He had always loved cars; his parents had always said he was car-mad. If he wasn’t building Airfix models or buying Matchbox toys, then he was watching Formula 1 racing on TV. It was slow at first, but as time went on the clients came, and it wasn’t long before he had three mechanics working for him and had to move to larger premises. Everything was coming up roses. It was late on a Monday when the car came in. Michael was on his own. The garage had officially closed for the evening, but the man seemed to be in some trouble, so he agreed to help. It sounded to him as if the exhaust had blown, and until he could get under the car he wouldn’t know if it needed a completely new exhaust, only part of one, or, with luck, for the customer, just a new bracket. He couldn’t be bothered to open the garage and get the car over the pit so he got the driver to drive it up a couple of portable ramps. Once in position Michael crawled underneath and started to examine the length of the exhaust.
