Body Shop and ask them to pimp my van, no expense spared.
Here is what I would want them to add,
A super powerful revved up engine.
State of the art breaking, suspension and steering systems.
Four wheel drive.
Sports tyres.
Air Conditioning.
Heated seats.
Cameras front and rear.
And a banging sound system.
But I would not want the casual observer to be able to tell.
So I would want a new paint job, that looked exactly like the old one, one that eradicated the rust and then painted it to appear as if the rust where still there. I would want the sound system and air conditioning controls hidden behind a secret panel on the dash board, I would want the new heated seats to look like the old dilapidated ones, and the interior and exterior paintwork ‘distressed’.
I would want it this way partly because I had enough of driving round in rusty cars on the edge of mechanical collapse in my youth, now I am older I want a bit of reliability, but mainly because I would enjoy the masquerade of keeping the unassuming quality of the old van and packing it with assertive petrol-head power and consumer comforts.
I don’t like gimmicks, and salesmanship, and showing off, but I do appreciate clever design and good engineering, so it would be my perfect car.
I imagine myself at the traffic lights burning off an astonished boy racer in his home-pimped hatch back, or on the motorway surging past a shiny Porsche with its astonished shiny owner at the wheel.
Or disturbing the neighbourhood with Bartok booming out.
That’s not the end of my ambitions though, I have a few other improvements in mind. To be my perfect car it would have to be good for picnics because that’s what my wife and I do.
So I would add,
An awning that extended from between the back doors for shade in the sun and shelter from the rain.
A concealed solar panel on the roof for electric to boil a kettle, or heat a pan.
A pair of boards with thin mattresses on that fold down from the interior sides of the van to form a bed.
I did actually mention the last of these three to a friend some years back and he raised his eyebrows; apparently, according to him, and how he knows I don’t know, it is not unknown for young men to fit mattresses’ into vans in order to continue the romancing of their young ladies when there is nowhere else private to go. Being a Minister of the Established Church, and wholly romantically incompetent, I had no idea this was so and was thus suitably shocked and appalled, and I only mention it now because I would not wish anyone to misunderstand my intentions. After a picnic on a warm sunny day reclining for a while to allow for proper digestion is both pleasant and efficacious, and that is my intention. Also, as I am lately afflicted by fatigue the opportunity to lie down somewhere quiet and darkened whilst out and about would be most helpful.
In conclusion, if I were a rich man I would buy an old Bedford HA Telecoms van and have it pimped into my perfect car, but as I am neither sufficiently wealthy, nor sufficiently motivated, that may well remain for me an idle daydream. Maybe that’s not so bad, a wise man who described himself as a Catholic Buddhist once suggested to me I make a list of ten dreams, plan for five of them, and do one of them, as dreams are often enough.
So what’s your ideal car?
Illustration by JJ Gamble (It is quite the best thing about this article)
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