A spot of Golf, kebabs and drinking gave us the opportunity of testing Dave’s new defender.

With ash clearing and a pounding in my heart a boarded the plane from Belfast to Manchester, eagerly awaiting first view of the vehicle.  But it was not to be.  Dave turned up in his beamer – true a nice car in its own right – but there was no way he was going to get seven of us to Heaton More in that.

So we went back to his gaff, rang a taxi, hit the pub and met the rest of the team.

Few pints of Guinness in the Fletcher Moss, Didsbury then off to Fallowfield where we narrowly  managed to get into a club.  Disco Stu was about to do his thing but fortunately for the rest of the world I was tempted by a chicken kebab at Abdul’s - the best chicken kebabs – and possibly the best food – in the world.

Actually, Dave and I had already had a double chicken kebab earlier at a lesser establishment in Didsbury as neither of us had eaten.

Notice the man in the cap here.  He has worked here for at least the last 15 years but is still grumpy.  How could you be grumpy working at where everyone I know considers to be the best place to eat in the world?

Taxi back to Dave’s followed by some delicious Argentinian Malbec and I passed out on the sofa.  Woke to find Dave and Rick had drunk my wine.

Breakfast next morning in Timperly at a Spanish Café serving good English fries with poor coffee.

And then, once Ian arrived, it was time for the road test.

The car was initially four up.  I spent most of the trip to pick up Conor and Seamie trying to convince Dave to use the gearstick for short people, but he claimed to be too tall.  We discovered some strange facts about Jehovah's witnesses from Ian – but they cannot be published here for legal reasons.

We then realised that Dave did not know where he was going and assumed Seamie lived somewhere near the pub where we were the night before.  Eventually thanks to some help from an iphone we loaded up the other two.  I moved into one of the jump seats in the boot.

The car took to the motorway with ease and all six passengers and two sets of golf clubs were comfortable.  Being so high up gave us a great view of other drivers and passengers – which for a bunch of lads on a day trip is essential.

Seemed comfortable at 70 on the motorway although everyone was praying the breaks wouldn’t be required.  Soon required diesel.

As you can see from the picture – the car showed off its heritage and ability in the toughest of terrains whilst crossing this grassy car park.  I’m convinced no other vehicle could have pulled this off.  On the way out Dave even tried the short persons gear lever and this worked well.

Verdict

Pros - Despite a poor reputation for reliability – this one seemed to manage about 40 miles fully loaded, through all terrains, without anything falling off.

Cons - Could do with some sort of sat-nav telling us where to go – but not necessarily how to get there.

To follow in part 2 – they re-wrote the golfing rulebook.