Above, a Standard Vanguard Six.
The above is a German LHD example of what was once a popular car on UK roads. Back in the 1960s. At the time I was a boy and as such was like many other boys interested in cars. My “Dad” had successively purchased; a Morris Oxford, a Hillman Minx, another Hillman Minx, then a Vauxhall Victor, then another Vauxhall Victor, then yet another Vauxhall Victor and after that back to the Rootes Group with a Hillman Avenger. It was this last car I learned to drive on, this on my leave – I served in the Merchant Navy at the relevant time.
As with many small boys whose fathers owned “modest” cars we would plaintively ask our fathers why they didn’t buy a bigger, better, faster car! The reply focus on the fact that it was they who were paying for it!
I knew I could not persuade my father to buy a Jaguar Mark 10 – my dream family car – but I felt a grander car than a Hillman Minx would be a Standard Vanguard Six (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Vanguard [which had a six cylinder engine]).
Years later as a middle aged man I had acquired a level of wealth (that disappeared very quickly after October 2008) I was able to indulge my interest (a dearly beloved lady friend of mine describes this variously as an “obsession” and a “mania”) in what are now described as “classic cars” by me and my fellow “petrol-heads” and as “very old cars” by my dearly beloved!
A lesser, but still important issue is that spare parts for such as the Standard Vanguard above can be difficult or even impossible to find!
In those now halcyon days in the “noughties” before October 2008 I was at least able to placate my dearly beloved somewhat by mentioning that my classic cars were all made by Daimler-Benz AG in Stuttgart in the 1980s and thus were still quite safe to be driven on UK roads! This was NOT something that could be said of the Standard Vanguard Six in the image topping this post!
The sad FACT of the matter is this: Often, RTAs (Road Traffic Accidents) are caused my someone else and you the unfortunate motorist are the victim of someone’s reckless stupidity! Sometimes RTAs result in the deaths of drivers and on occasion, the driver responsible was not involved in the actual collision that caused the fatality/fatalities but in fact manages to drive on and on occasion is never apprehended by the authorities.
This in fact happened to my fiancée who was killed in an RTA in 1991. She was a very careful driver who kept religiously to the speed limit. There is (maybe was – he could have died) a man out there probably in the UK but otherwise “abroad” who KNOWS he was the cause of a fatal RTA and has never had the “knock on the door” and police officers asking him to assist them with their enquires”.
Why am I rabbiting on like this?????????????
Because sXXt happens!
It can happen to any of us. This can result in our mortal remains being ferried in a euphemistically named “private ambulance” to an undertaker to to the nearest A&E (the UK equivalent of ER). It is quite common for victims of RTAs who are not dead to have injuries that result in a loss of blood and which require blood transfusions.
For most people the inconvenience of being injured, “bleeding out” and requiring a blood transfusion to prevent transportation to the aforementioned undertaker is an unwanted experience but such inconvenience is multiplied many times if one is unfortunate enough to have a rare blood group.
Consider therefore the extraordinarily unfortunate French lady who is possessed of a blood group that is now entirely unique to her!
What follows is copied from “Popular Mechanics”:
Some 15 years ago, researchers received blood from a French woman originating from the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, colloquially referred to as “Gwada.” The patient drew blood while undergoing routine tests before surgery.
An unusual antibody associated with this blood was discovered in 2011, but it wasn’t until 2019 that DNA sequencing found that a genetic mutation was responsible for the unique blood type, which was officially recognized by the ISBT this month. The researchers named the group “Gwada negative,” after the patient’s homeland, and confirmed that the woman inherited the blood type from her parents, who each contained the mutated gene.
“[This] is undoubtedly the only known case in the world,” Thierry Peyrard, a medical biologist at EFS, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “She is the only person in the world who is compatible with herself.”
GOTO: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a65161270/gwada-negative-48-blood-group/