DUNLOP WINTER TYRES - PISTONHEAD WINNERS

[Jaguar Owners Club]

We asked you to share your most embarrassing winter driving stories - here are the winners

A little while back we offered you the chance to bag a set of winter tyres courtesy of Dunlop in exchange for sharing with us your funniest and/or most embarrassing winter driving stories. A commendable number of entrants ticked both boxes and reading through them was a most enjoyable way of spending a couple of hours but we had to pick our 10 favourites and here they are.

So big congratulations to PHers Nigel Ogram, Lewis Elliott, Christian Gardner, Simon Hiscock, Michael Rennie, Duncan Lavery, Ben Williams, Brian Spratt, Andy Downey and Phil Playle. The stories they shared include a policeman falling on his ass, several doomed attempts to

impress girls, handbrake turn SNAFUs aplenty, improvised snow-busting initiative that'd put the A-Team to shame ... and a man freed from his frozen car by a Geordie with a bottle of wee.

Many thanks to all that took the time to enter and to Dunlop for supplying the tyres. At least 10 PHers are now looking forward to a white Christmas!

 

Nigel Ogram

"My motoring career had started with mum's Mini 850, which I continued with a 1275GT. Eventually I graduated to a white Citroen BX GTI, which is where this story comes from. Over the years, I'd become fairly adept at handbrake turns in the Minis so when the first snow arrived I thought

I'd impress my work colleagues with my driving prowess in the BX. I reckoned I could do a full 180 and park it in the usual bay. That's when I discovered that the handbrake on a BX works on the front wheels... The damage to the car was minimal, but the damage to my driving reputation was total and permanent."

 

Lewis Elliott

"Pre-winter 2010. Bought an ultimate winter daily - a 1992 Hilux Surf. It was fitted with a lift

kit, a winch bumper with bullbars, 33-inch off-road tyres, switchable Hi-Lo 4WD. It was a real machine.

"My young naive mind was going to learn quickly. Roll on the snow. I was trundling through 90 miles a day. Day after day passed. Snow, snow and more snow. The M8 was closed. The Hilux made it through every day. Unfortunately this year of 'Surf didn't have a centre diff, so off came the 4WD when the snow disappeared from the main driving line. A small Toyota Yaris pulled up beside me on roundabout onto a dual carriageway. Lights turned green. Off I go with old Yaris beside me. "Oh look snow on the road ahead, I'll show Mr Yaris how to get through this - if in doubt flat-out." Nope, not the case, 2WD doesn't work like 4WD and some fud had switched it off - yep, me. "Is that my back end?" Why yes it is ... central Reservation ... front bumper over. Mr Yaris gone. I had

driven like such a dick nobody let me reverse off of the barrier. Head hung in shame as I eventually extracted myself. Needless to say I never drove like that again."

 

Christian Gardner

"Around four years ago I was a student with a Honda Civic Sport, nicknamed 'The Mountain Goat' as it never got stuck anywhere, ever. On a fairly unadventurous trip I was coming back to my flat during a particularly bad winter in Newcastle. Handbrake fun ensued and as I neared the corner

to turn into my street, I saw three student girls walking towards me. Knowing that girls find nothing more attractive than a well-executed handbrake turn, this was the perfect set up.

"What followed was a slightly more enthusiastic than planned, very sideways entry into my street that by pure fluke became a perfectly controlled slide for some distance. Think Ken Block but more arse twitching inside the car! Recovering the slide, I judged the stop to the millimetre, finishing the slide in a parking space right outside my flat door.

"Feeling unbelievably proud of myself I open the door, prepare my best "That? Pah, easy..." face, and place one foot onto the pavement. As my weight goes onto my foot, it starts to slide from under me, but I am past the point of no return. As my right foot gracefully skims across the icy pavement, my left tries to follow for support but simply spins on the ice like a cartoon character trying to escape impending doom. As my body follows, my arm becomes twisted in the seatbelt, and so, in slow motion, I slide out of the car into a heap on the floor. You know when

snow is on the ground and seems to absorb all sound, giving an amazing silence? Well that silence was soon shattered by the laugher of the three girls who had watched it all unfold."

Simon Hiscock

"In 1992 I was a police traffic patrol officer and at 6am one winter we were called to a report of an

accident between Deddington and Hopcrofts Holt in Oxfordshire. I had ridden my motorcycle to work at 5am along the same road so thought it would be OK but when we left Deddington our car - a rear-wheel drive Vauxhall - was all over the place at just 30mph. On a straight we saw an MG about 100m ahead on its roof at the side of the road - thankfully with its driver safe but unhappy. I touched the middle pedal to start braking but the ABS cut in straight away at 30mph and we simply did not

slow down. As we got to the crash site we were still at about 15mph and my passenger politely informed the slightly bemused MG driver we would come back as we sailed past (slowly) with the ABS chattering. I stopped 20m past the site and reversed back, at which point my passenger got out and promptly slipped over on the sheet ice. Our police car, the crashed MG and my colleague's boots were most definitely on summer rubber!"

 

Michael Rennie

"Not long after passing my test a group of friends and I decided to go to the Lecht ski centre for a day snowboarding. Our three-car convoy set off from Dundee around 5am to make the slopes for opening time. The convoy consisted of my 1990 Nissan Micra, complete with stupid wide wheels, Recaro seats, roof box and three hefty passengers. My mate Al was in his 1.0 Rover Metro complete with super skinny tyres, OMP buckets and massive rust patches and Claire, who had just passed her test, had her mum's Fiesta. It had dumped with snow the previous night and the driving conditions were difficult all the way from Dundee to Glenshee but the ploughs had done their best and the roads were mainly clear.

"So far so good until we arrived at the road to The Lecht. There hadn't been a plough up this far yet so there was eight inches of fresh snow on the road. I quickly realised we were going to struggle; my wide tyres were the cheapest Teflon ditch finders going and had a barely legal amount of tread left. I was leading the convoy and even though the other cars had enough grip and were able to climb the hill there was no space to let them pass, I had to keep moving. The mighty Micra was slowly losing momentum and coming to a halt, we needed more traction. "Right lads, get on the bonnet!" I shouted, winding my window down. After a bit of encouragement my three friends climbed out the front windows of the still moving car and onto the bonnet. Success! We had traction and started to move up the hill again. 10 minutes of frozen fingers later they were back in the car and warming up and we were at the top of the hill. Unfortunately for them there were three big uphill sections and they had to repeat this process every time we hit an incline but the unconventional traction control worked! We made it to the ski centre a little bit later than planned but the only other cars in the car park were a couple of Land Rovers. This meant deserted slopes and great snowboarding for the whole convoy."

Duncan Lavery

"Out on a very early date with my now fiance and I turned up on a cold February morning in my Ford Mustang. Went out for a day in the Lakes with a meal and a walk whilst the snow fell all around us - very romantic! We returned to the car and I noted the car park was rather slushy and slippy... The Mustang was going nowhere. If I was going to get out of the car park to the safety of the A-road (which was ice free) I needed to take drastic action and get some grip. So I asked my dear girlfriend to take the wheel of the car and drive it while I got out and pressed down on the rear to try and

'encourage' some grip.

"Having never driven a left hooker or an automatic she initially refused but I assured her all would be fine and we would be home in the warm in an hour or so drinking tea and laughing about the car getting stuck. I retreated to the back of the car and proceeded to press down on the rear end and shouted for her to press the accelerator gently and smoothly, which she did. My plan had worked!

"I shouted to her to ease off the accelerator but instead of easing off she decided to press harder. The Mustang accelerated forward with me trying to hang on and grip the rear spoiler but I lost my grip and ended up in a freezing puddle of slush/ice/dirt and other debris. Mustang and girlfriend shot away like a bullet towards the road. At some point she managed to brake and the car then drifted sideways towards the road, where it joined and found its grip, and she pulled it over to the kerb.

"The drive home was rather tense, I was soaked to the skin and freezing, feeling very down and thinking I almost lost my love, and my girlfriend! She sat there in the passenger side grinning and saying how she was a much better driver than me and how she learned to drift on Gran Turismo. Needless to say she doesn't get to drive my current RS4!"

 

Ben Williams

"I had been using my ancient 1981 Porsche 944 as a daily car for a few months and was starting to enjoy getting back to traditional, old-fashioned motoring. This all went well until the weather changed. On the morning in question I needed to travel from my home in North Yorkshire to London.

"The first problem was that the car had frozen solid. I soon got myself in by pouring a kettle of boiling water over the doorframe and was under way. I knew I should have nipped into the loo before I left home but I didn't, meaning by the time I arrived at the station I was bursting. I slid the car gracefully into a prime space by the ticket machine, whipped off my seatbelt and went to get out of the car. The door was frozen solid again. I was entombed in ice and needed to empty my bladder in short order. I steeled myself for the embarrassing 'clamber out of the window in a nice suit' move and then remembered that the windows were frozen shut too.

"Something would have to be done. I started banging on the window to try and attract one of the queuing ticket people. One brave bloke - a Geordie called Michael - wandered over and I managed to convey my plight. He laughed. He laughed a lot. He turned and told the queue of people. They all laughed a lot. "The helpful chap put pressure on the window from the outside while I operated the switch from inside. The window came down about six inches and wouldn't budge any further. At least I had a channel of communication but I didn't like what he suggested next. 'Wee into this' he said while passing me an empty water bottle. 'Now pour it around the door. I felt scared and alone. Alone with a bottle of my own wee in my hands. There was nothing for it. It went down my sleeve. It went on the leg of my trousers. A bit went into the carpet in the footwell. But most of it went around the door and with a shoulder barge I was out. I was free (albeit standing in a puddle of my own wee). I felt like the Birdman of Alcatraz. I turned to thank Geordie Michael but he had gone. As I sat on the train I thought back to the happenings of the last 10 minutes. Was Geordie Michael an angel? Shall I wash my hands before I have a bacon roll? Why do bad things happen to good people? All I know is that old cars in the winter time need all the help they can get."

Brian Spratt

"Returning to Birmingham from my brother's house in deepest Staffordshire one winter's night, a snowstorm developed and the windscreen wipers packed up. I fiddled under the bonnet with increasing frozen fingers but couldn't identify any particular cause - but how to get home? In the boot were my hiking boots and I took the long laces from them and threaded them between the

blades and back into the car via the side windows. My wife and I then resumed the journey home with a Chuckle Brothers style of 'to you Barry - to you Paul' using the laces to clear the windscreen. We were stopped by a policeman about half a mile from home who wanted to book me for having an unroadworthy vehicle. I pointed out that nowhere in the type approval regulations did it say that wipers had to be electrically powered. He queried it by radio with his sergeant and was told to stop

messing people about in a snow storm and to get back to the police station. Whereupon he asked us for a lift!"

 

 

Andy Downey

"Driving back from the match (Newcastle had won, and Leeds were an excellent team at the time) probably about 7pm, I was in a joyous mood following NUFC's spirited performance, and had taken some of the more interesting B-roads when I neared home - I was enjoying a great drive, overtaking a whole load of slower vehicles along the way, the dark allowing me to clip the apex on right handers safe in the knowledge that no headlights in the opposite direction meant no oncoming traffic.

 

"Progress was immense, the MR2 was never the quickest car, but boy could it provide a lot of feedback over bumps, crests and cambers. I was planted to the road - I may as well have been Juha Kankkunen I was driving that well. All until there was a sudden flurry that literally came out of nowhere and sent me in to some epic oversteer as I crested out of a 180 degree left-hander - tried a dab of oppo, tried a bit more power, no grip at all, only one thing for it - hit the brakes and hope...

"Well, on that night, hope was well and truly with me. The brakes didn't really do anything but throw me sideways off the road, through a (thankfully open) gate into a farmer's field. A metre and half either way and it'd have been a big stone pillar but I was well and truly stuck, little pop-ups still beaming out light into the road whilst the string of cars I had been overtaking with such valour only minutes earlier, slowly paraded past.

"The next two hours were spent locating the farmer's house, convincing him that he did want to get his tractor out of the barn to pull me out of the field (think it cost me £30 in the end), and crying a little inside every time I glanced down at my previously pristine Nike Air Max (red to match the car). Somewhat crestfallen, I continued on my journey home by getting back to the A1 as soon as possible, and plodding home ever so gently. My ego might have taken a bit of a bruising, but at least my MR2 was back to normal after a trip to the car wash."

Phil Playle

Year: 1998. Location: Tring, Hertfordshire. Weapon: Peugeot 405 1.9 GRI. Upon entering Dundale Road to pick up the beautiful Miss Brown, who is working at the same company as me at the time I see her waiting in the distance in her winter finery - a warming image on such an icy day. I decide now is the time to hit the loud pedal and 'get the back end out, rally-style', in a bid to impress her. Alas, during said manoeuvre, my steed reminds me that it is in fact front-wheel drive, and simply slides straight towards the kerb, bouncing ungainly up it and buckling my wheel and suspension in one slick move.

"The silence is deafening as we both share the cold 501 bus together to Hemel Hempstead."