one very fast mini

Another funny story for ya.
by Pierre Martins

So there I was on the way back to Jo’burg during the late seventies in my old man’s pristine Gunston coloured MkI Mustang, similar to the one in the picture to the right…

My old tappet had a thing for big Yank Tanks. I’ve always liked small European sports cars, but the Mustang was different. I have fond memories of that car. For some unexplained reason the ‘Stang was a fanny magnet of note and my old man promised I could have the car for a long weekend on condition I did well in my final year in school, which I did, even though I was expelled two weeks prior to final exams for smacking the drunk History teacher in the car park after school one day when he called me a ‘loser that would never amount to anything in life’. But that’s another story.

I ended up having to write final exams at the local cop shop along with a buddy of mine, Martin, who also got expelled for shitting in a teacher’s bag. Naughty bugger.

Anyway, Martin and I had a successful weekend pulling Durban sluts in the Mustang and we were on our way back, on that boring stretch of road on the N3 between Harrismith and Villiers before they widened it into two dual lanes and turned it into a toll road. The worst time to be on that road was late afternoon with the sun in your eyes and fatigue setting in after a weekend’s hard partying and screwing your brains out, like we did.

Needless to say, I was kinda tired and kept the Mustang at around 75mph on the dial for the cruise home. The last thing I felt like was entertaining the dumb son of a bitch tailgating us in an old clapped out red 1275cc Mini. I stomped it for a minute, pulled a gap on him and settled down at 75mph again, but he slowly creeped up on us and managed to build up enough momentum to make a pass on us going downhill, but as soon as we hit the first uphill the Mini ran out of steam and I had to re-pass him.

By the time we repeated that pointless ritual about four or five times I had enough of the irritating little asshole and when he slowed at the slightest hint of an incline I thought “Right you bastard, time I give you a bit of a wake-up call” and I gave him gentle nudge from behind. I knew the Mustang wouldn’t get hurt, it had big chrome bumpers designed for the specific task of nudging small European cars out the way. I mean, for what other reason did the Americans put such big bumpers on their cars? – To curb any possible influx of sensible small economic cars, did they not?

Anyway, the asshole in the Mini ignored the nudge, so I upped the ante and settled in behind him and pushed him gently up the hill. I thought he’d be shitting himself, but he turned around and gave me the thumbs-up. Cheeky bastard!

But I had a big V8 under the hood, so when we reached the top of the hill I played my trump card. Instead of backing off I planted my right foot and took him up to 110mph! He-he-he. I wish you could have seen it. The little Mini was bouncing around frantically right there in front of us. Martin was in fits of laughter. Through the Mini’s dash-mounted mirror we could see sweat pouring off the guy’s face and his eyes were the size of saucers with fear.

At that point I felt sorry for the guy, backed off and passed him. We waved at him, but he was too preoccupied trying to keep the Mini straight. He obviously had it in neutral, or had his foot on the clutch, cause the only sound coming from the Mini was a loud Ziiiiiiiinngg, like a bicycle freewheeling down a mine shaft. That must have been the fastest any 1275 Mini had ever gone in history!

Anyway, we never saw him again and laughed all the way home. As for the Mustang, a bit of burnishing compound removed all traces of the Mini’s red paint from the front bumper and my old man was none the wiser. And Martin? Well I bumped into him again about five years ago when I moved to Pretoria. Big beer belly and no hair. He became an Advocate of all things. We did lunch and laughed about the Mini story and other stupid things we did when we were young…

Hope you enjoyed that.

Cheers,
Pierre.