Notes From the Hard Shoulder

by James May

  For the first bit of the road to Lugano we were tailed by the relatives in the new car, they being fearful that the prospect of such an epic journey would somehow affect the '67 machine. I have never understood this thinking. Cars aren't human – it didn't know it was going all the way to England. It had covered about 35,000 parochial miles without a hitch; another 1,500, even in one go, wouldn't matter.

  After 10 miles or so the chase car peeled away with a cheeky, Cinquecento-sized parp and we were alone on a superbly snaking road. Sophie drove, leaving me free to marvel at how the Italians could make such sense out of a concept as essentially barmy as the 500. This was studied simplicity – one tiny instrument and a few unmarked switches, pedals like French-horn keys and a lever in the back to redirect engine bay heat to the cockpit if desired. Brilliant and infinitely repairable – it's rumoured that Italian sweet shops keep a few essential Cinquecento spares. The whole, even from outside, exuded the musty smell of antiquity that identifies old cars – which I had also noticed, ominously, in St Antony's place back in the village. Uphill the engine throbbed, downhill it spun deliriously in true Fiat tradition. We discovered that despite its mere 500cc the Fiat could be made to bowl along, provided momentum was maintained, to the extent that we caught, and became frustrated by, a BMW 5-series being driven by worried of Munich.

  Within an hour we had entered Switzerland and joined the motorway. Now the air-cooled two-pot fairly roared with endeavour and 80kmh was observed on the tiny, yellowing speedo. Eventually, in high spirits, we gained on a huge truck. 'Shall I overtake?' said Sophie, barely able to contain her excitement. Yes! We crept past – I remember waving to the driver and him making a scooping gesture with his hand as if to help us along. We pulled back into the inside lane and then our whoops of delight were cut off like a snapped cassette by a loud pop accompanied by that horrible, hot smell so familiar to owners of old cars. Power tailed off dramatically: I made a quick appeal to the magnetic St Antony but no, all power was definitely lost. We drifted on to the hard shoulder in loaded silence.

  No problem, though. There had been a noise, a smell and the generator light had come on. The fan belt had broken and starved the ignition circuit of current. Obvious. I'd worked this out before we even came to a halt, and of course we had brought a spare belt. I hopped out, flipped open the boot and, you may not be surprised to learn, the fan belt mocked me in its intactness. Through a pall of smoke I could see that oil was just about everywhere, except, I reasoned, in the engine. Even on the rear screen. It was at this moment that the image of my tool box, still sitting incongruously on my dining room table back in Blighty, sprang to mind.

  As I walked back from the SOS telephone I suffered one of those sudden and depressing onsets of reality. What had I been thinking of when I agreed to 1,500 miles in an ancient Fiat 500? I keep getting involved with old cars, they always break and somehow I'm always surprised. We had covered but 38 miles and the car was comprehensively knackered. Even our (original) warning triangle was busted, and I soon tired of trudging the regulation 100 metres back to stand it up again. When the police arrived an hour later, they ran over it, and it now forms one of the random piles of crazed translucent plastic that grace all motorways. The police wandered around the car, rang a recovery truck, posed for a picture, fined us for not having a Swiss motorway pass and buggered off.

  Two hours later we were towed to a Fiat garage in Bellinzona, expense mecca of the universe. A mechanic poked around the engine bay whilst discussing the problem with Sophie in the usual rapid-fire and unhinged-sounding Italian. She turned to me with an ashen face. 'The tree of the engine is broken,' she translated. I knew it.

  The next day, sitting idly in a Swiss bar awaiting news of our repatriation, the true folly of our venture struck me. We had taken every precaution for its emigration: we had detailed maps and a carefully planned route; the car had been serviced and overhauled; we had the most comprehensive AA cover going and we had taken essential spares. Yes, I had forgotten the toolkit, but that was as irrelevant as all our other expedients. For as I bit into another piece of that cake to avoid paying £5 for a sandwich, I realised that I hadn't cleared the trip with the great Saint.

  Broken tree my arse. This was a clear case of divine intervention. This car had returned to its space in the shadow of Antony's tiny chapel every day for the last 27 years. When we drove out of Rezzonico it went missing; as we crossed the border into Switzerland it was clearly about to become lost. And as Sophie had put her foot down, so had he. I had tested the patience of a saint and suffered for it.

  Sophie Langella's Cinquecento has since been brought to England by the AA. She now lives happily with the car in Teddington, Middlesex. Following the breakdown, James May returned to Italy and joined the Monastery of St Antony, Padua, where he is said to live a life of repentance. He was prevented by a vow of silence from talking to us.

  HARLEY-DAVIDSON, A HANGING OFFENCE

  It's not often we have a hanging in Top Gear, so I'm pleased to be able to present one here, for the entertainment of the crowd.

  In 1816, long before the motorbike was invented, a man called Isaac Harley was strung up at Ely, along with four other miscreants, for his part in the famous Littleport Riots. They'd only been protesting about the price of bread, for Pete's sake. It's not as if they killed anyone, although one Mr Speechley is said to have died later from the shock of the mob smashing his furniture up. They would probably have butchered a farmer called Martin had they been able to find him, but as they couldn't they settled instead for waving a meat cleaver over his aged grandmother's head. This and a few other minor misdemeanours were sufficient to condemn them to the drop.

  From the newly erected gallows near the Ely workhouse, on Friday, 28 June 1816, rioter John Dennis confessed his crimes and implored the assembled people to 'avoid drunkenness, Sabbath-breaking, whoremongery and bad company'. Isaac Harley stated only that he met the death he had expected. Then they were despatched.

  Good. It's the only language these people understand.

  I hope you enjoyed the hanging as much as I did. Unfortunately, it may not actually be relevant to the story. It all depends on what else is unearthed by the Littleport Society, resident and highly active in the Fenland village of the same name. I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of local historians. They know exactly what everyone's been up to for the past 500 years and might avenge themselves by tracing my ancestry and uncovering someone who was hanged. So we'll come back to Isaac the rioter later.

  For now, let us move forward 19 years to 1835, when another Harley, William, was born on Victoria Street on the outskirts of the ancient village. The house is no longer in existence – and probably wasn't much more than a hovel, anyway – but Bruce Frost, treasurer, membership secretary and 'family tree surgeon' of the society, knows roughly where it would have stood. He pauses in silent awe for a moment at the spot that links this quiet rural road with what I thought was an all-American legend.

  You see, in 1860 William Harley emigrated to America, where, as well as fighting in the Civil War on the side of the Union, he fathered several children with Mary Smith. One of these, William Sylvester, born in 1880, was the co-founder of Harley-Davidson in 1903 and the engineering brains behind its motorcycles. So there you have it. Top Gear's Harley-Davidson Dyna Super Glide Sport is not, after all, the product of the great American dream; it is the product of Fenland seed, a commodity that was hitherto thought to yield nothing more than turnips.

  I didn't know any of this. Neither did anyone else until 1996, when the Littleport Society revealed the connection. So when the editor of Top Gear said, 'We want you to take the long-term Harley home,' I envisaged the endless expanse and warm sunshine of Wisconsin, USA. Thanks to the pesky meddling Bruce Frost and his Merrie Men, I got the vast expanse and leaden skies of East Anglia instead.

  We've had the Harley for a year. Top Gear's Road-test bloke Tom Stewart has been using it on and off for commuting and has pronounced it perf
ectly usable around town, which is quite a compliment when you consider that he normally rides one of those annoying little scooters. The magazine's 'art' bloke Marcel rode it to a Superbikes race meeting but ended up feeling a bit of a chump. I'd never been for a proper cruise on it.

  'You may find,' said Tom Stewart as he handed me the Harley's keys, 'that you actually end up liking it. I did.' But he forgot to remind me that the Glide's ignition works independently of its steering lock. I therefore inserted the key under the seat, fired up the 88 cubic inch (l,449cc) beast, rode around in a small circle in the Top Gear garage, stopped, turned off, removed the key, unlocked the steering, reinserted the key under the seat, restarted the engine and finally headed out for Littleport.

  I'd also forgotten that our bike has the optional Screaming Jessie ... sorry, Screamin' Eagle exhaust pipes. When I pressed the starter, I thought one of the cylinder heads had blown off. The first firing stroke sounds like a pistol discharging next to your ear, after which the 60-degree V settles down to a more general exchange of small-arms fire and road drilling. For a few seconds after starting, a warning light proclaiming 'engine' illuminates on the speedo. It should really be prefixed with 'Don't worry, that's only the'.

  The racket is, in my view, embarrassing and deeply anti-social, but I seem to be alone in thinking this. Everyone else in the TG office likes the noise, and even Bruce Frost, a non-rider but an admirer of Harleys, says, 'The noise is all part of the fun.' This is a strange attitude to adopt in a village that takes such a notoriously dim view of public disturbances.

  In any case, the character of the Milwaukee lump is best appreciated through the arse, not the ears. The firing pulses are mercifully subdued through the bars and pegs, but through the seat of one's cowboy trousers an enjoyable relationship can be built up with the lazy torque characteristics, and one that renders the tachometer about as useful as the proverbial ashtray on a motorbike. The low-rev throb also seems to have a curative effect on minor aches and general early morning stiffness.

  Then again, after an hour on the M11 I was convinced that I could wave goodbye to that other form of early morning stiffness as well, thanks to the sterilising frequency of the V-twin vibe. The Harley is not at its best on a motorway. The assault from the wind on the rider's partly reclined body is exhausting and the front wheel is prone to weave around a bit. On the back roads to Littleport, on the other hand, it felt remarkably at home, which only helps reinforce the idea that Harley-Davidson is imbued with Fenland breeding. A 50-60mph bimble suits its riding position and temperament much better, and I can see what editor Blick meant when he said, 'It's good at doing what it does best.' East Anglia, being flat and sparsely populated, even looks a bit like my perception of the great American outdoors.

  Except that there are bends in the fens, they can conceal agricultural machinery, and the Harley has the worst brakes I've experienced on a road-going vehicle since I last drove a traction engine, which had brake blocks made of poplar wood. And this 'Sport' version of the Dyna Super Glide has two front discs where most Harleys have just the one.

  Poor brakes are simply inexcusable on a new motorcycle. Barely more palatable are the price (£10,495), the lacklustre performance and the shocking detail finish. For a 3,000-mile bike that spends much of its life garaged, our Harley is looking pretty scruffy. There is chrome peeling off the rear spring hangers, the forks and wheels are flaking, the plastic trim is coming off the tank and the engine cases are adorned, like many of the bike's owners, with unacceptably furry nuts. I can see the theoretical appeal of a Harley – easy riding, low stress, a quirky nature – but by the time I arrived at the offices of the Littleport Society I was merely bored and irritated by it. I was also bent double by the whole experience and would have welcomed being hanged by the neck for a bit, though only until straightened out.

  Which reminds me. The provenance of Harley the bike builder is beyond doubt. But what of Isaac Harley the rioter? Is he by any chance related? Bruce Frost hopes so. The year 2003 will be the centenary of Harley-Davidson, and the people of Littleport like to think that the company will want to conduct some celebrations in this, its spiritual home. If they do, Bruce has a slogan ready: 'Littleport – from rioting to riotous riding'. All he has to do is establish a connection.

  Extensive lurking in graveyards and poring over parish records has revealed this much. There were two Harleys, Jobe and another Isaac, living in Littleport in the 1700s. William, the father of the co-founder, has been traced back to Jobe; Isaac the rioter has been traced back to the earlier Isaac. 'I have the family tree with me if you want to see it,' says Bruce. I quickly stop him. It's about six feet long and compiled in a typesize more normally associated with insurance cover notes.

  But if these two elder Harleys can be shown to be brothers, then bingo, Bruce's Harley jigsaw is complete. He is visibly excited at the prospect.

  Then again, if several thousand Hog enthusiasts descend on this sleepy village with their Screamin' Eagle pipes and leather chaps, he may regret that he ever dabbled in this local history lark. He may even wish he could invoke the powers of those special constables appointed after the riots to ward against 'parties standing idly in the streets of the parish of Littleport'.

  He may even end up thinking, as I am inclined to, that they hanged the wrong Harley.

  I'M JUST GOING TO ICELAND, I MAY BE SOME TIME

  From about 2,000 feet I could see, from the window of the aeroplane, that the landscape was pretty uninviting. Frosted, treeless, volcanic, desolate and rising only vaguely from the heaving grey bosom of the North Atlantic. I had my penknife and my compass; my adventure hat and my stout boots; my spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch. But, I suddenly realised, I'd forgotten my coat.

  Maybe this wasn't surprising. If things had gone according to the original plan, I'd have written this on the sun-drenched terrace of a posh hotel in Johannesburg, with a flunky standing by ready to bring me another gin and tonic.

  As it happens, this is a Land Rover drive story, and experience should have told me that anything less than an untimely death miles from civilisation would be a fair result. Let's have a look at the scoreboard to date: I nearly drowned in a Land Rover on the Defender Challenge, I got lost in a desert in one and thought I'd have to eat the photographer, I once left home in a Land Rover only to return on foot 12 hours later, leaving the thing teetering on top of a huge boulder somewhere, and I successfully drove a Discovery all the way to the northern tip of Alaska only to then lose it in a snowdrift.

  Despite all this, I've become something of a fan of the Land Rover 'expedition'. So when Richard Newton and I were given the opportunity to drive the new Range Rover 12 weeks in advance of its launch, along with permission to go 'anywhere within reason', it seemed like a good scheme to spend four whole weeks driving all the way from London to the heart of South Africa. A couple of events served to quash this idea. Firstly, and quite by chance, I met a bloke in a pub who had made precisely the same journey in his own Land Rover, and it had taken him six months. Then another bloke called Bin Laden started a war, as if to reinforce my late grandmother's contention that you should never trust a man with a beard. It was thought that at some point on the trip the priceless prototype luxury off-roader might suffer a fate normally reserved for unattended packages at airports and be destroyed in a controlled explosion.

  So I closed my eyes, Newton spun the globe and I stopped it with my fingertip. Risky, but I paid enough attention in double geog to know that the warm bits are round the middle. My intrepid index finger alighted on Pakistan. Most excellent. As a significant part of our old empire, it was the obvious place to put this triumph of Anglo/German engineering through its paces. And so, to cut to the chase, we went to Iceland.

  We were, nevertheless, still mildly excited when we finally gained access to Reykjavik's container port to collect our sea-freighted vehicle. The customs docket proclaimed 'one piece Range Rover' but in fact we got the whole thing. This was the first time I'd s
een it and I thought it looked pretty good; sort of still like the old Range Rover but not quite the same. I couldn't quite see what all the fuss over the headlights had been about, but that might have been because they, along with much of the rest of the car, were still plastered with the gaffer-tape disguise it had worn on the clandestine journey from Solihull to Grimsby docks.

  I learned something curious about gaffer tape. In its normal role as the essential fabric of the May household it seems barely able to stick to itself. Yet at minus five or so it acquires great tenacity and a tensile strength slightly above that enjoyed by fingernails. Every hour or so a customs man dressed in Ernest Shackleton's own coat would emerge, watch for a few minutes and then retire to his geothermally heated office equipped with some interesting new Saxon words.

  By the time we'd cleaned the car up it was pitch black. I looked at my watch and it was 4.30.

  Besides the requirement for a decent coat, there are other factors to consider about Iceland in general and in winter in particular. What seems to be the world's most aptly named country could readily have been called something else.