gr1nch
Active Member
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2016
- Messages
- 729
- Location
- Louth, Lincolnshire
- Car
- 2017 W222 S350d AMG Line Premium Plus : Iridium Silver and Black Nappa
or the things we do when we were young.
Just now reading the thread about searching for long gone, but fondly remembered cars, I suddenly connected the memory that the first car I drove that wasn't my parents in the UK, was a battered old big Mercede trundling through Germany, that belonged to a couple of bootleg rock band merchandisers.
It happened like this. I'd got a lift on the way back home from Geneva, at some motorway service station cafe suspended above the road, maybe in Belgium. It was after midnight, the two blokes were English, gruff, but agreed to take me part way, but said this was the first time they picked up a hitchhiker. It turns out they were driving to a big gig, I think Iron Maiden but can't be sure. They were following the entire European tour in this very big Mercedes. I guess it must have been an S-Class. We got on well. They're asked me if, in a month's time, I would bring back some t-shirts for them by hand. Hundreds of them. They were running out. I'd be paid well in cash. I agreed.
A month later I found myself heading to an address in a London suburb. It was a huge, fancy house hidden in a leafy garden, which was packed with silk-screen printers. I'd been told to buy 3 large bags and I found some monsters in an Army surplus store. One on my back, one in each hand. From memory there were well over a thousand of t-shirts in there which they had packed very carefully and tightly. These monster bags were bursting with and they were very heavy. But I was tall and strong and liked a physical challenge. It all seemed a worthwhile adventure.
Walking, no taxis, by train to the east coast, then ferry (with my first overnight cabin) to Benelux, then train to Germany to meet up with the two bootleggers. How that all happened without mobile phones or pagers I'll never know.
Having met up and handed over the bags t-shirts (f*** me they were really heavy after all that travel, was I glad to get them off my hands), they suggested I tour with them and help sell them outside the concerts. I agreed to do it for a few weeks, as I hadn't anything else better to do. It was in the autumn and in the middle of Germany it was already cold.
At that point I started to pay more attention to the car as I spent half my time in it. This Merc was not new or well-maintained by any means. And since my first ride the exhaust had broken off, right under the engine! Chr*st, was that car bloody loud. You could not hear each other talk with the windows up. In fact it seemed easier with the windows down, which let the sound out, it was that bad. As we drove between stadiums or venues on the outskirts of large cities, we were mostly on roads with few pedestrians, but the odd time we went into streets with buildings alongside them, the noise with echoing was deafening. Like a troop of Hell's Angels all revving. The looks we got! And they weren't appreciative. Other cars also tended to keep their distance, which I guess was a benefit.
The two blokes confided in me that the car, I think it was a 280 SEL but can't be sure, was in fact two cars, lovingly made from two write-offs! They showed me the weld marks. I didn't know anything about cars, was a naïve small town lad, bit it didn't seem right all the same. However it also seemed a reasonable solution when you have two working halves of decent cars! And the Mercedes looked solid enough to take it. Both ends. I felt a bit nervous about that, but the car had been driving alright, so got on with it.
After a while the windscreen wipers stopped working when it started snowing. So the driver had to lean out the window and scrape away whilst barrelling down the autobahn. It meant your right hand (it was RHD from England) ended up freakin' frozen. It was starting to dawn on me this wasn't the safest environment to be in! After finishing the gig in the early hours, we'd drive off to the next venue, the bootleggers taking turns to drive whilst the other slept Inc me where we sat - not easy with that racket and the open windows with the cold air swirling all around you. Then on arrival, a bit to eat, then set up etc for the gig. There was no time for sight seeing, though they seemed pretty keen on the Rieperbahn in Frankfurt and I went along for the experience
Other cities included Cologne, Munich, Dusseldorf and Berlin, through communist East Germany - quite an experience.
I knew I had to get out of there when I woke up one night with the driver nodding off and the car drifting sideways towards the barriers. I shook and shouted him awake. Right then, even though it was never discussed that I would drive, since I was little more than a kid really, I told him I'd be driving NOW! and got the driver pulled over, out of the seat and me in there and on our way. The bootlegger was so tired he really didn't give a sh*t at that point and joined his mate asleep.
I seem to recall the gear selector was a high up handle, but can't be sure. That's when my hand got very cold when it snowed. I'd only driven my mum's Renault 12TL in peaceful Sussex at that point and I'm not sure I had my full license either, so it was a new experience for me, driving this crazy noisy, large wreck of a Merc, no wipers, in snow, RHD on the continent for the first time on autobahns and city roads.
After a few more days of that, we parted company. Me a few quid and a few memories richer. And made my way home again.
Just now reading the thread about searching for long gone, but fondly remembered cars, I suddenly connected the memory that the first car I drove that wasn't my parents in the UK, was a battered old big Mercede trundling through Germany, that belonged to a couple of bootleg rock band merchandisers.
It happened like this. I'd got a lift on the way back home from Geneva, at some motorway service station cafe suspended above the road, maybe in Belgium. It was after midnight, the two blokes were English, gruff, but agreed to take me part way, but said this was the first time they picked up a hitchhiker. It turns out they were driving to a big gig, I think Iron Maiden but can't be sure. They were following the entire European tour in this very big Mercedes. I guess it must have been an S-Class. We got on well. They're asked me if, in a month's time, I would bring back some t-shirts for them by hand. Hundreds of them. They were running out. I'd be paid well in cash. I agreed.
A month later I found myself heading to an address in a London suburb. It was a huge, fancy house hidden in a leafy garden, which was packed with silk-screen printers. I'd been told to buy 3 large bags and I found some monsters in an Army surplus store. One on my back, one in each hand. From memory there were well over a thousand of t-shirts in there which they had packed very carefully and tightly. These monster bags were bursting with and they were very heavy. But I was tall and strong and liked a physical challenge. It all seemed a worthwhile adventure.
Walking, no taxis, by train to the east coast, then ferry (with my first overnight cabin) to Benelux, then train to Germany to meet up with the two bootleggers. How that all happened without mobile phones or pagers I'll never know.
Having met up and handed over the bags t-shirts (f*** me they were really heavy after all that travel, was I glad to get them off my hands), they suggested I tour with them and help sell them outside the concerts. I agreed to do it for a few weeks, as I hadn't anything else better to do. It was in the autumn and in the middle of Germany it was already cold.
At that point I started to pay more attention to the car as I spent half my time in it. This Merc was not new or well-maintained by any means. And since my first ride the exhaust had broken off, right under the engine! Chr*st, was that car bloody loud. You could not hear each other talk with the windows up. In fact it seemed easier with the windows down, which let the sound out, it was that bad. As we drove between stadiums or venues on the outskirts of large cities, we were mostly on roads with few pedestrians, but the odd time we went into streets with buildings alongside them, the noise with echoing was deafening. Like a troop of Hell's Angels all revving. The looks we got! And they weren't appreciative. Other cars also tended to keep their distance, which I guess was a benefit.
The two blokes confided in me that the car, I think it was a 280 SEL but can't be sure, was in fact two cars, lovingly made from two write-offs! They showed me the weld marks. I didn't know anything about cars, was a naïve small town lad, bit it didn't seem right all the same. However it also seemed a reasonable solution when you have two working halves of decent cars! And the Mercedes looked solid enough to take it. Both ends. I felt a bit nervous about that, but the car had been driving alright, so got on with it.
After a while the windscreen wipers stopped working when it started snowing. So the driver had to lean out the window and scrape away whilst barrelling down the autobahn. It meant your right hand (it was RHD from England) ended up freakin' frozen. It was starting to dawn on me this wasn't the safest environment to be in! After finishing the gig in the early hours, we'd drive off to the next venue, the bootleggers taking turns to drive whilst the other slept Inc me where we sat - not easy with that racket and the open windows with the cold air swirling all around you. Then on arrival, a bit to eat, then set up etc for the gig. There was no time for sight seeing, though they seemed pretty keen on the Rieperbahn in Frankfurt and I went along for the experience
Other cities included Cologne, Munich, Dusseldorf and Berlin, through communist East Germany - quite an experience.I knew I had to get out of there when I woke up one night with the driver nodding off and the car drifting sideways towards the barriers. I shook and shouted him awake. Right then, even though it was never discussed that I would drive, since I was little more than a kid really, I told him I'd be driving NOW! and got the driver pulled over, out of the seat and me in there and on our way. The bootlegger was so tired he really didn't give a sh*t at that point and joined his mate asleep.
I seem to recall the gear selector was a high up handle, but can't be sure. That's when my hand got very cold when it snowed. I'd only driven my mum's Renault 12TL in peaceful Sussex at that point and I'm not sure I had my full license either, so it was a new experience for me, driving this crazy noisy, large wreck of a Merc, no wipers, in snow, RHD on the continent for the first time on autobahns and city roads.
After a few more days of that, we parted company. Me a few quid and a few memories richer. And made my way home again.
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I know their twins. Yep, an old S-Class too, a W116 350 iirc.
