BIRD'S EYE VIEW
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BY THE HAWK
• Ashley Jones, manager of the Hawick branch of Pickfords, has won the British Association of Removers' essay/interview contest for 1987. At the recent BAR conference, he was handed his prizes — a cut-glass goblet and a ticket for a four-week study tour of Europe — by BAR president Derek Payne.
My congratulations go to Ashley: it's nice to see that there are people in the industry who can write well. Mind you, the Hawk interviews people and writes articles every day of the week with none of these perks. Maybe I should be a remover. • You do get the strangest advice from manufacturers from time to time. One of my readers, an operator of large numbers of a certain marketleading panel van, thought he would stick with that manufacturer for his private motoring, and bought a fourwheel-drive station wagon complete with, as the brochure said, "self-levelling suspension".
Delighted with his purchase, he recommended the same to a relative. Said relative was also delighted, except that with a load of people and hounds aboard, the thing sat on its haunches and scraped its mudflaps on the ground. The manufacturer's man explained that the self-levelling system, as pioneered by that other wonderful 4WD device, the Range Rover, was selfenergising. Levelling, it seems, would not happen unless the vehicle's suspension was being worked, as it is when it is driven along the road. My reader agreed that this was all very well, but the car could not be driven on the road until its suspension had pumped up, which would not happen until the vehicle had been driven on the road. . . a sort of Catch 4 x4. "In that case, '' said the manufacturer's man, "you must get your relative to jump up and down on the back of the vehicle to energise the struts before moving off." It creates a wondrous mental picture, don't you think?