A true story.
Clarence Amarasinghe the owner of Car Mart, who imported the Beetle,lived at Gampaha;
In the ‘50s in the Sinhala paper- I think Dinamina, he advertised ‘ Rs 2000/ gift if you can topple a Vokswagen’. I remember well.
And lo one chap had bought one and it toppled.
Clarence gave the money, but also bought the car back and kept it in one of his rooms hidden for some years! That is how the volks survived.
My Volks EL 8484 had superb acceleration, no noise at speeding as the engine was to the rear.
With engine behind, it tended to over steer, which was great going up the winding roads hill country.
Tended to skid with Kelani tyres on wet tarred roads, which I mastered driving around Kirillapone.
Often the breaks needed adjustment, the timing belt likewise easily done by most.
The 6 volt battery was under the rear seat. Once it caught fire. Lights were poor, so much so, I crashed on to black tar barrels laid across the road about 7pm on a drizzly night at Seethawaka Kigndom- Avissawella. Once around Kandy Lake at dusk I went over a sleeping dog screaming ‘Eek Eek’ and then after wife’s tirade I went over another a hundred yards ahead with another set of screams!
The sealed beam lights – Hella were most welcome. Hub caps tended to drop off. The body metal guage was 16. Could keep a lot of luggage under the bonnet really!
I was devil incarnate speeding, no vehicle tolerated in front, even the dashboard cubby hole door flinging open as I screeched to a halt. The cubby door did bother me no end but I could never find the cause.
Expert Baases drove like hell, breaked to a sudden halt, but nix. Took sudden curves, breaked. Nix. No cubby door flung open.
I thinked and thinked. Scratched hair- had much then.
Then it dawned that Keerthi my beloved was always in the passenger seat at such times.
One day it was revealed; my love was leaning forwards pressing the cubby hole press button very hard with both thumbs as I breaked to a stop, and as she let go, the door flung open!
Can be used on the blogger!
Further about the same time, Clarence got down the Vespa- looking very odd, and also the Peugeot 203.
He allowed one employee who lived down our area in Maradana to use the Vespa. We all looked askance at that but the Vespa became the no 1 scooter.
The P 203 was a stunner too but stopped as it had infringed the America ( correction British) Jowett Javelin patents, looking so much similar. I saw a black Javelin at St. Josephs.
Susiri
