Biggest problem about owning a Robin Hood:
It's a shite name, even after all these years of getting used to it.
Also, getting into it with the hood on takes the sort of bodily manipulation usually restricted to the sort
of bendy Fakir you see on television once-in-a-while. Never to be attempted if you really really need a wee.
Most painful moment:
Slicing my finger on a sharp bit of engine bay (the plasma
cutting gear they use to make the RH chassis leaves edges like you wouldn’t believe)
while fitting the engine. As dusk was drawing in I had to press on and so used a splint
and parcel tape to protect the injured pinkie. I now have a nice little scar to remind me to
be more careful.
Biggest kick:
Driving it quickly on my favourite back road towards my
fathers house. It’s been resurfaced to a silky-smooth standard and ducks, dives, climbs
and jogs left-right like a rollercoster... Bliss! It's a hot summer night of the ‘Meat Loaf’
kind. The roof is at home. I’m humming ‘Let me
entertain you’ by Robbie Williams and the engine is singing at 4,700 rpm... Here is an
extract from ‘The Winter
Market’ by William Gibson which, if you don't know that feeling, may give you an insight into
the experience:
There is a segment on Kings of Sleep; it’s like you’re on a
motorcycle at midnight, no lights but somehow you don’t need them, blasting out along a cliff-high stretch
of coast highway so fast that you hang there in a cone of silence, the bike’s thunder lost
behind you. Everything, lost behind you... It’s just a blink, on Kings, but it’s one of those thousand things
you remember, go back to, incorporate into your own vocabulary of feelings. Amazing. Freedom and death,
right there, right there, razor’s edge, forever.
Or am I quite mad? Perhaps that’s why I built one of the least practical cars known to Man.
The Great Robin Hood Video Debate:
They're total crap. End of debate!
When, on the first ‘build video’ of the three I was supplied for my Hood, they described it
as an amateur production, a million amateurs revolved in their graves. The sound quality is appalling,
the editing is, is... words fail me about the editing. The content seems to follow no known
law of organisation that I can detect, instead jumping from one half covered topic to
another, then, two hours later, leaps back to half cover the first topic again. That’s not a
different half of the subject, the same half again in a different room! Then, on another
video, a gem of info is dropped in.... which runs contra to all Richard (for it is he) said in
the first video! Anyway, you get the picture viz. the RHE build videos.
The Secret of a Shiny Car:
Being Stainless Steel, my Robin Hood is a nightmare to keep shiny. Every hand print is a greasy mark on it, and washing it inevitably
leaves the car smeared and looking as dirty as before I began. After much experimentation I have discovered the one product that
brings the body to a beautiful, mirror-like finish. It's... Wait for it... Windolene!
Practicality Shmacticality:
I've heard it said that my Kit is wildly impractical. Well, while I agree it's not ideal for moving furniture or taking the wife and three
kids shopping, it isn't without some flexibility. Take the picture to the left. Here we have the tricky job of transporting a plant in an
upright position handsomely solved with a simple common-or-garden bungy cord and a little applied thought. Ingenuity is only an elastic strap away. Note the original RHE seats, now replaced with OMP Comfort bucket seats.
Kit Car Show Delight:
On Star Wars Day (May the 4th) 2003 I went to the Royal Showground near Stoneleigh and there I saw many many many Hoods. Little ones, big ones,
some as big as your 'ed... It was interesting to see how other peoples cars differed from mine. There were a lot of 2B's there, and quite a few older
models too. A set of bonnet catches were picked up for a mere £9.30 (all the change I had) and I found some cheap cable tidy wrap too. Happy days.
My Robin Hood is only one of many cars that I have driven, or currently own. Click here to go to the Wheel Nut Page of my
world famous Naked Photo Album.
Super-7s racing at Snetterton.
