TJ-007

​1962 FORD THUNDERBIRD

We were an eclectic, cosmopolitan bunch of friends moving together in the early to mid-eighties.
Depending on our parents’ disposition and ability to assist us in acquiring our first modes of independent transport...

​Some of us moved about in cars borrowed from family members.

Some were more fortunate and had cars of our own.

Some of us moved on motorbikes. Big and small. Others were on mopeds. Or bicycles.
One of our members was blind and dependent on others whenever he needed to move about.

The Idea

One day, over beers, we discussed the need for a vehicle that could benefit all of us. - A communal vehicle.

We decided to chip in and create a slush fund to acquire such a thing.

Someone suggested a VW Combi.

I had a caveat and protested profusely -

VW Combis had small displacement, underpowered engines.

Loaded with passengers they were very slow.

Slow vehicles produced slow drivers.
Slow drivers became slow thinkers.
Slow thinkers were slow to react to road conditions and other road users.

By definition – Slow thinkers were dangerous drivers.

​Got It?”
​

Meet TJ–007

What we found was something different, inappropriate, and utterly stupid.

At a local used-car lot sat a far-out, crazy machine that appealed to us – In a way only far-out, crazy young people could comprehend:

A 1962 Ford Thunderbird soft-top, with proper pedigree.

Cheap and nasty.
Heavy American steel.
113-inch long wheelbase. Low-slung.

390-cubic-inch V8 with 340 horsepower.
Triple two-barrel carbs, factory fitted.
Period-correct aftermarket chrome side pipes.
Three-speed auto. Power brakes.

Power steering with a custom chrome chain for a steering wheel.
The steering wheel could “Swing-away” for easier entry.
Power seats with funky leopard-skin covers.
Power windows. Air-conditioning.

Chrome bespoke boot carrier.
Whitewall tyres. Rear fender skirts.
Eight-track tape deck.

Period Motorola CB radio, complete with a plastic orange ornament on the antenna.

​And last - but not least - a super-loud Klaxon “Awooga” hooter.
​

How could we not buy it?

The majority vote prevailed, and I drove it off the lot. 

Everything worked. The hooter. The CB. Even the air-conditioning.

Ironically, it had been owned by a hippie who got his girlfriend pregnant, got married, and traded the car in on a split-window Combi to make space for the baby.

His priorities were his. Best of luck to him.

TJ–007 suited our cosmopolitan needs perfectly.

Perfect machine for a 1980's South African urban tribe...
​

Nuno

Portuguese dude.

His folks owned a small butchery-cum-grocery store in the neighbourhood.

Nuno drove a silver 2-litre Alfetta GTV, rode a customised Honda CB-750F, and a 500 XR.

He was the kingpin. The central character of our group. He never smoked. Never drank alcohol. He never even knew what beer tasted like. - Hell, I still wonder what that must be like? 

The default parking spot for TJ–007 was at Nino’s place.

​Diogo

Nuno’s older brother.

He moved around in the butchery’s beige, clapped-out Chev LUV bakkie.

Diogo was a wizard at sourcing used parts at basement prices for virtually anything on four wheels.

Later it became clear why. He was convicted in a car-theft syndicate trial and fled pre-emptively to Venezuela before sentencing, returning many years later when the statute of limitations expired.

Alfons

The youngest brother. Too young to drive.

An irritating little snot. Too young for porn movies or clubbing, yet always there when we were hanging out, cramping our style. Old enough to tell on us whenever we got up to no-good.

​I never liked him much.

​Arthur

British expat.

He had a hot sister, Lily.

Arthur never owned a car. Just a bicycle. He rode his bicycle everywhere when he wasn’t with us. Not because his family was poor - quite the opposite. His father did well in South Africa.

His mother, however, churned out babies like a vending machine. Arthur was the last of eight brothers and a sister. When the car-buying phase came, he was last in line.

He relocated to Watford before ever learning to drive. I still remember the day we dropped him at Jan Smuts Airport in TJ-007. - It was profoundly sad.
​

Mike, and his younger brother

Polish immigrants.

We nicknamed him Polecat. His youger brother was Pole-Kitten, of course.

Quiet, well-behaved guys.

They moved around in their father’s yellow Lada Niva - a piece of Russian automotive shit, but incredibly capable off-road. We abused it endlessly in an abandoned Slasto stone quarry near their smallholding.

The only time we ever saw them genuinely animated - babbling excitedly in Polski - was the day we collected TJ–007.

They loved that car.
​

Costa

Superstitious, fat Greek.

He broke out in a cold sweat if ghosts were mentioned. We took great pleasure in staging fake hauntings and supernatural bullshit to scare the snot out of him.

He drove his mother’s baby-blue Datsun Stanza station wagon. Worst driver I’ve ever encountered. Completely clueless.

He didn't like TJ–007. The leopard-skin seats freaked him out. 
​

Chris

Skinny South African Englishman. Arty-farty type. An emotional softy.

Moved around in an old non-descript 1980 white Toyota Corolla sedan.

He was the first person I knew who raced the brutal Roof of Africa hard enduro in Lesotho and finished respectably. We travelled to Maseru in TJ–007 to spectate at the “Around the Houses” prologue.

He later married Lily. I drove their wedding car. TJ–007 - of course.

Ajay

South African Indian. Part-time anti-Apartheid activist.

Chain-smoked good weed. He had a merchant who smuggled his weekly Durban Poison supply to Joburg wrapped inside rolls brown paper pencils.

His daily driver was a beige 1600cc Mk2 four-door automatic Escort - utterly reliable. That car travelled all over the country with family and friends packed in like sardines, as only Indians could manage.

In 1986 I took Ajay on an unforgettable excursion through the eastern Orange Free State in TJ–007.

Epic day trip, but that’s another story.
​

The Keaton Brothers

Cedric and Roland. Cedric was the sensible one.

Roland once went down the very steep Nugget Hill in Joburg on a skateboard dare.

Crashed and broke himself badly.

One arm remained paralysed for years. On a weekend away in Durban, it was his turn to cook breakfast. We smelled burning steak. It turned out to be his dead hand parked on a red-hot spiral plate while he scrambled eggs on the burner next to it.

The Keatons moved around in a grey Mk2 Escort panel-van, broadcasting an illegal weekday afternoon radio show.

They played banned music.
​
Pink Floyd — Another Brick in the Wall
Eddy Grant — Gimme Hope Jo’anna
Peter Gabriel — Biko
UB40 — Sing Our Own Song

People from all walks loved it. The cops tried triangulation tactics but never caught them.
​

Nicky the Holy man

Real name unknown. Afrikaans guy. He hated his given name and adopted the name of book character Nicky Cruz – a violent East LA gang leader turned Evangelist. 

Our fake Nicky’s family were happy-clappy Bible-thumpers. Hypocrites. Their true colours emerged during a messy divorce of Nicky’s parents.

Nicky died late one night on his bike, slicing a white T3 Combi in half at speed when the slow-thinking Combi driver skipped a red light.

Closed-casket funeral. We transported his coffin to the cemetery strapped to the boot rack of TJ–007.

That reaffirmed my original caveat about VW Combis.
​

​D-D-D-D-Duggie

Yes, he stuttered.

Short, fat, geeky fella. Catastrophic stammer, especially around hotties. One night, serving drinks on a tray, someone asked him a deliberate, cruel question. The stutter escalated. Glasses trembled. Then fell. Broken glass, booze, ice, humiliation everywhere.

Funny - Yet awful.

Duggie could fix anything audio related. Amplifiers, turntables, tape decks, eight-tracks, gramophones.

He rode a vintage Vespa that was more broken than mobile.

Still, TJ–007 kept him moving.
​

Bronco

Rode a Kreidler K50 - 50cc bike - two-stroke, capable of 120 km/h. 

When he was broke, he ran it on petrol mixed with stolen sunflower oil from his mom’s kitchen.

Hence, the bike always smelled like fish and chips.

Bronco barely scraped through Standard 8. Went to work for his uncle. Next thing we knew, he “owned” his uncle’s business and arrived in a stunning charcoal-metallic Porsche 930 Turbo.

Car got stolen. Recovered. Modified with insurance money. Made big horsepower.

On an early Sunday test run along the N12 to Benoni, a slow-thinking VW Combi driver changed lanes without reason. Bronco swerved. Clipped the Combi bumper. Left the road. And turned the 930 into scrap against a concrete overpass pillar.

Second closed-casket funeral - Second coffin on TJ–007’s boot rack. Our opinion of VW Combis and their drivers was cemented.
​

James – aka “Lucky”

Black dude. Ninety percent blind from birth. We called him "Lucky" because he never had to look at himself in the mirror. Guided by "King", a golden retriever blind in one eye. Proof that in a land of the blind, he with one eye was king.

Lucky loved blind jokes. – He always asked for new ones.

Two of his favourites:

Someone gave Stevie Wonder a cheese grater as a birthday gift. – Stevie said it was the most violent story he ever read.

Blind guy walked into a store, swinging his guide dog around by the leash.
Shop owner was horrified: -
“My God, man! – What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Oh, just having a look around.” – blind guy’s retort.
​

And last, but not least

Our 1962 Ford Thunderbird. TJ–007 outlived most of us.

It carried laughter, beer, secrets, coffins, and the weight of decisions made too late to undo. It idled patiently while we buried friends who were smarter than the people who killed them.

Machines don’t lie. They don’t moralise. They don’t forgive. - They obey physics and punish hesitation without malice.
_________________________
Slow cars don’t kill people. Slow thinking does.
TJ–007 never hesitated. It just kept going -
long after the voices went quiet and the seats were empty.
__________________________

- Pierre Martins

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