Neil gets a go in Project Panzer

... allbeit a weekend that was forecast 80mph freezing winds coming from every direction. But with the agreed swap of our Giveaway beetle (with fantastic heating, comfy seats, a super smooth ride, Oh and a speedo that works), I'm starting to realize who came off best here.

I mentioned the now defunkt speedo on the bus, following the big thaw. Where in the cold snap we've just had It literally froze to the zero marker when parked up overnight and then when we started it up and moved off it it snapped clean off.

Obviously to James, a speedo is a mere formality after months of tuning his ears to the 3,500 revs of his 2+ hours drive into work each day. But to me, I had nothing to go on having never driven the bus before.

Enter our Garmin satnav, the same Garmin Nuvi860T I was listening to my mp3's on, all the way down to Just Kampers as James has also knackered the radio. Within the software on the garmin is buried away an aircraft like cockpit with all the displays you need to make sure there are no toasted engines or speedo camera flashes en route. Even a tachometer so when Ivan claims to of seen me doing 80-90 in the fastlane on his way into work I can prove him, and the laws of physics that dictate that the engine in the Panzerfaust will only ever do 55, oh so wrong.

Anyway like something out of Back to the Future with technology surrounding us and cables up to our ears we finally got down to Just Kampers where Pete happily sorted us out with all the replacement parts we needed to do the job. So thanks for that Pete. You can see more on how we did it in future issues of Camper&Bus.