Yellow Submarine!
04/23/2021
The Beatles song "Yellow Submarine" is about a yellow submarine. Thirty years later, the Liverpool musicians could have sung about the Renault Sport Spider, which was often ordered in yellow and reminded the crew of a submarine in wet weather due to the lack of a roof.
So far, there have been two experiences that I will never forget. But first, from the beginning. I placed my first order for a Spider in Switzerland. A news item the size of a postage stamp in the daily newspaper "BLICK" advertised the new driving machine.
No carpet and no roof, no heating and no radio, only driving was the order of the day. I picked up the phone. Since we were talking about 1994, cell phones were not yet available, so I called Regensdorf on the corded phone at home and asked for Renault Sport boss André Hefti. I ordered the Spider on the phone. He laughed and said: "You, I still have no idea whether it will really be built and, if so, whether we'll even get any of them in Switzerland." I was persistent and placed my order. My order was then recorded on a blank white sheet of paper. A year passed, then came the happy news: "The car is being built" and the question from André: "Are you still interested?" - "Of course I am, I want the car." A short time later, I was able to tick the extras on a sales contract. The only choice was between yellow, blue or red. There was nothing else. Then several more months passed until the letter below arrived in my mailbox on April 25, 1996.
Again I was asked whether I was still willing or whether I wanted to withdraw from the purchase contract. Delays again, because the wind deflector was not supposed to be homologated in Switzerland. Do I now want it with a windshield, or do I no longer want it? I do!
In September 1997, after three years of waiting, the car was finally delivered to me.
Now to the Beatles and their song Yellow Submarine. As I've already said several times, the car has NOTHING, including no roof. On the way to the Julier Pass in heavy sleet in late fall in the slipstream of a Dutch coach full of young people, my wife and I were the absolute tourist attraction. The entire crew, presumably including the chauffeur, circled past the rear window and applauded. Thumbs up and pure joy for the flatlanders.
The second verse of the song is about a trip to South Tyrol. We left home (near Lucerne) shortly before midnight and our friends had long since arrived in South Tyrol and checked us into the hotel for around 00:30. Pouring rain, uninterrupted from Lucerne to Bolzano. A short emergency stop on the Reschen Pass due to a huge deer in the middle of the road. It just shook its head and went on its way. 04:45 Arrival at the hotel. Soaking wet, I stood in front of the locked door and rang the bell. The boss came in his robe and made a complete mess of me because of the time, then he saw my wife sitting fully wrapped up in the open car in the rain.... and shouted as he left "I'll open the underground garage and they'll come up!". Car in the dry, travel bag packed in 2 bin bags, dripping under our arms, we stood at reception where we took the room key. At breakfast, he then apologized extremely politely for his nocturnal behaviour with the words: "He had never really seen anything like it before and offered us all an aperitif at a later hour.
