11 October 2007
- A ROLLS Royce is not for rolling – just ask blushing David Bull.
He sat in his 23-year-old Silver
Spirit and tried to roll it off a drive in the Dordogne – but the
hydraulic brakes don't work until the engine is started.
"I jumped in it and
instead of starting the engine I put the car into neutral," said David,
of Rishworth. "By the
time I got the engine started it was too late."
His Roller demolished a
wall before coming to a halt on top of his Peugeot parked below which
was written off.
But the £6,000
Rolls reinforced the reliability of the famous cars as it suffered only
a broken tail light and covered hundreds of miles back to Calderdale
without a hitch.
Mr Bull was with his
wife Angela, a Halifax accountant, at their holiday home in France when
the accident happened. Angela said if the Peugeot had not been parked
where it was the damage could have been much worse. The Rolls hit the wall at an angle
which minimised the damage. Its sturdy bumper took the force of the
impact and it only had a broken tail light. "The Rolls can't have been that
badly damaged as it got us home without a hitch," said Angela.
A local farmer pulled
the Rolls off the Peugeot with his tractor to the relief of David – an
expert driver and vehicle renovator who has driven vintage cars across
Asia, Australia and South America.
He blamed his misfortune
on his wife asking him to move the two vehicles while he was watching
golf on television.
"She was hurrying me
along and I was still thinking of the golf," he said.
"I got a few funny texts
from my mates when they learned what had happened."
|
