#1 Does This Only Happen To Me?
Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2018 4:10 pm
Last year, on a beautiful summer's day, I picked up my daughter from Uni in the E-type, and enjoyed an otherwise unremarkable drive back down the M1. Approaching Luton she announces that she's not going to make it as far as London without 'an accident', so can we stop? No really there will be an accident soon - CAN WE STOP?!
Naturally reluctant to park the gleaming spotless beastie any place where the public might hang out, I nevertheless pulled into Toddington Services and, after having carefully driven round the car park twice, located a spot - well away from all the kiddie-laden 4WDs - where I could pull up in safety and also keep an eye on the car from indoors (mention of toilet breaks had naturally had something of a knock-on effect).
All went well and we returned to the car still sitting in its isolated spot.... only to find that in the 3-4 minutes we'd been parked up a seagull had overflown the length of the car and managed the most spectacular (and accurate) bit of carpet bombing ever seen. A line of huge great splatters of white straight up the middle of the car, starting at the nose and finishing at the tail. Never seen anything quite like it!
Fast forward to this weekend and on Saturday morning, on a glorious crisp clear day, me and the E-type headed up to North Weald for her first proper outing of the year. Once more, spotless paintwork gleaming in the sunshine I revelled in the enjoyment that driving an E-type can only bring. Turning on to the M11 I accelerated smoothly, when THWUMP! - what I thought was a splatter of mud hit the screen in front of me. I then realised that far from being just in front of me there were actually splatters all over the screen.
Realising that wipers would in all likelihood only make it worse, I pulled off the road at the next available opportunity so that I could get out and do something about it. And that's when I saw it - some sort of bird (and I can safely say from the colour not a gull, and from the volume in all probability a Great Bustard, an Ostrich, or a Dodo) had deposited 'a load' which had landed a direct hit on the nose just in front of the front number plate, and then exploded back over the bonnet covering the nose, the number plate, the power bulge, the wipers, the screen, and the leading edge of the roof
In fact so perfect was the hit on a moving car, that I'd venture to suggest that two birds were involved: one to 'paint' the target with a laser designator, and one to fly the actual mission 
Have I just been unlucky twice, or is this a common E-type problem?
Naturally reluctant to park the gleaming spotless beastie any place where the public might hang out, I nevertheless pulled into Toddington Services and, after having carefully driven round the car park twice, located a spot - well away from all the kiddie-laden 4WDs - where I could pull up in safety and also keep an eye on the car from indoors (mention of toilet breaks had naturally had something of a knock-on effect).
All went well and we returned to the car still sitting in its isolated spot.... only to find that in the 3-4 minutes we'd been parked up a seagull had overflown the length of the car and managed the most spectacular (and accurate) bit of carpet bombing ever seen. A line of huge great splatters of white straight up the middle of the car, starting at the nose and finishing at the tail. Never seen anything quite like it!
Fast forward to this weekend and on Saturday morning, on a glorious crisp clear day, me and the E-type headed up to North Weald for her first proper outing of the year. Once more, spotless paintwork gleaming in the sunshine I revelled in the enjoyment that driving an E-type can only bring. Turning on to the M11 I accelerated smoothly, when THWUMP! - what I thought was a splatter of mud hit the screen in front of me. I then realised that far from being just in front of me there were actually splatters all over the screen.
Realising that wipers would in all likelihood only make it worse, I pulled off the road at the next available opportunity so that I could get out and do something about it. And that's when I saw it - some sort of bird (and I can safely say from the colour not a gull, and from the volume in all probability a Great Bustard, an Ostrich, or a Dodo) had deposited 'a load' which had landed a direct hit on the nose just in front of the front number plate, and then exploded back over the bonnet covering the nose, the number plate, the power bulge, the wipers, the screen, and the leading edge of the roof
In fact so perfect was the hit on a moving car, that I'd venture to suggest that two birds were involved: one to 'paint' the target with a laser designator, and one to fly the actual mission Have I just been unlucky twice, or is this a common E-type problem?
