"My partner’s car a classic? Not quite"

As my own car had been making a worrying rattling noise recently, my partner had let me drive his car for my commute to work from Redditch to Birmingham. It was made in the 1980s and it's his pride and joy. A 'future classic' as he calls it. In fact, he loves it so much he's even given it a pet name - Cindy!

The other night on the drive home to Redditch the traffic was a lot heavier than usual and the journey was very stop and go. Remember, that Cindy is getting on a bit (the phrase 'old banger' springs to mind) so I wasn't too surprised when the temperature light came on. Expecting that all she needed was a top up of water, I turned into a side road

It was when I got out of the car that I spotted what was obviously a mixture of oil and water pouring from underneath and making a rainbow river. Pretty, but definitely not good as far as I was concerned. I rang the AA.

Within twenty minutes my rescuer had arrived. He had a good look under the bonnet and topped the oil and water up. He explained that Cindy needed quite a bit of work on her, but she might just make it home. After deciding on suitable stop-off points should the temperature light come on again we set off, with my AA hero following behind.

At the first stop-off point I pulled over as the temperature light had come on again. My AA Patrol (yes, at this point I thought of him as mine) told me to put the heating on full blast to try and cool the engine down.

Cindy managed to get to the next scheduled stop – just – but the heater wasn’t blowing out any hot air at all. Not good. After some fiddling under the bonnet and a lot of angry hissing from Cindy, the patrol managed to let out some trapped air. So off we went again. And this time we made it home.

My partner, Jim, was anxious to know the fate of his beloved Cindy! The AA Patrol explained the work that needed to be done and although it was quite a big job on quite an old car, he reckoned it was worth it.  He said "I wouldn’t say it was if your car was clapped out and rusted but this is in quite good nick. And they do have quite a following. I wouldn't say it was a classic but..."

"It's a future classic?" offered Jim. "Definitely!" laughed our AA man.

Holly Parker, AA Member