Die Reise nach Wien
July 18th, 2026
“You will not get to Vienna in this rustbucket”
Nearly fifty years ago I had to decide whether to say goodbye to my girlfriend at the airport, or drive her back to Vienna in order that we could spend some more time together before saying goodbye. A friend of hers owned an old Morris Minor ready for the scrap heap, in spite of which we accepted the offer of a loan. Such is the folly of youth.
Her friend had been persuaded to buy the 1962 Morris Minor for her German boyfriend Fritz to tinker with, satisfying his interest in old British classic cars. Unfortunately he didn’t know what he was doing and succeeded in making the car worse to the point it was less than fit to drive across Europe by anybody but a pair of 22 year old love birds too stupid to turn it down.
So it was that at the end of an academic year in the late 1970s the rust bucket was loaded with our belongings and we set out one afternoon from London towards Dover for an overnight ferry to Ostend, with our first stop being Amsterdam.
I can still remember the ship’s deck attendant smiling through the windscreen and indicating I should pull up the handbrake, him making the appropriate hand gesture, and me smiling back while pulling up a disconnected handbrake which did absolutely nothing, and then putting the car in second gear, turning the engine off, and letting the clutch up, to prevent the car moving should the weather worsen.
The lack of a handbrake was the first of many problems to be overcome on the journey. Next was my tiredness in trying to take on a journey from London to Amsterdam without much sleep leading to my driving into a kerb in Amsterdam early in the morning and bursting a front tyre.
We found a helpful workshop who replaced the burst tyre and balanced the front wheels thus eliminating the steering wheel vibration which had been a concern. This was an unexpected bonus.
A welcome night in the Amsterdam Youth Hostel prepared us for the next stage of the journey. I seem to remember a sleepy tour of the canals on the afternoon of our arrival but that may have been a dream. The lack of a handbrake made crossing roads beside small canal bridges in Amsterdam difficult, since it required frequent hill starts and I had to develop a “heel and toe” technique on the accelerator and brake to avoid rolling into the car behind.
Our progress was further hindered on bumpy roads by the sump hitting the road surface, with the risk of oil leakage, owing to “Fritz” having exchanged the original front wheels for smaller alternatives, lowering the front of the car, but without adjusting the suspension to restore the alignment, a job I had to take on later for the return journey.
The Belgian motorways were the next challenge where I took a wrong turn and ended up heading in the wrong direction, solved by doing what I have only seen happen in Lagos, Nigeria and crossing the central reservation to much sounding of horns from other vehicles. You couldn’t do it these days, there would be a barrier.
I have no idea where we crossed into Germany, but from then on our old car was the subject of much amusement and attention, especially from children, given that without exception all the other cars on the Autobahn were modern and fast, our 1962 “Moggie” being old, and slow, and unreliable. The missing air filter led to many roadside stops while I got out to clean the carboretteur, having to start the engine by hand the battery being old and nearly flat, and the dynamo (of which more later), not charging it fully.
In time we discovered a German roadside service called Edelweiss who much to our embarassment helped us more than once on finding us, yet again stopped by the roadside while I tried to blow dust out of the carb’ having no air filter to stop it. (Fritz had left it off, like the handbrake cable.)
In this halting manner we made it across Germany. We must have stopped somewhere for the night, I’m not sure where although Regensburg rings a bell, but my bi-lingual companion made the whole process simple, while I became an unwilling motor mechanic. If only I had known how much worse things would get.
At the Passau German / Austrian border we were asked to switch the engine off while our passports were checked, which was unfortunate since I knew from experience it wouldn’t start on the battery again and I didn’t want to use the starting handle in front of the border guards.
“Mit dieser Rostlaube kommst du nicht bis nach Wien” – the border guard was very rude
“You will not get to Vienna in this rustbucket”
Inevitably following this comment and the return of our passports I had to push the car across the concrete away from the border kiosks and start the engine once more by hand no doubt to the amusement of everyone watching but I was too engrossed to care. We got going again and entered Austria.
Without a shadow of a doubt the most pleasant and enjoyable part of the entire journey was the section along the Danube, Passau, Linz, Melk – then on to Wien. I was informed that at Melk a famous monastery exists, although we didn’t stop to see it. Somewhere between Melk and Vienna two things happened to the car.
The dynamo retaining bracket had been removed by “Fritz” for no apparent reason, causing the belt tension to slacken over time having only the mounting bolt torque to hold it. This was a disaster waiting to happen because it meant my having to excessively set the belt tension, and the torque on the mounting bolt nut, to get the belt to grip, while wearing out the dynamo bearings prematurely and leading to frequent belt breakages. As a direct result I soon ran out of fan belts, and a pair of tights were used at a petrol station in place of a fan belt in order to reach Vienna with headlights.
Worse was to come. An hour before Vienna I changed into third gear only to feel something give, and as I attempted to change up into fourth gear I could not. I found out why later beneath the car in a garage in Vienna. The third and fourth speed selector rod had moved too far back as I changed into third gear, allowing a spring driven plunger to move blocking further movement. From then on we had no fourth gear and were limited to a top speed of about 40mph.
Such was the situation as we arrived safely in Vienna, in the dark, not far from Schönbrunn Palace.