When
I can't exactly pinpoint the date. But the vivid remembrance of that day when a whole world “that mattered” had a good laugh at me is still present in my memory. It happened to me in the late seventies while I was in the process of becoming a smarty kid. I was seven, perhaps nine.
Where
You know... In the late seventies, and mostly on weekends, we could find plenty of fathers down at the parking lot or in front of their garages, with a screwdriver in hand and their heads inside a car engine compartment. They were adjusting intakes and gasoline/air mixtures or some other fucking liquid levels.
And for hours at a time. The shit we thankfully must do no more. They would check the tyre pressure, preignition timing, belt tension, or simply start polishing the shiniest shine they could pull out of shiny chrome. Whatever.
And characteristically of that time, all the openings on the car that had a door would have the fucking door opened at all times. An unnecessary and ridiculous must-do. The cars looked as if crucified.
And a bunch of mostly small kids were there too. Yeah, we the boys. The girls went somewhere else, doing their kind of shit. We, the boys, were exercising a fetish over the crucified car and our all-important & knowledgeable fathers, that one day we would be like.
What.
So, I was sitting in the driving seat of a crucified car and farting from time to time while my dad's head was somewhere inside the engine compartment. I’m turning the steering wheel left-right and manually shifting through all 5 gears. Up and down and up again, daydreaming of a day when I would be a famous F1 driver like Niki Lauda.
I was racing at unbelievably high speed, while in reality the handbrake was up, engine key was naturally out of the lock, and the head of my father was safely inside the engine compartment. In my daydream, I was burning some slick tires, smoke was coming out of disc brakes, and the car was endlessly spinning in circles. Fire, smoke & confetti everywhere.
Right there in front of all the other stupid ugly shitty kids, naturally being the only one that can do that. You know, like the shit the boys dream about when they go to bed. Like savagely killing hundreds of men just for fun, right before we fall asleep. Feeling safer, you know.
El Problema
The problem was that the clutch pedal on those ancient cars was very hard to press. You needed kinda big force just to hit the bottom. And on top of such unpleasant inconvenience, sometimes I wanted to hold it steadily for minutes as I was shifting. So, I developed a fucking problem. A pain in my stretched little tiny left leg that was prematurely ending my play. So, faced with an immense first world problem, here we go... a fast & fresh young brain at work!
Crescendo
In a split second I envisioned a system with a semi-manual gearbox. Nothing like the boring American automatic disaster (P-R-N-1234). I designed a manual racing gearbox where, with the help of hydraulics, the clutch would work magic on its own. The driver needs only to command a stick, no clutch pedal to be manipulated. With that, wow! I could keep fantasizing forever without the fucking pain in my shitty tiny leg.
I saw electro valves, analog sensors, hydraulic tubes, and a whole drawing of this brilliant fucking system right there in my stupid head. Genius!
Climax
I jumped out of the crucified car, and filled with bliss, went directly to my dad. I pulled his head out of the engine compartment and started explaining the next big thing. Once I finished tantalizing the idea of a gearbox with no clutch, he asked:
How do you move the clutch?
There's no clutch, pa, hydraulics miraculous, I explained. You pull the stick and… then sensor… and so you move and… and…
hahah.. ahaha…. brahaHAHA… HAHAHAHAHAHAHA…
FUCK, NO CLUTCH. WHY DO YOU WANT THAT?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAH HAHAHAH HAAAAAA AHAHAHAHahhaaaaaaa…… fuuuck that.
Post mortem
Then he used the opportunity to light a filter Morava Blue cigarette and had a relaxed smoke. I went back to that driving seat more pissed than ever before. I knew I was right, damn. And I was ready for revenge. Just wait. You buddy. Over there, Morava one...
Fast forward some 25 years. I'm gliding through the city streets in a brand new SMART car that I’ve just bought and driven out of the shop. It has the exact same gearbox I envisioned on that fucking day. A semi-manual gearbox with two buttons, one shifts up, the other shifts down, and with no clutch in sight. A hydraulics miraculous. I won. You lost. Revenge is sweet!
Fast forward another 20 years... I'm gliding through the city streets in a brand new ELECTRIC car that I’ve just bought and driven out of the shop. It has NO gearbox at all. A bliss of non-existence...
Dad, I know you would love it!