Blue Lena – An Epitaph

In 1995 I bought a two-year-old blue Golf III S, a rare model, with four doors, a big engine, and not much else. I drove it for 24 years and more than a quarter million kilometers and it never failed me. It answered to the name Blue Lena, copied from Keith Richards' legendary 1965 Bentley S3 Continental Flying Spur, and, like her namesake, Lena shared many highs and some lows with her driver. The absence of any gadget whatsoever caused a low weight which, together with a powerful engine, made her surprisingly agile even at advanced age. An eminent cardiac surgeon from Austria, whom she once took to Frankfurt airport in no time, called Lena a “true understatement car” – which made us both blush. Apart from the usual wearing parts including one starter (but, for instance, no clutch during all those years!) there was absolutely no technical failure, probably because there was nothing that could fail.

Her successor (I won't disclose the make or model) apparently stems from a different world. Red Lola is obviously red, has a smaller but still energetic engine, and turned out to be something of a wiseacre. There is a bling before I have even time to lock my seatbelt, there is a blang when I open a door, there is a bling-a-blang-a-bling when something else appears to be out of her very strict order, often accompanied by the flashing of one of about a dozen LEDs in various bright colors and with various, more or less intuitive symbols. Unasked, she warns me that the outside temperature is below 4°C and that the road might thus be slippery, something which is pretty obvious anyway. When I turn around a corner, she switches on an additional front light which I do not need to accomplish that task. She turns off the engine whenever I come to a stop unless I have overruled this by pressing one of the, again, numerous and more or less intuitive buttons. She warns me that she needs 25 L/100 km of petrol when I accelerate after stopping, only to drop down to 3.5 L/100 km after a few seconds and in fourth gear. (Please spare me converting this into miles-per-gallon, thank you.) She gives me her unsolicited opinion that I might be too close to the car in front of me. When we drive up the rather steep hill to our home she eagerly suggests that I change into a lower gear, whereas Blue Lena had simply and unobtrusively displayed her mighty engine torque at the same spot.

To be fair: Red Lola also boasts perfect air-conditioning and electric windows without which she is simply not available, and which are both pleasant features. She also comes with a multitude of hidden airbags, something Lena completely lacked. This made her fall from grace with my wife many years ago. Jealousy, I guess. Thus, there was at least one in the family who gave a sigh of relief when our loyal mechanic bore us the news that some body parts were beyond repair and that Blue Lena would not get another TÜV certificate, required by German law to prove that a car is still safe to be on the road. He was honest enough to warn me not to invest a four-digit sum in body repair for a car of that age and mileage. It took me a while to get over that shock of a fatal diagnosis, though then things had to happen rather quickly. I traded in Blue Lena for Red Lola, but it was my wife who had to take her on that final journey.

So let me bid you farewell appropriately, Blue Lena, with a Blues:

They don't make them like you anymore,

That's for sure.

And when they made you, they made sure

They threw away the mould.

It comes as no surprise to me

That I wanna be in your vicinity.[1]

Sorry, Keith, but I have been listening to quite a bit of Rory Gallagher lately. My Blue Lena, by the way, featured a cassette tape deck. Remember those?

• Reference

• 1 Gallagher R. They Don't Make Them Like You Anymore; on: Tattoo, Polydor, London, 1973