This is a stick on the roof of Project Audinary. Just a stick. Actually, it’s more of a robust twig. I noticed it there as I passed the window at the foot of our stairs and assumed it had been dropped by one of the winged critters making home in the guttering above the garage. After briefly pondering I went upstairs to bed and thought nothing further of it.
Until lunchtime today. I walked out to my car and noticed THE STICK WAS STILL THERE. I had driven to work that morning with haste and had surely reached velocities higher than of the order required to dislodge a stick dropped on a car roof.
Something amazing is surely afoot.
The mundane truth was that my roof had collected the stick during a brush with the undergrowth. There are a few places on my route to work where the lanes are so narrow that hedge-diving can be necessary when Might Is Right becomes the deal. With a Scania bearing down on you, it’s prudent to choose a young, soft-looking bush. Judging by the light scuff-marks running along my roof towards where the stick lies shows that Tree-On-Audi action recently went down on this very spot.
So we know how the stick got there, but it was the manner of its union with the Audi that amazed me, and why I’ve ended up wasting several electronic column inches with an anecdote unlikely to be repeated at weddings and bar mitsvah.
12.6cms. By unimaginable coincidence, my car and this twig share a common measurement. On the B5 Audi A4 if you draw a slightly diagonal line from the rubber seal around the window glass to the inside edge of the gutter moulding, it will measure 126mm.
Similarly, if you measure from one of the spurs on the main stem of this twig to a spur on its branchlet (are these even words?) you will find that same measurement. When I removed the twig from my roof I found that it was only held in place under the most minute amount of pressure, not much more than that of a stylus onto a record. But that tiny squeeze, thanks to the bending moment of the wood acting to form a clip between the physical edge of the seal and that of the gutter, was just enough to hold it to the car even in a 90mph wind.
No, there is no point to this story whatsoever aside from the almost infinite improbability of this exact set of circumstances ever happening. Such precision in randomness. Sure, twigs get caught on cars all the time, but not like this. No.
This was special.
(Images copyright Chris Haining / Hooniverse 2015. Note to copyright infringers: If you really want pictures of a blue Audi with a twig on it, you need to have a serious word with yourself)
By RoadworkUK
RoadworkUK is the online persona of Gianni Hirsch, a tall, awkward gentleman with a home office full of gently decomposing paper and a garage full of worthless scrap metal. He lives in the village of Moistly, which is a safe distance from London and is surrounded by enough water and scenery to be interesting. In another life, he has designed, sold, worked on and written about cars in exchange for small quantities of money.
Ross Ballot 
Kamil Kaluski
B5 Audi- your speedo is busted and you never drove over 20KPH.
Nah, that’s a pre-1991 problem.But a real one before that…
Someone placed an empty Diet Pepsi can on the shelf-like rear bumper of a friend’s 1974 Pontiac LeMans. He refused to remove the can – wondering just how long the can would stay there on its own. The can ended up riding on the bumper for over eight months until a windstorm at speed apparently blew it off.
I look forward eagerly to your forthcoming range of ‘easy-fit’, ‘eco-friendly’, low carbon emission, wooden, ‘twig-clip’ roof racks with optional ski, kayak, snowboard, mountain bike and luggage carrier options.
I’ll get to crowdfunding forthwith!
Thats the spirit!
Make the most of every opportunity!
Someone really needed 5 quid
Hey, this counts as news in my world
I am oddly amused and entertained by this story. I initially clicked the homepage in search of more rah-rah Porsche circlejerking. Instead, more Audi news.
So what you’re saying is… it was… sticky?