Result! My flying-jacket turns up from ! Having visited them in December & been measured up for the jacket, it had all gone quiet while they sourced a thick black sheepskin for me. In May I got a call telling me they had finally found a suitable skin in Iceland! I somehow knew I was going to get it in the middle of Summer, but who cares! It is truely fabulous & every time I try it on to show someone I break into a sweat after about 30 seconds, so I guess it will be warm enough come winter!

OK, I drive around with the TC turned off all the time now 🙁

Just hit 8,000 miles since I bought the car! Good thing I didn’t get the limited mileage insurance deal, eh? A few niggly things wrong and of course it is still leaking like a sieve. My door handle seem to have a cob-on too.

Spoke to anyone/everyone about my ongoing TC problems & got lots of helpful advice, so I have now turned it off to try & identify the root cause of the acceleration problem. I am a little unsure but I think the misfires(?) have stopped. This is both good & bad as it points the finger at the TC in a big way. Spoke to Racelogic who were jolly helpful as usual but ended up suggesting I go down to see them again & get it all checked out another time round. Hell of a trek. In the end I’ve asked them to send me the s/w to track the control box stats, but my laptop battery doesn’t last long enough to do this! Never mind, work owe me a new laptop soon…

Argh! I am hearing rumours that Marcos has folded. I really, really hope not, both for selfish reasons (I am not an engineer & need someone to look after the car for me!) and because it would be criminal for a company with a history like Marcos to just disappear after so many years. I think this has happened once before but it came back from the dead to produce such fantastic cars as, well, mine really! Let’s hope some well heeled enthusiast picks up the marque, even if they don’t make cars again for a bit.

Arse! The engine is not pulling as it should be & I suspect the Traction Control again. Bugger 🙁

Niggling doubts as to the functioning of the traction control have led to a trip down to Racelogic in Bucks (God, I’m nosey!), who identified a possible issue with the dashboard mounted adjuster, which appeared to have been damaged during fitting (not by them I hasten to add). They quickly sorted everything out & after some explanation of how everything worked from Racelogic’s MD, Julian Thomas (a thoroughly nice chap) I was merrily sliding my way round muddy corners in the industrial estate, no worries. Then again, it’s not quite the same when your back end goes on a T-junction & you’re not expecting it, eh? Anyway, I also took the opportunity of having Racelogic fit their Launch Control which I haven’t yet had a play with, but am looking forward to. Plenty of traffic lights on the way to work… Heh! Heh!

Just got the car back from Marcos who have now fitted Racelogic‘s most excellent Traction Control system. Basically the weather has been bloody foul for so long (even for Manchester) that I’ve decided to bite the bullet & make the car a bit safer. Crap driving? Quite possibly. Standing water? Black ice? All over the shop, & with 350 BHP chugging away, am I a man or a mouse?… SQUEEK! The traction has taken a bit of getting used to as it works in a totally different way to my only other experience of driving with traction control (Vauxhall, FWD + ABS) , and I have not experimented with the variable slide on it at all (Set to ‘Wet’. Leave on ‘Wet’! Perhaps the other settings are for people who live in the south?). Despite the weather I am still getting out in the car a fair bit, having taken a couple of weeks off work, and it’s great!!!!!!!!!!

I have now discovered that my fab Pirelli’s are definitely not designed for use in the snow! On Wednesday we had a rare but welcome heavy fall, and I was gagging to get out in the car as I had a trip to Chester planned. Driving though the countryside covered in snow (Um… the countryside that is, not me…) in an open topped car is just such a fantastic experience, one I got totally hooked on at Uni, pootling around outside Sheffield in my Triumph Spitfire 1500. However, that day it was not to be as I got about 50 feet from the garage before I got stuck going forward, then (having finally excepted that I wasn’t going anywhere) about 15 feet backwards before I stuck there too, so I finally ended up digging my way back to the garage with a shovel the size of…er… something quite small, and with the help of Caroline M, whose babies I was well up for having as I couldn’t have done it without her (someone had to drive while I dug/swore/steamed). But she didn’t want ugly babies, so… Took an hour though, & my Old Dear killed me when I was late getting over to Chester…