The Night Mail

[polybear]

8 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

A friend of mine once locked himself  out of his ford escort at Whitley Bay. I said no problem, we just need a coathanger. I took him into town and found a laundrette. I went in and asked for a couple of coat hangers. The young lady adked me what I needed them for. "To break into a car" I said. No other comments. She just handed me two coat hangers with a smile. Took me all of 30 seconds to get into the car when we got back.

 

Jamie

 

Let's see now...

Going equipped

Breaking and entering

 

7 hours ago, Northmoor said:

My next door neighbour bought a brand new house on the estate we live on, back in the '70s.  He challenged the builder in no uncertain terms when he'd discovered that across the whole estate - several hundred houses - there were only something like six different key combinations.

 

I'll bet he didn't change the locks though.

The builders next door have the keys, as NNN's have moved out whilst work is going on.  If it were my house I'd be changing the locks as soon as the work was over, just in case there's a dodgy one on the team that gets the keys copied for a later date.

Cautious Bear....with cake to protect....

 

17 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

A friend in the UK has something called a 'Denali'.  I have lived in smaller houses.

 

 

No, that's not her....googled picture.

 

 

 

There's rather a lot of those in Kuwait - for some strange reason I did find it slightly disconcerting driving along the motorway/freeway at 75mph (120km/h) whilst they always felt the need (as do drivers of other vehicles) at 3ft** off my back bumper.

**And yes - they REALLY would be 3ft off the bumper.  FFS

 

Somewhat unsurprisingly, they would have a habit of getting it wrong.....

 

 

This one sat beside the road for months, if not years - a real shame as must've been really nice before it was crunched:

 

[polybear]

9 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Ever do that with  an airframe for someone else?

 

Swapping a Tornado for an F18 would probably get noticed.  The stick would be on the wrong side for a start.

[AndyID]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

 

The north, in the less arid bits.

Up Canada way

 

It looks vaguely volcanic, 

Montana?

 

Andy

 

Nope. Not Montana

[AndyID]

26 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

Nope. Not Montana

 

Jamie got it. It's a little bit North of Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada. It's not very far from here.

[Happy Hippo]

48 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Swapping a Tornado for an F18 would probably get noticed.  The stick would be on the wrong side for a start.

I know of a pilot that ground looped a Spitfire when he opened the throttle and booted in the rudder thinking he was in a Merlin powered Mk IX when in fact he'd  got into a Griffon Engined Mk XIV.

 

I think this was more to do with forgetting which version of the Spitfire he was attempting to fly and muscle memory taking over.

 

Pilots transiting between Aerospatiale and Westland/Augusta built helicopters have a similar issue with the rotors turning in opposite directions. (Gazelle clockwise/Lynx anticlockwise).  One of the reasons that successful completion of  a conversion courses is so important!

 

 

i

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

I was wondering if the various stickers on it are in one of two categories:

1. Police Aware

2. Have you been in an accident that wasn't your fault?

[Happy Hippo]

Looking at the pictures of the pick up trucks that Andy has posted, triggered a thought about how roomy some vehicles are compared with others.

 

The father of Morgan's partner is a vehicle enthusiast and has a very large garage with a selection of  different sized vehicles therein.  

 

One of the most disappointing was the Ford Mustang, it's a big car with huge engine and a lot of 'grunt' but little to no space in the back seats even for a short wide dwarf such as myself.

 

If I really stretch, I can achieve 5' 8" in height, but my head was tilted slightly to one side and still it was touching the roof lining.  If I sat up straight I was in continual contact with the underside of the roof proper.

 

Perhaps they should have started with the rear seats and built the car around them rather than build the car and then wonder where the driver and passengers were going to sit.

[Tony_S]

36 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

Jamie got it. It's a little bit North of Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada. It's not very far from here.

We have only been there when everything was covered in snow. The bears were all asleep except for one that caused a headline in a local paper something like “Bear moving”. In that paper it displaced other Canadian and International news. 

[Tony_S]

When I visited Houston the hotel hosted various events at weekends. The first week it was some sort of basketball convention and most of the attendees arrived by taxi so my little Ford Focus had a space in the car park. The following week it was Rodeo and there seemed to be a block booking for the World Barbecue championships. This seemed to require huge trucks, some of which looked as if they had been working hard on a farm, others were very ornamented. 

[Joseph_Pestell]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

That was quite common in the 70's with several estates.  We werecalso told that Ford onlybused 5 different locks and any Ford key would open a Vauxhall Viva.  Don't ask me how I know.  In the early days of UPVC windows a whole estate in Knottingley had them fitted inside out. Burglars only had to pull out the sealant strip then lift the window out.  

 

As to the photo is it somewhere  near Lake Louise.

 

Jamie

 

I once lost an ignition key from a Ford Granada. Embarrassing as I had borrowed the car from a friend.

 

As I was trying to break in using a coathanger, the police arrived and, taking my word about the reasons for my actions, proceeded to explain to me how to get in and where to find the reference number for the key (glove compartment lock). Within an hour, I had visited a local hardware store and got a replacement key. As is often the way, we then found the original key. It was under the fridge where one of the cats had pushed it.

 

Some years later, a friend lost the key to her Fiesta. I found the reference number in the same way and went to the local Ford dealership who refused to believe that it was right. Once again, local lock shop came to the rescue.

[Tony_S]

14 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

once lost an ignition key from a Ford

I can still remember the key code for Dad’s Ford Corsair, FT117. I must have been sent out on numerous occasions to buy a replacement for a lost key. We spent ages once looking as the key was lost just before we set off on a camping holiday. Months later Dad found the keys in the shoes he had taken off after loading the car. 
For my present car if you need to use a key to get in , you have to dismantle the fob and then remove a piece of door handle trim to access the lock.  
Tony

[PhilJ W]

9 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

Despite its apparent size (even bigger ones are available) that truck is actually quite economical for a full-size pickup truck. It has a 3.0 Liter turbo-charged diesel engine and will happily do 30 MPG on a long journey (Imperial gallons). If our son takes care of it it should easily run for another 250,000 miles.

 

I would have bought another truck with the same lovely engine but they are wickedly expensive at the moment. IIRC the engine was originally developed by GM but when they went bust they sold the design to Fiat-Chrysler for peanuts. They completed the development and ended up with a brilliant product.

Its difficult to work out who makes what engine and who originally designed it. I have driven an eighteen seat Transit fitted with the 3 litre V6 turbo diesel, designed by Peugeot, made by Fords and found in many other makes of vehicles and even in the class 230 hybrid trains. A really good engine with petrol performance and diesel economy.

 

[PhilJ W]

7 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

In the mid 80s I had a BMW 525i. One Sunday I was leaving a hotel in Keighley where I'd spent the night and drove off then half a mile or so down the road went to play a tape that I had in the glove box. When I opened the glove box the contents weren't what I expected and confusion reigned so I pulled over and eventually got out to look at the registration number - it wasn't my car but an identical one that my key fitted. I hastily returned to the hotel, found my own car in the carpark and drove home.

 

Dave

I hope you left it in the same parking space. Or is someone still wondering how their car moved from one side of the car park to the other.

[Compound2632]

7 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

In the mid 80s I had a BMW 525i. One Sunday I was leaving a hotel in Keighley where I'd spent the night and drove off then half a mile or so down the road went to play a tape that I had in the glove box. When I opened the glove box the contents weren't what I expected and confusion reigned so I pulled over and eventually got out to look at the registration number - it wasn't my car but an identical one that my key fitted. I hastily returned to the hotel, found my own car in the carpark and drove home.

 

@jamie92208: "Is this your vehicle, sir?"

@Dave Hunt: "No, but I own one just like it."

 

Not quite as classy but I recall the first time I went to the big Tesco in our newly-acquired grey Vauxhall Zafira. Coming out of the store with the trolley: "now which one is mine?" There were dozens of them, or so it seemed.

[SM42]

3 hours ago, polybear said:

 

 

 

It should be more fuel efficient now with all those dents according to the golf ball principle

 

Andy

[Stubby47]

2 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Perhaps they should have started with the rear seats and built the car around them rather than build the car and then wonder where the driver and passengers were going to sit.

 

Allegedly how the Hillman Hunter was designed, starting with 4 kitchen chairs.

[SM42]

It seems modern cars aren't designed with any thought to the needs of the user. 

"This is what we built and you will like it"seems the motto.

 

It's all very well making a spacious 5 seat car, but where does all the stuff that moving 2 adults and 2 children about go when the luggage space is 20  inches deep.

 

Seems we are only supposed to use them to go shopping 4 times a week and to not even consider using them for days out or travelling to see friends and family for a few days, let alone holidays. 

 

The trend for SUVs I find hard to comprehend. I've yet to find one that is practical without needing a mortgage to buy it

 

Andy

[petethemole]

I used to read American car/hot rod magazines in the early years of 'muscle cars'.  ISTR the thinking behind the '+2' concept, two small seats in the rear, was that if you married and had kids you could keep driving a muscle car until the kids got too big, by which time the family would have at least one other car, or you'd be 'mature' enough to switch to a sedan.  

[Winslow Boy]

3 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I can still remember the key code for Dad’s Ford Corsair, FT117. I must have been sent out on numerous occasions to buy a replacement for a lost key. We spent ages once looking as the key was lost just before we set off on a camping holiday. Months later Dad found the keys in the shoes he had taken off after loading the car. 
For my present car if you need to use a key to get in , you have to dismantle the fob and then remove a piece of door handle trim to access the lock.  
Tony

 

Yep same as mine. 

[Tony_S]

49 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

The trend for SUVs I find hard to comprehend. I've yet to find one that is practical without needing

I am not sure whether my Evoque is practical but it is very comfortable. 

[TheQ]

3 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I am not sure whether my Evoque is practical but it is very comfortable. 

yep that was the approximate price  of my last Mortgage..

[simontaylor484]

One of the lads at college had a Yugo car you could unlock it and start it with a Yale key that car was never found in the same place where Dave parked it

[Doncaster Green]

Many years ago I was the proud(?) owner of a MK1 Mini Countryman (the proper BL one with the wood).   On leaving work one day I inadvertently picked up my desk keys instead of my car keys - you guessed it, they worked!   More worrying was the fact that my desk key would open more than half the desks in the office, or was the worry that more than half the occupants of the office could open my car?

 

John

[Happy Hippo]

2 hours ago, Stubby47 said:

 

Allegedly how the Hillman Hunter was designed, starting with 4 kitchen chairs.

I suppose if you are designing a camper van or a mobile home you start with the kitchen sink!

 

[Tony_S]

21 minutes ago, TheQ said:

yep that was the approximate price  of my last Mortgage..

But it was a used car!