REPAIRS PAGE 109
REPLACEMENT MR2 EAGLE BONNET BADGES FOR 10p, CAN IT BE TRUE?
Well, kind of. After about 6 weeks of owning G443 PKK and
about two days after attending the Ripon classic car show, some thoughtless
idiot decided our eagle bonnet badge would look better on his bedroom wall
(sexist I know – but it’s more likely to be a young lad). Andrea left the
car in Scarborough’s Park and Ride car park – secure you’d have thought – and returned
from work to find our car devoid of badge. Bummer – new ones cost upwards of
£35, I think.
Next day dawned along with an idea in my fragile little mind.
A garage near my work had two ropey MK1’s for sale so I went down and cheekily
asked if he had any spare bonnet badges. After a bit of chat, he popped one off
a bonnet and said “Ere mate, you can ‘ave it”. Cheers! (I bought him a
decent bottle of wine for his trouble, but still way cheaper than £35).
Then the second idea: Why put the new badge back on the car
for it to be removed by (no doubt) another juvenile thief a week later? Why not
make some “look-alikes” first and use them mainly and put the proper badge
on for special occasions?
Back at school, I got to work: First, scan in the new badge
and copy the image across into Publisher. Second, print out a sheet of badges
via the colour laser printer, and trim round them. Next stage – get them
plastic laminated using a standard laminating machine – available at a
copyists or in my case at school. Finally trim round them and affix adhesive
magnetic strips on the reverse (obtainable for L-plates from Halfords). And
there you have it: a new bonnet badge costing approximately 10p!
Now for the test: the home-made
badge was on our car throughout the Billing weekend, having survived a
torrential 200 mile drive down on the Friday and the return trip on Sunday /
Monday. For those of you who attended Billing: did you spot the fake badge? Our
car is a helios blue T-bar with front spots – there were only 4 helios blue
cars at Billing – so you might remember ours. But did the badge really appear
out of place? I’m sure Michael Sheavills won’t mind me saying this, but even
he didn’t notice straight away! Unless you were really looking for it, you
wouldn’t really pick up on the difference. Not sure where I stand legally on
this as I am copying Toyota’s eagle motif. However, it is for my own use and I do actually have a genuine
badge, so I can’t really see too many issues. The only problem with the badge
as I see it is that the colour fades after a couple of months: that’s why
I’ve made a batch of twelve badges! I showed some club members my handiwork
and they agreed it was a good idea and a fair slice cheaper than a new
badge.
By the way, not one of my homemade
badges has been nicked – wonder why! I even thought about putting a little
message on the reverse of my laminate badge so when the would-be badge thief
lifted the badge he would read “You lose: better luck next time” I didn’t
in the end because I thought I might enrage the vandal and find unwanted
go-faster stripes keyed down the car.
So there you have it; if you’re
concerned about the long-term tenancy of your rare eagle bonnet badge and you
begrudge forking out for a replacement, you might like to try my idea out.
STEVE RAETTIG