Since The Management haven’t pulled the plug on my posts just yet, I thought I might as well introduce myself to those of you who don’t know me. The name’s Chris and I trade here under the hastily selected sobriquet Rust-MyEnemy, which was coined back in 2006 when I first became active on some forum or another beginning with a “J”.
Heard of it? Didn’t think so.
So, I’m English yet have pretty good teeth. I’m six-foot five, I’m about to become thirty-two years old (how on earth did that happen?) and I live in the picturesque village of Mistley in coastal Essex. I love writing yet I’m spectacularly poorly read, due to my formative years being spent absorbing the Wrong Kind Of Literature.
I don’t mean porn. I’m talking about car stuff; books, magazines, brochures, manuals, you name it. Oh, and boat stuff. And plane stuff. And train, bus and truck stuff. And bike stuff. Any knowledge I may exhibit could well be verbatim regurgitation of something I read in Motor Trend when I was eleven. If I was anywhere near as conversant in Leo Tolstoy or James Joyce as I am in Ford full line brochures from ’75 to ’95, I’d be a very different person, and probably a great deal better off.
I studied car design at Coventry for four long years, earnestly believing that it would catapult me into an exciting career in a Turinese styling house or California think tank. It didn’t. I’m currently in charge of allocating jobs to spanner-monkeys at a busy dealership for a certain Stuttgart-based vehicle manufacturer that isn’t Porsche.
You all probably know about my domestic fleet; three cars totalling approximately a thousand quid all in. There’s my ’98 A4 1.8T, my ’97 Rover 825Si and her ’95 Peugeot 306. We don’t have space for any more on the driveway or in the garage, and my other half seems to have some strange belief that gardens are for flora and fauna and not SD1 restoration projects.
So what am I doing here? Well, picture the scene: It’s 1993, I’m 12 years old and sitting in my parents living room, listening to Black Tie, White Noise by David Bowie playing on our aluminium fronted Hitachi music centre. Autocar have just published their first drive of the Ferrari 456GT, and I’m sitting there, reading it and re-reading it ad infinitum. To this day I remember vividly the images, the captions and the figures (442hp, 186mph…) and the sheer poetry in Andrew Frankel’s words. It got me addicted.
With every word I read I was living vicariously through the hands and eyes of the motoring journalists that I began to revere. And, to a certain extent, I still do. A skilfully written test review, or a recollection of a memorable drive, should transport you to the very centre of the scene. I still scour magazines and the internet, looking to be swept away by imagery and lose myself in somebody else’s experiences.
Unfortunately there’s some terrible stuff out there, and a great many writers who trade on borrowed ideas. Originality seems to be a scarce commodity, but Hooniverse has a rich vein of it. That’s why I’m utterly delighted to be a part of things. Thanks for having me.
The other great thing about this place, if I might be allowed to continue the love-in for a few more moments, is how familiar everybody here is with each other. I mean, I’ve only ever actually met one of you in the flesh (Hi, Pete!) yet feel that anybody on here, whether contributor or commenter, could literally be in the pub around the corner. If you are, by the way, mine’s an Adnams Ghost Ship.
I’ve got some ideas for “unmissable” content that I’ll be posting until everybody visits me with torches and pitchforks. I’ll be continuing with the R.A-S.H series until my shelves run dry and I have to use brochures even more dull than the Astra one from last week. There’ll be some reviews, too. Not the old part-exchange nonsense I tend to drive and discuss over on Roadwork, but new, shiny cars that you may or may not get in the US. You know, just for fun.
And praise be, Murilee; if I might belatedly reference that wholly justifiable meme one more time.
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