RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33786, 7 March 1975, Page 18

RANDOM REMINDER

VP HIE HOIST

Buying a car from a second-hand car dealer is always a risky business, as Sam Ervin has been known to tell the Watergate panel, but there are certain methods, apart from threats of violence or blackmail, of ascertaining the condition of the vehicle a personable

young man has assured

you is the biggest bargain since the Louisiana Purchase. Probably the most independent and reliable is the Automobile Associa-

tion, known to most for its habit of erecting signs before bends in the highway to indicate the speed 20 miles an hour above which it is perfectly safe, if illegal, to drive. It has many other functions, apart frorr acting as a political lobby group in presenting the internal combustion engine as a God-given gift to mank kind, some of them done

at its technical services branch in darkest Sydenham.

Here, for not such a small fee, you may submit for evisceration your fine family unit — this one, a snip at the price, one lady owner, this week’s special, this month’s sacrifice, this year's giveaway, only so many hundred dollars, nine, nine, nine, nine.

It will be prodded, coaxed, poked out of the lethargy inevitable after week of standing in the environs of plump young men in plum-coloured synthetic trousers and wide, white plastic belts, with only the daily polish to keep it on its cross-ply toes. Its intestines will be drained and pored over by cynics in hairy khaki. If it remains unshattered after this mechanical viva voce, it will be given a fair recommendation; the

A A. is there to tell, not sell.

What the A. A, tells is sometimes highly individual. Recently a colleague bought a car from a minister who had recently returned from a spell, so to speak, among the tribes of the highlands of New Guinea. When he took the car in for inspection he mentioned its recent whereabouts in case this should alert the inspectors to likely weaknesses — rust, for example. If he was luckv, of course, the car would have been the object of a cargo cult and be in immaculate condition. As it turned out, the inspector had unusual perspicacity, or sense of humour. He reported that the car was in very good condition — apart from spear dents in the chrome and a tendency to turn away when faced with a camera.