Surf Vehicles We Have Loved.
Living on the south coast, there is only so many waves you can get before you need wheels. This isn't like Cornwall where all the main spots are not only easy to get to, they have conveineinces like shops and carparks. On the south coast, you have to rough it.
Most of the roads to the beaches are so seldom travelled, they have grass growing out of the centre of the road. That is, if there is a road, some spots require full on offroad activity. Also, if yo're going to roam, your wheels are more than just your transport. They are your storage, and your home. We use our vehicles hard, and if you care about your car, you don't go surfing in it.
Our original surf vehicles were Minis. Not the largest of cars, but we were all bodyboarding back then, so it wasn't too much of a squeeze. Rup had the Cooper S imitation, british racing green, with white stripes, Kev had the same car in a 'stylish' grey, with really bad stick-on stripes on the side, and Craig had the breadvan. The breadvan was a mini estate, and was perfect for bodyboarding. A sponge would fit exactly in the back, and then you could just stack up boards to the ceiling. You could fit 6 people in it in perfect non-comfort, and we would chank all over the place in it. It had big Town and Country stickers on the doors, and the blacked out windows contrasted nicely with the beigey-brown of the paintwork, complimented by the noxious cancer-inducing molten plastic smell of the bag that we had to put over the engine when it rained, to stop it cutting out...
Minis were great for hurtling down our tiny lanes, squeezing past other cars withouth slowing down in the slightest. The ground clearance wasn't exactly awesome on them for off road jaunts though, as we found in Rups car in Bantham carpark. We went off a grassy ledge, and the bottom of the engine hit the ground, while us inside hit the ceiling. It survived, we survived, and we burned off as fast as its bald tyres could spin on the wet grass. We rattled around merrily in these things, but all these trusty machines had their day, and finally made it to car heaven. The junkyard at Yalberton.
The next generation of cars were a little more sturdy. Bill acquired a white SuperSport Fiesta, with thick gofaster stripes down the side, and a groovy rubber spoiler on the boot. This car looked cool, was cool, went quick, and could stack boards on the roof. It had fabric seats too, which, while not having that all important 'wipe-clean' property of the vinyl seats of the minis, did at least mean we didn't leave half our skin in the car when getting in on a hot day. This is the car that got us and our gear to Lacanau without a murmer, and survived two weeks in the heat, and tolerated us getting lost in every major city en route. (We forgot to bring maps.)
Craig went for a small van, a volkswagen Golf. Two seats in the front, and loads of space in the back. Not terribly comfy for passengers, but stuff it full of cushions and it was a mobile duvet on wheels. When he first got it it had lived its previous life as a builders van, adn the dash was encrusted with plaster. The plaster lasted longer than the car..
Meanwhile, Rup went for size. He bought the car that would not die, a metallic green Vauxhall Astra estate. People may think that the most practical surf vehicle is a VW camper, but we know different. The most practical, reliable, bombproof, surferproof car on the face of the earth, is the Vauxhall Astra estate. We lived in this car. Put the seats down, and you can sleep in it. The vinyl seats wipe clean. The dashboard and fittings appear to be non flammable, so you can cook in the footwells, and boot without blowing yourself up. You can stack a lifetimes supply of stuff in the back, and still have room for as many surfstarved maniacs as will fit. Bills Fiesta may get you there quicker, but the Astra would happily get thrown down the rutted tracks to the more inaccesable spots without falling to bits. This is the car that Rup somehow managed to keep on the road even while on the dole, living on 30quid a week, scraping money from each of us to get to the beach every day of the week. We could do a perfect threesixty in it, by grabbing a handful of handbrake while speeding across Bantham carpark. We'd all get pinned against the side of car from the g-force as we smoothly rotated across the grass. The Astra would laugh off such abuse.
Stuart used to borrow his mum's car. Entirely through no fault of his own, (unless you count driving with his knees while skinning up, and maintaing a conversation with the back seat simulatenasoustly) this car got damaged every time we used it. There was the time we flew round a blind corner to meet a huge intercontinental coach coming the other way. Stu went for the gap between the coach and the wall, and managed to scrape up both sides of the car.....didn't let go off the spliff though. Or the time the boot didn't close properly, and all our stuff started sliding out as we drove off up the lane. We stopped, I opened the passenger door to go and recover our gear, just as Stu whacked it into reverse and backed up. The door caught on the hedge, and got folded back...Bodywork got dented. Things fell off. Paint got scratched. Stu got shouted at.
Rups Astra laughed at such mishaps. It was bombproof, scraping it's way through endless MOT's, and it would not be stopped. Until the day, the abuse got too much, and the Astra said 'no more'...the scrappie beckoned. It was a sad time for everyone.
Next came the heavies. Cliche became reality, and Bill and Rup both bought Volkswagen Transporters. Big vans, with rear air- cooled engines. Bills was a big orange fun bus, and Rups was blue. The perfect surfmobile you would have thought, but no, not really. The reality was, they drank petrol, were slow, and cold. (no heater ever works in a Transporter). They are too big to fit down the lanes easily, and if you meet something you couldn't back up. There were no seats in the back, so we sat on the floor, where you couldn't see out. Their saviours though, were that you could get tonnes of gear and people in them, and, best of all, you could get everyone in them to sleep. No more dodgy illegal camping for half the chaps, no more putting up tents in the dark, and sleeping on hard ground...Even cookers! We could cook brekkie in the dry, no worries if it was raining, no need for treks into town to get food.
There were problems though, Bills sliding door would fall off if slid too far, and you still had to be careful to arrange stuff when you wanted to sleep, and on hot days they would overheat. They were great for a while, but the limitations began to outweigh the benefits, and we were all getting sick of other veedub owners telling us to 'hang loose' Oh dear.
Bill went back to the classic, tried and trusty, and bought a Vauxhall Astra. It was a slightly newer version than Rups, but just as worthy.
Rup wanted performance after being forced to pootle around the place in his funbus. Ideally it would have been a Porshce 911, but as that ws a little out of his price range, he went for a silver Audi Coupe. This was a surprisingly good surf wagon, solidly built, with a boot that would take your fingers off if you wern't careful. It went like shit off a shovel. Flying along at about 100mph on Slapton one day, me and Rup got to test the brakes. An old lady was crossing in front of us, and she would not be rushed. Rup slammed on the brakes, and we fishtailed all over the road, screeching tyres, borderline control. The old lady would not be hurried, and carried on strolling across the road as we careened towards her. She casually stepped on to the verge as we flew past, swearing that that was the coolest old lady in the world. It also a a neat little gauge in it that told you how economically you were driving. If you paid too much attentino to it, you would proably uneconomically crash, but it was interesting to be able to tell just how quickly we were contributing to global warming.
Next came the Datsun ZX. This was pretty much useless as a surf vehicle, but it was so cool we forgave it. It was red, with removeable roof sections, and a fully phallic bonnet. It was very Japanese, expensive to run, but you just felt like a porn star when cruising in it. We didn't take this one off road. It would clash with the scenery. You felt that you should be wearing dogy tinted aviators, and point at people in a seventies stylee when you were in this.
It didn't last long...surf vehicles never do.
By Jon.
