AND THEN HE EXPLAINS A THING:

Yes it’s another car joke, but this one is quite close to my heart because the car that features in this strip truly is one of the worst. The Austin Princess was British Leyland’s attempt at being smart by replacing the usual spring coil suspension with the then experimental Hydragas suspension that had been built into several Citroen cars throughout the 1970s. Indeed the ride comfort was improved dramatically, but that was only when it rarely worked as due to the fact that the cars were so poorly built, the gas would leak out and you’d find yourself driving along at an angle.

My personal experience with these cars is actually quite comical. Back in the late 1990s we rented one of these from a real cowboy of a car dealership in Seaham near Newcastle and used it to tour County Durham. About 10 minutes out of town we heard a loud popping sound and we pulled over, thinking it was a burst Tire. But after finding that all the Tires were intact, we noticed the car was starting to slump on the right hand suspension and there was an ominous sound of leaking gas coming from the right hand side. Knowing there was a problem with the Hydragas suspension, we decided to head back to town and within about 6 or 7 minutes the car had already developed a 20 degree list to the right and was practically undrivable. Thankfully we made it back to the dealership and the owner was nice enough to provide us with a really quite pleasant Austin Allegro for free (which is really saying a lot!)

The strip is also based off a British Leyland advert proposal from 1982 which would have featured the late Princess Diana driving an Austin Princess, hoping to jump on the bandwagon of hype following her Royal Marriage to Prince Charles in 1981. Thankfully she thought otherwise as even she knew her sitting in one of these lopsided rust buckets wouldn’t do them any justice either! xD