Argentine Nutter

[tog]

I have just got back from a few days in Patagonia where I came across this nutter. The car is a Torino, an Argentine-made version of a mid-60s AMC Rambler, that was sold from the late sixties through to the early eighties. This one had seen better days, and had a cunning combination lock on the boot - a piece of string that combined keeping boot shut with holding bumper on! however the alarming part was when he filled up with petrol. The fuel was put into large plastic drums unsecured in the boot, with only a rag shoved in the top to keep it from slopping out. But it gets worse...

[pic]http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a45/5211cc/80EE1141.jpg[/pic]

See that plastic pipe coming out of the boot - that's the fuel line that is! Taped along the roof gutter and then down the windscreen and into the engine bay through the bonnet shut! You can see it on the left of the picture!

[pic]http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a45/5211cc/80EE1147.jpg[/pic]

I did ask if he thought this was safe, but he just grinned and flexed his muscles to indicate how macho he was! The side window had a poem taped to it too, which was a pean to the Torino (" Son of the pampa..., made out of steel, your name is Torino... etc, etc,)

Incidentally, don't go to Patagonia if you like twisty roads and challenging corners... Straight roads stretching to the horizon are the order of the day, with evil winds threatening to flip the car before you know what's happened. Still, our rented Clio managed to get to 130kph into the wind, but 170kph on the way back with a following wind on the same flat level road! I hadn't realised it could make such a difference. However you don't want to crash - in a 500 km round trip from one town to the next we saw no more than a dozen or so cars!

[Alpineandy]

I can feel a 'Darwin' coming on....


www.darwinawards.com/

[vrooom]

those people must be high on petrol fumes