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New Year's Day 2024 blossomed dull, damp and grey, and there were traces
of floods locally, and there were forecasts of storm Henk but no actual
rain. Just before lunchtime it even looked as if it may not rain during
our meeting so Mr President decided to see if the XJS V12
Pozermobile would start despite the little green light on the battery conditioning
unit being very much off. One of the great advantages of a V12 is that
there are a whole load of cylinders popping up and down helping the
starting situation, and that there would a good likelihood of at least one
of the twelve being in a decent enough setup condition to fire. On a cold
winterised frequently a not-much-used Jaguar V12 there is never likely to
be an engine startup in a regular numerical cylinder order. Firing in the
first few revs is in very much totally random order, and frequently there
are not enough cylinders prepared to come to life to carry the other
twelve. Pops and bangs are very much part of the procedure, as is the
subsequent running on the same few for quite a few revs. The downside of
12 cylinders is that is that there are a
whole load of unwilling high compression metalwork worring and popping up
and down, relying on the batter for their locomotion. Today is took three
pulls, albeit short ones to to get the firing order into approximate symmetry.
Mrs
President insisted on being on standby in her 4x4 barreled battlecruiser, just in case. No need
to have worried. Despite the iffy weather no rain or floods were encountered and,
to my surprise, the The Beehive was already packed to triple-parking
with
SVVS cars. The final number from our bean-counter Chas Moody advised a very respectful
SVVS turnout of
some 32 cars and one bicycle. We also had some interesting visitors and a few moderns discretely scattered in the local
streets, - so slightly up on the 29 number of last year. Rain
held off for the entire time we were at the Beehive. Somebody mentioned
that their forecast said the rain was due at 2.35, and very oddly the
Beehive carpark was practically empty by that time. The pozermobile was safely
tucked up in its garage by the time the deluge and the storm winds
arrived.
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