I am Duckbert.

6 days prior to our departure to Vinadio it happened. Without warning, he ripped off my doors. Before I knew what happended he had removed my eyes! I felt NAKED AND BLIND. Get the picture? The seats went out. He started to work his Dremel hi-speed tool like a mainiac to remove some little rust around the bodywork. Rust which in my opinion is only part of my elegant 1984 patina. - STOP IT!   What happende afterwards was horrifying. He cut out parts of my rear end and welded in new ones. Boy was that BURNING HOT.

By the time it was only three day left before our Journy I still had not got my clothes back on - check out the picture above. He installed a DVD and a TV monitor! Inside ME! Completely out of style - but then - he has no style. Why did I choose this family?

Then he sanded, and painted. OK. I have to admit that - after I got my eyes on again - that I looked quite decent. But the patina is lost. Unitl next spring, when I (t)rust it to be back again . .

We were designed for french peasants, loved by intellectuals and finally we threw ourselves into the hands of dreamers that had wasted their youth owned by shameless cars like Minis, Lancias, old MBīs and Hondas

While we hate to admit it, the only way for us to live past our 15īth birthday is to get a family that hasnīt got a life but still does not realize it.

I was in a state of chock when I late Thursday evening realized that I had to carry a silly tail. Are you stupid people going to break my back? This thing will completely ruin my dignified profile! What are other Ducks going to think about me?

Our journey started a rainy Friday.   I wanted to get even with them  when I allowed my shoes to slip on the steep steel bridge to the ferry!

My driver had to back out and try one more time - explaining to the other passengers that he may had loaded me to heavily. So there they got something to think about during the sailing.

After arriving in Frederikshavn, the kids I  own checked out the DVD for a while, before they got bored . . .

• a whining 3rd gear

• disintegration of the roof canvas edges

• a hood that appeared to get loose and leave any time
  
  But I allowed the driver to go on until the campsite in Husum, Germany after 420 km that day.

After spending a day in Husum, Sunday August 28, I took them the final leg to Hamburg Altona where I was going to enjoy quite a while on DB Autozug. There, we met Maja and Bertil from Sweden, also headed for Vinadio. As a matter of fact, the ī85 Club that owned them also had this silly looking tail. Kinda sweet actually . . . Looking cute on the Autozug, right?

I was so pleased to see that there were several more Vinadio bound ducks that disembarked in St Raphael. We would continue the journey to Vinado together with the AmiSuper conversion from Buxtehude and the Duck-family of a ī87 Dolly and a RetireDuck from 1957! Later, a Dutch Duck joined us also. We followed-the-leader through the Riviera Backcountry; do not even think about asking where we went! Great scenery - only disrupted by a minor AmiSuper conversion fender bender -  hostile enconunter with an elderly french lady. Despite my shortcoming in the art of French language: She was very upset. And not a very good driver.

We embarked on a remarkable trip across Col de Lombarda, past Isola 2000 on what the RSDīs (Remarkably Silly Drivers) thought to be a shortcut to Vinadio. Boy was that wrong.

While I felt up to some hard work after resting on the AutoZug, 1. speed endurance driving and 13% hillclimbing with a loaded compartment was tough. But, then; Ducks are tough birds. I could not complain, after all the RetireDuck was happily humming in the front. What kind of steroids had he gotten hold of?

The driver occasionally was stupid enough to shift to second gear while my internal inclimeter showed 11 degree + UPHILL. I responded by immidiate loss of torque, coughing and getting really mad. Does that stupid sonofab. . . really think that I accept this kind of thoughtless abuse? My effective response to over-eager pilots like that is reluctanse to run below 3000 rpm. That took care of second gear upshifting. 

I was forced to cruise downhill sightly above the redline in first gear - sombody: put that driver in jail! I could hear him mumbling "save the brakes"  . . "don't want to boil the brake fluid" ! While I could hardly keep the valve stems from flying off into eternity he was worried about that stupid brake fluid!

The Family I own and I were not the first ones there. Read more . . .