Lancia Motor Club

I have been driving various classic cars since 1989.  I do not recall ever experiencing road rage whilst driving a classic.  Sometimes other drivers give you a wide berth because they may assume that the weird old car is about to explode, has no brakes, or whatever; but quite often other drivers and pedestrians smile at the car, make approving gestures, take photos, and drivers allow you out of junctions or to change lanes, and so on.  

Last week I experienced road rage for the first time whilst driving a classic car.  Driving my 1962 Appia, I overtook a large and lumbering skip lorry on a long straight bit of country road.   The lorry accelerated while I was passing it, and after I passed the lorry gave chase.  I could see it in my mirror driving around some tight corners at a speed that looked a bit risky for a large lorry (the Appia is very nimble in corners).  The driver flashed the lorry's lights and honked the horn.  I did wonder if the driver was trying to warn me of something wrong with the Appia, but it was driving fine, no smoke was pouring out of the back, and nothing appeared to have fallen off it.    There was nowhere safe to stop to check, anyway.    

Had I been in my Beta or my 2000 HF, I could easily have vanished over the horizon, but the Appia is not that fast, and so the zealously driven lorry kept up, more or less.

Arriving at a T junction with a main road, I paused to check for traffic.  The lorry driver pulled up sharply, leapt from his cab and ran towards my car.  I pulled away safely and had vanished down a side turning before the lorry got going again.

I checked the car over.  Nothing had fallen off it.  I checked it later with a friend following me to check for nasty smoke from the exhaust - none appeared.   It was not chucking out oil or coolant.  Thus I have to conclude that this was an episode of road rage.  Crikey!  Who knew that being overtaken by an almost sixty year old Italian car was so challenging to the sense of self!

Somewhere on a trucker forum there is an irate post about some old giffer in some old banger who deserved a kicking for daring to overtake the mighty skip lorry.

ooooh - I see a film script here!! Has anyone ever done a film about a car being chased down by a mad lorry? If he caught you then you might have to challenge him to a Duel.

Sorry if you had a bad experience, he probably wanted to tell you his Dad used to drive an Appia!

Guy

That sort of rang a bell and on checking, yes, there is a film about being chased by a lorry (truck).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duel_(1971_film)

As a cyclist I can tell you that skip lorries are usually the most aggressively driven vehicles on the road. I hop off if I see one coming. Re Duel, I think that was Speilbergs first feature and the noise that the truck makes at the end is lifted from Godzilla. 

Duel is a fab film.    Sadly this mini adventure was not so dramatic.   I was pretty relaxed about it.  The trucker needs to chill out a bit.

Fantastic film (Spielberg's first and great performance by Dennis Weaver!) and yes, I was hinting at that in the first reply!!

Guy

You need new batteries in your irony detector!   As noted above, Duel is a film well worth seeing.  Originally made for TV, it shows the young Spielberg developing techniques that he later used to good effect in Jaws and other films.   Denis Weaver was an underrated actor, and he put in what was almost a solo performance in Duel.

A couple of days ago driving the Augusta I was also harrassed by a white van right on my tail - however after a few twisty bits in the road he soon gave up! :)
Mike

New batteries needed indeed. I like to think I'm usually more on the ball than that.

The other constant problem I find with driving an older Lancia is people pulling out of junctions in front of you. They presumably just see an old car and assume it must be travelling slowly so either they have plenty of time to cross in front of you or you won't catch them up if they are going in the same direction as you.