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G0TEZ > AUTO 15.12.11 17:35l 73 Lines 3146 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 290135G0TEZ
Read: DK3UZ GUEST
Subj: Life with little cars..
Path: DB0FHN<DB0FOR<DB0SIF<DB0MRW<DB0ERF<IZ3LSV<IK2XDE<DB0RES<ON0AR<UA6ADV<
GB7CIP
Sent: 111215/1258Z @:GB7CIP.#32.GBR.EU #:19920 [Caterham Surrey GBR] $:290135G0
From: G0TEZ@GB7CIP.#32.GBR.EU
To : AUTO@WW
Something Pete said about having an MDI Aircar if not for towing the RV,
brought back a memory from my teenage,motorbike days.We were visiting our
local garage cun Greasy Spoon one night and,outside was parked what we
would now call an RV.
We took a look around it, amazed at the living/sleeping area, big enough
to hold a dinner party but the final surprise was that it had a sort of
'garage' across the rear. Maybe meant to originally hold a Harley
Davidson, this 'garage' had an Isetta bubble car squeezed into it. In
addition, there were two trail bikes strapped to the rear.
I should imagine that the Aircar would probably only take up about as much
room as the Isetta, designed to take 3 people across it's seat.
The fuel consumtion of the huge RV was probably appalling but some people
do drive tham and some of the owners of the smaller, European,
'Caravanettes' do have a trailer behind with, occasionally, a small car,or
m/cycles + pushbikes for the kids.
That was at a time when we , in England had only built about 6 miles of
our Motorway network, now it is in thousands of miles with an, as yet
unoficial
80 mph /140 kph speed limit. On a happy note, the bikes we were riding
were, a BSA, in my case, aNorton,a Triumpgh and a couple of AJSs, all
British and all consigned to the mists of history - sad.
I used to know a few pensioners with caravanettes who would close up their
houses in September and drive steadily down France and Spain then across
from Spain to north Africa and down to Marrakech.
They amazed me because they didn't bother to learn any other languages,
not even French which was and still is spoken in Morrocco and Algeria.
Such a trip doesn't start to compare with the distances Bob faces inside
Australia, you are talking a max of about 5,000 km but, at least he only
has English to deal with.
The point behind the OAPs trips was quite easy, if they derove slowly down
to North Africa, they covered the costs of fuel by not having to pay for
heating during the winter and, somehow, they could manage to draw their
pensians from Post Offices, even in Morrocco from what they told me,
though how they did it with no foraign languages is beyond me, I can
imagine much shouting and waving of arms.
I haven't met any for a long time but, from what I hear, it is more than a
little dangerous to travel to Algeria and Morocco nowadays. Most people
take advantage of the Lo-Cost airlines to go to places like Greece and
Turkey for their annual holidays. Not the same as spending 5 months on the
road, driving towards the sun and back to England in the spring.
None of the OAPs I remember had any sort of small vehicle attached but no
need really as every small French town had it's 'Camping Municipale' with
plenty of space, even for an American RV and Spain had similar with a
small, general purpose shop on site, selling bread ,butter, sugar,tea and
other sundries.
I wonder if Pete has, at least,a small m/cycle attached to the Yellow
Submarine.
73 - Ian, G0TEZ @ GB7CIP
Message timed: 12:58 on 2011-Dec-15 GMT
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