I love my wheels, man!

[27T]

I was out in my 2 litre Pinto powered 1955 Ford Anglia - it's stock looking, original paint, steel wheels and it's not lowered. A bit of a sleeper really.

Driving back along the A51 after taking my baby daughter to swimming lessons I was sat at the Stamford Bridge lights next to two young women in a Volvo C30. They looked over and one pointed and they started laughing. As the lights changed I put my foot down and left them behind. I slowed down and they caught up after about half a mile and tried to pass me. I just leaned on the gas and kept half a car length in front as the driver gave it her all.

At the Hoole roundabout I gave them a little wave and drove into Chester - they weren't laughing anymore and perhaps had started to suspect that the Volvo C30 is not quite as far up the automotive pecking order as they had thought.

Also fun to do this with lads in Corsas and Saxos. Childish but fun.

I wouldn't laugh at the car -- but I'd laugh at anyone who drove a bit stupidly just because they were giggled at. Oh, unless they had their baby in the car at the time.

I'm 50 - and driving fast (within the 60mph speed limit) is not the same as drving a bit stupidly. You can drive stupidly at 25mph.

Car has harnesses, roll cage, massively uprated brakes and fire extinguishers. Safer than a eurobox I think anf certainly safer than a school run 4x4.

Deliberately slowing down to inconvenience another road user, and then speeding up to make overtaking hard is a bit stupid. Both drivers would have been at least marginally distracted by that. Any kind of willy-waving driving is a distraction.

Oh, and lucky you if your car is safer than the other cars that might get caught up in the willy-waving.

Thanks for the expert advice on car safety, construction, road craft and driving technique - I bow to your obviously greater expertise and I am now rightly ashamed of myself.

I've only given you advice on driving technique. You gave all the other expertise. I'm sure you are a very skilled driver. But driving twattishly with great skill is still marginally more dangerous than not driving like a twat.

Don't be twattish.

I am a 50 year old SAHD. I have retired to look after my new baby daughter. I go to all the baby classes, baby sensory, swimming, rhythm time. I do all the cooking, shopping and housework. I don't see any other SAHD's at these things and the Mums don't want to communicate with the weird old bloke (one of the reasons I use mumsnet).

This is not the first time I have done this - when I was 39 my first wife left me for someone she was having an affair with at work. In fact, she told me on my 40th birthday ;-]

She left and I brought up our 13 year old daughter. I can tell you bringing up a teenage girl is difficult for anyone - especially when she is dealing with her mum leaving.

SO - I need to do twattish things or I will forget that I am still a bloke.

Hey give the guy a break.

He apologised in his earlier post. Is that not enough ?

well, I've got two sons, and I resent the idea that 'being a bloke' equates with 'being twattish'. Blokes aren't twats!

I wonder whether the many MN dads who don't feel the need to drive in a competitive ego-salving way dislike the fact that an OP like this is posted in the Dadsnet topic, the assumption being that this kind of driving is something that men identify with.

Having said that, hats off to you for your SAHD role. It should make you feel like a Top Bloke!

(Galava, I took the apology as a joke. )

PMSFL @ forgetting you are still a bloke

Did you not read the bit about willy waving driving (which i pissed myself laughing at)
That should remind you you're still a bloke.

"Having said that, hats off to you for your SAHD role. It should make you feel like a Top Bloke!"

--Hope that bit didn't sound sarky. I meant it. It is terrific that you do that and it shouldn't make you feel compromised as a bloke!

I build the cars c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/54/l_329b71448e544971afc0b00f524881e0.jpgherec3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/72/l_d2b5502bc859b37dba0651c0fb6f7242.jpghere c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/84/l_ab3b469fa3e00d250cd78556d5718952.jpghere as an exercise in ego to start with. They are the male equivalent of a wonderbra or those pants that Trinny and Susannah bang on about. You can't have them and not use them .

It is a wise thing to try and stop your boys being overly competetive but they NEED to do some of it at some time.

I can only show so much of my female nurtering side until I have to do something that, for want of a better phrase than twatish, I will call blokey. Please remember that I am a 50 year old man. Probably the age of most posters fathers - child rearing is not a natural thing for men of my generation.

The apology was genuine - mostly but boys will be boys. I can assure you that it wasn't dangerous but it did cheer me up a lot.

Sorry - made a bollocks of hiding the links.

c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/84/l_ab3b469fa3e00d250cd78556d5718952.jpg

c3.a c-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/72/l_d2b5502bc859b37dba0651c0fb6f7242.jpg

viewmorepics.my space.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=182940459&albumID=451232&imageID=25693128

and again.

My DP used to make porsches and plymouth prowlers

He also drives like a boy racer at times But not with the kids in the car.. because of me he then drives like a grandad lest i rip his balls off

Sorry I misunderstood the apology!

We have drag strips but not neighbourhood ones like in So Cal. The Anglia runs 14's and I'm hoping that the 27T Modified with the 347 Pontiac engine will run 12's eventually.

I run the Morgan style trike in rallies (won the National Rally of Wales a few years ago) and hill climbing.

Sleepers are even more fun in the UK than in So Cal because there is no widespread hot rodding culture so an old car that runs hard is out of most peoples' experience.

DD2 loves the noise, smells, rattle and roll of all the my old cars. I hope she shows an interest eventually. I would love to tech her to weld, fabricate metal and wrench on cars. It would be cool to pass on the Anglia to her as her first car. DD1 has no interest and despite my spending many hundreds of pounds on lessons has yet to take her test (or even all of the lessons I paid for).

Yes - metal is metal whether it's steel or silver.

Size of the hammers is not important. It's what you do with it. One of the UK's most talented blacksmiths is a tiny Japanese woman.

Butterfly - I think its a variation on the difference between Brits and Yanks expressed in the Rule of Hat:

When an American says "that's a nice hat" what he means is "that's a nice hat".