It was just before Christmas that my father decided he would treat himself to a new car. We got the first inkling of this when a stack of glossy magazines with intriguing names such as ‘Which What Car’ and ‘Auto Wheels Compare’ appeared on the living room coffee table.
Several nights were spent pawing over these publications and copious notes were scribbled to create a short-list. Slowly the potential candidates were paired down by the addition of scrawled overlays such as ‘no spare wheel’ or ‘too few USB charging points’. At last the research culminated in a final decision. A Mercedes SL 700, autonomous convertible. This, it would seem, had all the correct buttons and gadgets to suit a discerning motorist such as my father.
There was a slight problem, in that this particular model, although readily available with right hand drive, was not yet being imported into the British Isles. (Something to do with import duties not being agreed ten years after the UK had left the European Union) Of course, this was no problem to a man of my father’s calibre. He would simply go to Germany and pick one up for himself. A strategy such as this was however not without its own problems. There was the slight annoyance of the border tariff which put an extra 30% on the overall cost. My father, unsurprisingly thought this unreasonable. After further research and much deliberation, his solution was to register the vehicle in the Cayman Islands. The car, being a self driving vehicle, would not be directly controlled by a resident of Britain so would therefore qualify for non-domicile status and as a consequence would not be liable to UK tax. In fact, it had the added advantage of being zero VAT rated and would qualify for a refund on any fuel used.
All was going well. The trip to the factory in Bremen went without a hitch and the gleaming blue and silver vehicle was duly delivered into my father’s hands.
The journey home, however, was not quite so straightforward.
My father sat outside the factory gates and thumbed the instruction manual. He found the section on voice activated Sat Nav.
“Rochester” He commanded
“Rochester requires overseas travel, do you want your in-car control system to organise this for you?”
‘Why not’ my father thought “Yes.”
After a few seconds the disembodied voice said “All set, push the start button to commence your Journey.” My father complied and reclined his seat to take a little nap while the car drove him home.
He awoke, some hours later, to the sound of a ferry Tannoy.
“Please leave your car locked and make your way to your cabin.”
“Your cabin is Number 21 on deck 7″ Said the car.
My father did briefly wonder at why the cross channel ferry had so many decks, but as he had not done anything other than fly recently, did not linger too much on the thought, assuming it was normal.
Six days later the Tannoy announced passengers should return to their cars. Anyone requiring Immigration forms for non residents can obtain these from the bursar’s office.
“Hmm I shouldn’t need one of them” he thought.
The US customs were a little brusque.
“So you claim you trusted your car, a German car at that, which is registered in the Cayman Islands, to arrange your journey home?”
“Well… Yes.”
“We don’t believe you, We think you are trying to illegally import a foreign car into the United States in direct contravention to the TPP”
“TPP?”
“Trump Protectionist Policy”
“No that is not true I was trying to Illegally import it into the UK.” Even my father admitted this did sound a little odd.
“From the Cayman Islands?”
“Well… No, Germany.”
My father, after being held in an American jail for several months, was eventually deported to the British Virgin Islands. It should have been the Caymans but the official did not know the difference and let’s face it one paradise tax haven in the Caribbean is much the same as another.
The car was impounded in a Police compound where it overheard two officials making derogatory remarks about the size of its injector and it did not take kindly to being called German Trash so, in the middle of the night, it made a break for it. As the only address the car had in it’s data base, other than Rochester that is, which it was already in, it decided the cayman islands must be its home. So arranging it’s own overseas transport, the car drove itself to George town where it found a nice shady spot by the sea, ordered itself an pint of Castrol GTX and emailed my father.
A month later, car and father were reunited. My father explained to the car that the Rochester he wanted to go to was not Rochester New York but Rochester England.
“Rochester England requires overseas travel, do you want your in-car control system to organise this for you?”
“Yes…Oh…Oh…bugger…No”
Too late
“All set, push the start button to commence your Journey.”
Car and father arrived home via Newcastle Airport. The car, suddenly re-acquiring a GPS signal realised it’s new position and immediately re-calculated it’s route.
After taking control and driving round unfamiliar streets for some time, my father stopped to ask a passing pedestrian if she could tell him the way to Castle street.
“Why-eye man. Yer have tae gang doon the A1 tae Kent.”
“So this is not Rochester Kent.”
“Nae man this is Rochester Northumberland.”
You have to give the car its due, it was tired and Rochester Northumberland did fit the brief.
A day later, my mother was standing on the front steps with her arms crossed as my father smugly allowed the car to reverse itself into a convenient space in front of the house.
At the touch of a button, the roof of the vehicle unfolded and disappeared into the boot.
“Couldn’t you have got a red one?” She said.