Dearest Readers, One Of You Please Save Me By Taking The Rodius Off My Hands

Now everything is said and done, we can consider ‘Operation Make Adrian’s Life A Living Hell by Making Him Buy a Rodius’ a success. I hope Matt, and by extension you horrible lot, are happy. I most certainly am not – and haven’t been for the past twelve weeks or so that the Rodius has loitered with malevolent intent outside my house. To live is to suffer, and suffering makes good content. The trouble is, I don’t want to suffer. I want to live like a VIP, gliding through life like I’m in The Matrix. After all, I’ve got the wardrobe for it.

Therefore, my time with the Rodius must come to a fortunate end. And not a moment too soon. We, or rather Evil Matt concocted this heinous scheme with three intentions in mind. Firstly, to encourage readers to sign up to become new members, which was an unqualified success, so if you were one of those who pledged to support us with cold hard cash, thank you. Secondly, the Rodius was to be used as an Autopian staff vehicle at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July, collecting and ferrying myself, Jason, Thomas, Beau and our hard-working videographer Levi, around and in between Chichester, Heathrow Airport, and the Duke of Richmond’s estate for five days. Which it mercifully did without breaking down and leaving us stranded.

Lastly, there would be the dubious side benefit of pushing the Autopian’s most debonair, stylish and sane member of staff (me) to the brink of automotive insanity by making him drive one of the ugliest cars of recent times. I’m convinced this was part of a plan on the part of everybody else here to drag me down to their chaotic level. Professional jealousy is so unbecoming. Nevertheless, the Rodius has been a thorn in my side, and it has caused me genuine anguish and no small number of headaches. I really haven’t been putting it on.

 

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And now, in the spirit of ooh, I don’t know, wanting to get shot of the thing as painlessly as possible and passing the burden on to someone else like the cursed videotape in The Ring, we are offering our UK readers (or anyone who can get to the UK) the chance to own their very own Rodius. Specifically ours. Please. Come and relieve me of it before the last vestiges of my psyche give way and I become an even more broken husk of a human than I already am.

Matt, wanting to get one final knife into my back, suggested advertising the Rodius on Facebook Marketplace. I resisted because it’s taken me over six months to unsuccessfully buy a pair of clear indicator headlights for my Mini from there. The sort of person who participates on FB marketplace probably goes to the shops in their pajamas, and I just don’t have the time or inclination to deal with people like that.

 

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The situation is this. The Rodius will cease to be road legal on 20^th September, so one way or another it needs to be out of my hair by then – ideally a few days beforehand because I’m going to Germany for Car Design Event on Monday 15^th  and I’d like this large silver monkey off my back before that. It’s not economical for us to get it repaired – and in non-MOT related problems, it appears to have a mystery electrical drain, but it seems a shame to scrap it if there is someone out there with the skills, the facilities and the wherewithal to store it and save it.

This is 100% serious and genuine. If you want it, it can be yours. The old days of just driving to the local scrap yard, dodging the resident Alsatian, signing the logbook, handing over the keys, and walking away with a fistful of grubby ten pound notes have, thanks to environmental legislation, long gone. If no one wants it, I will have to arrange for a licensed vehicle dismantler to come and collect it. I just want and need it gone, but if it means I get to pass on the pain I have endured to someone who was partly responsible for me ending up with the Rodius in the first place, then all the better.

So make your best and most ridiculous offer. It needn’t be cash – trades are more than acceptable. I want to come out of this whole ordeal with something that brings me pleasure: I deserve it after everything I’ve been through with the wretched thing. So what have you got to tempt me? This is your chance to demonstrate your love for me by offering up your most precious baubles and trinkets and relieving me of my most pressing burden. If you want to inspect it in person, I will be taking it to Rustival at the Temple of Terrible Decisions – sorry the British Motor Museum at Gaydon this Saturday, the 30^th August. I promise I will have cleaned off the remnants of Thomas’ vomit from the exterior and pumped up the tire by then.

If you are interested in making your life worse and mine infinitely better, drop a message in the comments below or message me in the Members Only or General channels in the Discord. I think I’ve more than held up my end of the bargain, so it’s time for one of you to step up.  I’ve even fixed the stereo by swapping some fuses around. You can’t say fairer than that.