3 minute read
TAILGATE
UNEXCEPTIONAL STATISTICS
Sam discovers that he once owned what the data tells us is the most unexceptional classic of all.
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There’s something almost bittersweet about the way I feel as I sit down to write this column. I’ve just taken a phone call from a colleague involved with the Festival of the Unexceptional, due to take place on July 30 at Grimsthorpe Castle.
He’s just done some number crunching, looking at the statistics of former Festival entrants in order to try to establish what the archetypal Unexceptional classic might be. What year it might have been built in, what marque, what body shape, what colour. All the things that – were this a dating site – would match you with the person of your dreams. And the idea was to find the Unexceptional classic that would almost guarantee your chances of victory.
Apparently the most unexceptional car of the lot would be from 1989, be an Austin, be blue and be a saloon. And while this isn’t feasible owing to the end of Austin in 1988, one car had attended several events and was as close as anyone could reasonably expect to see. And John intended to use this car to highlight the results of his study.
That car was E225CMV – a Moonraker Blue 1987 Austin Montego 2.0HL saloon. Which used to be mine until it was written off in May 2017 by an inattentive driver turning across my path. The collision spun me by almost 180 degrees and bent the roof as far back as the B pillar. A sad end for a car that I had planned to keep until it outlived me – but the Category B marker takes no prisoners. It was
A 1987 Austin in blue is apparently the ultimate Festival of the Unexceptional candidate.
the first car I bought with my own money, the first I really polished, the first I could make my own. It took me to university, to the internship that boosted my career, to all bar one of the homes I have lived in. I took out girls in it, I took home shopping in it. I crashed it, I mended it, I won prizes with it. I did everything with it.
Five years to the day since it was killed, it’s still earning accolades from the event designed to support and promote cars of its ilk. And that’s fine by me. Two years after buying CMV I bought my first Saab 9000, and since then I’ve always had more than one car – and so no bond has forged quite so strongly as the bond I had with my Montego.
One of the entrants to last year’s Festival was a 2.0HL estate, and as I stuck my head through the open door and inhaled the heady aroma of Austin Rover tragedy and velour, it took me back to the days when that car was a large part of my life. Since then there has been great change, with only two of my current fleet having been around since I owned my Montego. But the memories are happy – and if the car won’t see me to my end, the memories will be a constant companion.
Only a few small parts of E225CMV survive – and four of them are on Kelsey’s project estate. Early in my time with the car, I swapped its steel wheels for a set of optional alloys, and the steels sat in my shed until I sold them to Simon Goldsworthy of Classics Monthly for our beige beauty. Which, I’m led to believe, is now for sale. So if you want to be the owner of the world’s most unexceptional set of wheels, you know what to do. CCM
