When British Vehicle Electrical Systems Live Up To The Joke: COTD

British vehicles offer tantalizing propositions. Old British cars weighed barely anything and remain a total delight to drive. Classic British motorcycles match stunning beauty with thrilling speed. But old British vehicles also have a reputation for hilarious electrical issues, sometimes at the most ironic times. This reputation is sometimes deserved.

Several vintage vehicles came equipped with electrical systems by Lucas, and the jokes from that era remain so funny that you’ll cry laughing. I mean, come on, the “Prince of Darkness” is still so great. Anyway, today, Mark Tucker gave us a Shitbox Showdown between four vehicles starting, one of them a 1964 Gilbern GT that Mark says has “real Lucas driving lights.” Here we go! Sid Bridge:

I was all excited about the Gilbern GT, but when I went to type the words “Lucas Electronics”, my keyboard shorted out.

Speaking of old British electrics, I found out that the reason why my old Triumph Tiger didn’t run well was because of degraded, bad wiring. A limped it two more riding seasons with a lithium battery, but still. We had another Lucas reference with LMCorvairFan:

The scourge of Lucas lives on! Every Brit car and bike I’ve owned had electrical problems.

Might try this on my Subaru which is having electrical gremlins although I suspect it’s squirrels.

Resident NASCAR driver Parker Kligerman challenged amateur drivers to beat him to win $5,000. You might think NASCAR drivers have it easy, but No More Crossovers says not so fast:

I’ve heard the “all they’re doing is driving in circles” from people who can barely keep regular cars on the road. And even IF that was true that’s already discounting the hellish conditions inside the car

Parker confirms:

Hahaha me too. I know but they never quite realize what 150 degrees inside a race car is actually like. Hard for the regular person to comprehend! Maybe we do a heat one, that makes you do the driving in a car that is being heated to an immensely high heat… Then again we might kill a person haha.

Finally, let’s stop at today’s Cold Start, where Jason obsessed over the shape of the Ford Bronco’s “curly bracket” LED taillights. Angel “the Cobra” Martin says:

Curley Brackets played inside linebacker at LSU in the late 70’s alongside Feral Katz and Librarian Booker.

Alright, I lost my composure at “Librarian Booker.” Thanks for the laugh and have a great evening.