Driving a Singer

It’s the quilted lining in the engine bay. You pull the release, saunter round to the back of the car, lift the lid and there it is. Like a drill bit in a jewellery box. An internal combustion engine surrounded by plump little diamonds of stitched leather. It just doesn’t seem right somehow. Would you put carpet in your garden shed? Roll the Suffolk Punch across some cream Axminster before storing it next to the chainsaw perched on a polished walnut work bench?

It’s an engine bay that suggests a car that’s trepidatious of trips out, fearful of the five-percent chance of rain. It shudders at the slim possibility of a stone chip. Maybe it would risk a furtive few miles to the local coffee shop on a quiet Sunday morning, but it would then scuttle back home for a full, fretful, toothbrush-between-the-tyre-treads detail.