History of Sarnia Mike

This page is dedicated to John Morgan, the owner of one of Guernsey's most popular small garages, Linfield Motors.

Sarnia Mike was a green Ford Cortina MK4, which I had as a taxi from 1981 to 1985.

Sarnia was the name of the taxi company of which I was a director, and Mike was my callsign. However this particular car, which was as near to Herbie you'll ever get was always known, and still is long after it went to the taxi heaven as Sarnia Mike.

Even to day, many people who were associated or who had the mis fortune to get on the wrong side of this car still talk about it. Linfield motors did all my repair work throughout most of the 20 years I had in the taxi trade, Little John, who was  and still is John Morgans right hand man at the garage has many a memory of working on this vehicle, it was John Morgan during a recent conversation who asked if I would put on my homepage the history of this car with it's own mind, hence the dedication to John and his garage, and to Little John.

We first realised that we had a car of abnormal qualities when I took it down to Linfield Motors one afternoon because of a broken fan belt. Little John opened the hood, put the hood support up and proceeded to work under the hood. He had great difficulty in removing a part, and swore at it, "stupid car" he muttered. With that, for no known reason the hood slammed down on him, trapping him under the hood, it was just like Jaws with no teeth, all you could see was his arse and legs sticking out of under the hood. He came out from under the hood, looking rather dazed and said, "the damn car just bit me", "well" said John Morgan, "you shouldn't have insulted it" he continued jokingly, never were words said so true, the saga of Sarnia Mike was about to unfold.

Now the car wasn't keen on going to the garage after that, I remember that not long after that incident I developed a problem with a grinding brake noise. I turned into the road leading to the garage, when would you believe, the grinding noise stopped. I got it to the garage, little John took it for a spin around the block, used the brakes hard, not a noise, everything worked perfectly. He reckoned it may have been a stone that had got into it, and now it would be ok. So off I went, carried on driving, no more noise, then at 6.05 in the evening, 5 minutes after the garage closed, that bloody noise came back, and on it carried all the rest of the evening, drove me mad. Next day, down to Linfield, same thing, turn into the garage, noise stopped, by this time we were learning not to kick the car, cos heaven only knew what it would do next. Same thing again, John took the car around the block, he got it back to the garage, took the both front wheels off, and could find not a thing wrong with them. We decided that perhaps if you told the car how pretty it was, well all cars are called she's arn't they ?, that Sarnia Mike might behave. Sure enough do you know we never had no more noises from that department.

Then there was the incident with an unhappy passenger who needed to get to his destination very quick, he was on a promise I think. We were going quite fast, but not fast enough for this chap, when he turned to me and said, " can't this heap go any faster pal ". Well a cold sweat ran down my back, I knew something was going to happen, and sure enough it did. Now give Sarnia Mike it's due it waited till we were stopped at traffic lights, then when I went to accelerate off, nothing, the bloody accelerator cable gave way, and we were going nowhere

The passenger got really upset, stormed out of the car and ran the rest of the way, swearing and cursing as he went. Some people helped me push the car into a gate way, when we looked under the hood, the cable had slipped out of a bracket, we popped it back in and off to work again I went. When I coaxed the car down to Linfield the next day and explained what happened, they said that it was almost impossible for this to happen, and were gob smacked at the antics of this car, mind you they rigged up a contraption that stopped it ever happening again just in case.

A number of little things happened over the years that I had Sarnia Mike, but three incidents stand out more than most, the one that is still told around the mechanics camp fires and in the bars or at dinners I will write about at the end of this page.

I remember one evening having to go to a taxi company board meeting at a local hotel, as I was going to have a few drinks I got my full time driver at that time to take myself and a fellow director to the hotel. When the driver picked me up, this particular driver later worked as a mechanic at Linfield Motors before becoming a local Prison warden said to me, " I have had a few thumping noises coming from one of the front wheels, sounds like a wheel bearing going" he explained. Of course at that particular moment in time the noise had stopped. Anyway, we were going up the steep hill towards the hotel, when low and behold the thumping noise started, "thats the noise" said the driver, " yeh thats certainly a wheel bearing gone" he continued" hope I am not going to lose a nights work" he finished off with. "Soon sort that out" I assured him, and with that rolled down the passenger window, and at the top of my voice, which at the time scared the s..t out of an old lady walking up the hill, I yelled, " Linfield Garage for you pal", with that and as true as I am writing this story, the damn noise stopped. My driver carried on all night, doing some 100 or so miles without a single noise coming from that wheel. I took the car down to Linfield Motors the next day, Little John removed the wheel which we thought was the one with the bad wheel bearing, and when he removed the wheel parts the wheel bearing literally fell to bits on the concrete floor, there was nothing left of it and to this day the two Johns at the garage still can not come up with any reason, other than Sarnia Mike was a metal human being for the car to be able to do so many miles, make no noise or grind to a halt with a bearing that was so badly mangled.

That I think was when we all finally realised that this car was not normal, and from then on everyone connected with Sarnia Mike, the Laurel green Ford Cortina, treated it with utter respect, and with kid gloves, hell, if I could have bred from this car I'd have made a fortune.

Another incident which always sticks in my mind was the saga with the oldish lady whom I had been sent to pick up and take into St. Peter Port. I arrived at her house in St. Martins, it was a nice sunny day with not a breath of wind. She got to the car and started opening the passenger door, now the doors were a bit heavy, and I suppose and oldish lady would find it a bit hard to get open, well anyway this one did. "Oh good god" she moaned " why has this stupid car got such stiff doors" she carried on winging. Well I sat in the drivers seat and I froze, my thoughts were, 'oh my gawd, what the hell is this car going to get up to now'.

Sure enough, the lady started getting into the   taxi, she put her left hand on the door frame to help her in, and bear in mind that we were parked on a level drive, and there was not a breath of wind, then, wallop, that bloody door swung shut at a rate of knots, trapping her hand well and truly between the frame and door. Well I got the door off her, and then had to take her down to the local Ambulance station to get her checked over, luckily it was only a few bruises and she wasn't too bad. When I told her the story of Sarnia Mike as I was going down to the Ambulance station, she burst out laughing, when she got out of the car at the station, she patted the dashboard as she left the car, and muttered, nice boy, "no" I said" it's a she" I explained, "I wont  argue" she answered back " otherwise it will for sure run over my foot as I pass, and enough is enough for one day" she grinned.

This brings me to the incident I explained before which is told around garage workers campfires at night. Sarnia Mike went down to Linfield Motors one morning to have all it's wheel bearings and brakes serviced and checked through. That Monday, a new mechanic had started working for John Morgan, and so as they were very busy they got the Cortina jacked up on four wheel jacks so no wheels were anywhere near the ground, and then they told the new chap to start taking all the wheels off. As they recalled after, because they were all busy, they forgot to warn him about being gentle with Sarnia Mike, then would he have believed them anyway, they tried to reassure themselves. Well all was going well, three wheels had come off with no problems, but Sarnia Mike, feeling indignant at having all four wheels off the ground, was having nothing of the fourth one coming off without a struggle.

Try as he might the mechanic could not get the wheel nuts undone and after about 15 minutes of trying everything in the book his patience snapped, and he kicked the tyre and swore at Sarnia Mike. John Morgan panicked at hearing this, "Christ" he shouted " for gawds sake don't do that with this car" as he ran towards the mechanic and the car, with Little John in hot pursuit, "this car is human, you don't know what the hell it will do if you start doing that to it" little John explained. "It's on four bloody wheel jacks" the new chap retorted back, wondering what the hell sort of garage he'd come to work for. Then the new chap looked back in horror, Sarnia Mike was moving on the wheel jacks, as the two Johns told me, you could almost see the car smiling as it started to move forward on these four wheel jacks.

Two of them quickly ran to the front of the car to try to stop it going any further, whilst another held on to the back bumper for grim life. "Say your sorry for heavens sake" John Morgan said to the new mechanic "or we are all going to end up underneath this" he paused for moment before finishing his sentence," lovely little beautiful car", he finished off with. The new chap stood there, still holding on to the rear bumper for grim death, his fingertips almost sunk into the rear bumper and said" oh I am so sorry my little green friend, I didn't mean that, you are a handsome car really", he finished. Now, as much as this is unbelievable, but there were plenty of people there that day, the car stopped trying to jump off the wheel jacks and calm and serenity was restored, and three people at least breathed a big sigh of relief. They have all many times tried to look for a reason as to cause  that Cortina to do what it did, but have never come up with anything like a sensible or logical answer, Sarnia Mike was a living piece of metal with a mind if her own no doubt about that.

My self and the drivers who drove the taxi for those three and a half years that I had her have all fond memories of this vehicle, she went through everything, carried on going when other cars had given up the ghost long before, she only had a 1.3 engine, but even 2 litre engine cars were left in her wake, by the time I retired her she had a Cortina MK 11 Seat, a Cortina,  MK 111 handbrake,a Cortina MK111 gearstick, an Austin Princess hooter, the drivers  seat was welded to a metal frame because of another incident in which a rear seat passenger sat behind the driver who  insulted Sarnia Mike as well as the driver, only to find that the seat frame suddenly snapped and the driver shot backwards falling heavily on the passengers legs the drivers head resting on the stomach of the passenger, that shut him up, we had re designed the throttle system as explained, we had moved the coil, cos Sarnia Mike hated getting her engine soaked, and would always picked the deep end of a puddle to stop in.

I have never had another vehicle like this one, nor will I probably ever again, but her memory will live on forever in our hearts, and she won't ever be forgot.

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