Well the deed is done, we have a car!!! Saturday was quite an action packed day for Chris and I, travelling up to Nuneaton to see a possibly suitable car, owned by Uli, an interesting sounding German chap. After the usual getting lost trying to read 'streetmap' printouts, we arrived to see a blue LHD Isuzu Trooper parked up on the side of the road and it all felt alarmingly real all of a sudden!

Uli turned out to be a really nice guy who was thoroughly interested in what we were planning on doing, himself being a bit of a vehicle bodger/traveller (having welded an engine to a pushbike in Cairo and then driven it back to Germany, then to the UK!). There were various things wrong with the vehicle, which you'd expect from an 18 year old car, but nothing major. After a good look over and spin round the block which highlighted just how bad the brake pull was (under hard braking, apply lock to 10 O'clock or so, to counter a sticky front calliper!), we were quite satisfied that it had the potential to get us there in one piece. Down to negotiations! Uli very kindly agreed to throw in the workshop manual as a present, brilliant news, even if it is in German, as those puppies cost serious bucks! After a bit of haggling we settled on £500 which included the Tax until December and as the MOT is good until then too, it was a bargain!


Chris drove the beast back down to Steph and my house near Buckingham, before loading up with bikes for Sundays’ ride and then headed off to see Rich in London, for the official Vegantune look-over and some priceless info on desert mods and driving tips. This was my first real experience of driving a left hooker and predictably I reached for the door handle a few times whilst changing gear – generally I was impressed with the high position and how solid it felt. Having driven down to Kingston and out to Bracknell on Sunday, driving back to Buckingham afterwards, the car experienced no more problems, so all is good, with work beginning in ernest in a few weeks time.