The Car Spy

The brief couldn’t have been easier. Go to Swindon, collect a bright orange Gallardo and bring it back to base all in one piece. However, it was a Friday afternoon and the M4, M3 and M25 were getting a tad busy. By the time 5 o’clock arrived it was as though the world had come to a standstill. Multiple accidents and the Highways Agency has contrived to create the biggest car park in the world. What is it about Friday afternoon’s? Whatever I am sitting in one of the fastest cars on the road going nowhere fast. Time passes slowly and it feels like I am watching not one but several layers of paint dry; at least the Lambo is proving to be handy eye-candy for everyone else in the jam. Out of the corner of my eye I sense the movement of waving hands and sure enough the cars either side of us are full of grinning Cheshire cats. Since there was no celebrity sitting with me in the car it seems that everybody likes Gallardo’s or that Arancio Borealis is a colour that makes people happy.

Two hours into the evening and the procession of traffic curls on to the M25 which itself looks busier than Sainsbury’s on a Saturday morning. All is well with the Lambo which is still pleasing the crowd but the fuel is getting low and there is another 20-odd miles until Clacketts Lane Services. Time for a quick detour off the next exit to a petrol station near Byfleet. The place is heaving. Where is everybody going? No matter it’s our turn now and £30 of Texaco’s finest quenches the Lambo’s thirst. I join the enormous queue to pay the bill while watching the Lambo attract admiring glances and the attention of a couple of young schoolkids.

Ten minutes later and I am striding back to the Gallardo imagining that by now the jam on the M25 had vaporised and the journey home would be a dream from now on. Get into the car, put in the key and then ‘click’. No rapid spinning of the starter motor but that simple ‘click’ sound that says ‘dead battery’. Why? Who knows? Who cares? I am sitting in a car that people stop talking for just to hear that mighty V10 roar into life and all they can hear is a ‘click’. And there is a crowd developing. It’s like someone has just been shot in the petrol station. “Everything OK Mister?” asks a young lad who looks like he is staring at a spaceship from Mars. I pop the bonnet and clamber out to get to the handy battery access panel – at least that part is easy. Somebody auditioning for Joker of The Year tells me that the engine is located in the rear of the car and suddenly realises he is the only one laughing at that particular quip. Then the offers of help come flooding in. “Would you like a tow?”, “Need a lift somewhere?”, “My brother owns a garage, I’ll give him a call” were just some of the many kind offers from complete strangers. Maybe they were half-hoping I was some rich bloke who would part with a wedge for a bit of help. Whatever it looked like I was going to be helped whether I wanted it or not.

Finally, the cavalry arrived – literally! Well at least in the form of a slightly-built elderly gentleman wearing a cowboy hat – I kid you not! His trusty steed was a Citroen Xantia 1.9 TD and he just happened to be carrying a set of jump-leads. By now there were so many people trying to witness the spectacle that I fully expected a film-crew to turn up. The Xantia was strategically positioned and the cowboy-hatted gentleman handled the jump leads with purpose while telling the crowd to “stand well away”. I took my orders to get back to the helm of the Lambo. His wife turned the key of the Xantia which rattled into life and then with a thumbs-up signal I was instructed by the man-in-charge to fire up the Lambo. After the obligatory machine-gun activity of the starter motor the V10 exploded into life and behind the cacophany of sound from the engine you could hear the cheer of the crowd.  It was like England had just scored at Wembley!

The very kind gentleman with the jump-leads gets a big handshake from me and I thank him deeply for saving my embarassment. He makes a gesture that tells me he does that sort of thing as a matter of course every day of the week and I suddenly start to believe in the kindness of human nature again. So back to the M25 which incredibly is still in suspended animation and it’s 8 o’clock at night. The A25 beckons and luckily it’s empty which gives me time to ponder on the events back at the petrol station that leave me with a warm feeling inside. People love cars, especially those like our orange missile. Need help? Buy a Lamborghini – one of the definite upsides to ownership! Click here to view the Gallardo which now has a brand new battery installed!