Exclusive: car runs out of honk

Here’s TopGear.com’s roving correspondent, Cory Spondent, with his mostly incorrect exclusives from the world of motoring

Tributes are pouring in for a blue 2006 Ford Mondeo from Kidderminster, after the much-loved family car ran out of honk last Friday evening.

Alan, a Mondeo LX 2.0 TDI with a sprightly 147,000 miles on the clock, honked his last around 8pm, surrounded by close friends and family. “He was a car who just loved to honk,” said Alan’s owner, also named Alan.

“He’d honk at other cars that’d pulled over to let him pass. Honk at kids to let them know it was safe to cross. Honk at every ‘honk if you’re horny’ bumper sticker. Honk at cyclists while overtaking, scaring them witless and sometimes causing them to crash. Good times.”

Alan (the human), who has owned Alan (the car) for almost a decade, estimates that Alan has emitted over a quarter of a million joyous, car-free honks in his years frolicking along Britain’s roads.

“He could convey so much with a simple honk,” reminisced a teary Alan. “Gratitude. Love. Whimsy. Melancholy. A deep desire to topple a nervous cyclist into a thicket.”

Alan confirmed the final honk from Alan was a lusty, indomitable parp, tailing to a peaceful toot. “It sounded like… acceptance,” nodded Alan.

Suggestions that Alan could somehow be ‘re-honked’ have been dismissed as ‘a crime against all that’s good and holy in this world’.

“Who are we to play god with the souls of others?” asked master mechanic Paula Spannering, fixing the horizon with a flinty stare. “Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.”

Spannering also quashed rumours that Alan could continue to serve Alan in some honk-free fashion.

“From an engineering perspective, a honkless car is like an elephant without its trunk,” she confirmed. “Like a church without its bell. A pub without its jukebox. A fishtank without its tiny castle. A honk is a car’s very essence. Its chi. Its karma.”

“Also, Rule 112 of the Highway Code, mate. Horn’s a legal requirement, innit.”