Just some nights back, that is, some few days ago around 9pm – 10pm, I was walking to see someone when I saw this dude in a Nissan pick-up truck, navy blue incolour, packed in front of my hostel.
The driver obviously there to visit a girl who was either his girlfriend or a girl he was making a move on, I couldn’t really tell, but then it was still late, very late.
As I was about to climb the stairs, I heard a loud bang. The driver of the Nissan had willingly or unwillingly driven one of the rear tyres into a very big gutter. The gutter was so big the tyre had no contact with the ground to propel it out of its problem.
Out of good will and compassion and adventure, I decided to help so I approached the stuck, lop-sided vehicle which at that point was looking so sad, frustrated and crying its pistons out.
All I wondered about was what exactly the girl had done to him or said that had gotten the driver blinded enough not to have seen what was behind him or whether it was the absence of the vehicle’s mirror or if the driver was just a rubbish driver.
As I approached, the driver of the vehicle stepped out...obviously. He was a fair gentleman, not really tall and had a stupid smile. Now the car in question was a very old Nissan pick-up truck probably made in the early 80’s. I can’t really say much when it comes to its specs and all, but according to the driver you can actually tell by the way the front reacts whenever you step on the accelerator pedal and by the way the engine roars that its 5.6L straight, four cylinder engine was intact.
The vehicle nonetheless was so old that igniting it, you would have to hot wire it. And according to how old it looked and its heavy body, it would be outrageously heavy to lift. I think the designers designed it that way to act as an ABS system so the body wouldn’t easily bend to kill the passengers in case of an accident
. Nice work by the designers, this probably made them spend a lot of time working on the ABS system for them to get it to perfection. The simple description I can give to this car is that it’s Old Testament, considering it hard body and weight and most importantly its model.
With time we got more hands to try to get the poor, heavy, old car out but the challenge we faced was its muscle stretching, ground damaging weight. And I do not kid you when I say not 10 well able bodied boys who had all eaten well that night (and some who even go to the gym often and have been able to build up their bodies as though they are going to part take in a bodying building competition) could help the car out of its predicament.
This heavy, well-built macho car was supposed to be a four wheel drive but for some weird reason the car just decided not to allow itself to be engaged into the front wheel to aid us get it out of the gutter.
We concluded that the car got pissed with the now confused and restless driver for something he did and decided not to allow the driver to engage its front wheels or that the four wheel drive system of the car had grown with the age of the car and was now rubbish. With a lot more hands and time, we toiled and sweated and brought our ideas on board and soldiered on.
Finally our efforts were rewarded, we managed to help the poor old car out of the gutter and its gratitude was at least better than the driver’s who didn’t bother to even say ‘thank you’ to any of us. But the car realising how much effort we had out into it effortlessly sprung up unto the road with a loud roar from its engine showing relief and joy.
I know I’ve said a lot about this car but now the facts are it looks really old, has the hardest body I have ever seen! I like it however because of the ABS idea. If not for that careless, confused and blind driver who for no reason decided to punish the poor car, I would say the car was reliable because it still had its strength and you could feel the power whenever we reeved it. Didn’t have a lot of gizmos, gadgets or toys, well it didn’t have any of those whatsoever but it was built for purpose; strong, rigid, powerful and adventurous.
This brought my mind back to the time the Top Gear team was trying to destroy the old Toyota Hilux and the astonishing outcome of their test. Now, I was wondering how these new flashy modernized cars would react to similar situations like those because over the years cars have evolved dramatically.
For the part of the world we’re in, we like big, noisy, tough and... Damn! What’s the word? Oh yes! Hard cars. So names like the Toyota Land Cruiser V8, Nissan Navara, Nissan Patrol, the ridiculously huge Ford F150 and F350 and the likes.
These cars don’t have much when it comes to the toys and the gizmos just the normal everything a normal car would possess. Eventually, the modern day homo-sapiens are yawning for more in a car, more toys to play with, more gizmos in fact, they want their own amusement park in a car.
Therefore, we have inconceivable, urbane and ridiculously absurd in every way designs. And some of the cars you can think of are the Porches, the Mercedes Benz AMGs, the Ferraris, the Lamborghinis and what have you. And the truth be told, the engineers have done some really splendid works when it came to this and they are still coming out with more and more ideas.
I fear very soon we wouldn’t have the pleasure of driving anymore, the car would be driving us or we’ll be probably flying cars instead. Please don’t get me wrong, what am doing here now is quite simple, am paying homage to the cars of old who shed pure metal and oil to achieve a lot in terms of strength and what they couldn’t do in speed they made up for durability and purpose.
Therefore this is just a tribute to all of those really old cars which started the automobile revolutions and have paved way for other cars to follow. And this is also to encourage the cars that are yet to appear on stage and to let them know what exactly we expect them to deliver; the X-factor.
The pickup truck did finally get out of the gutter.
By SelormCars