Joke at expense of English electrics!

[Max Allan]

Joke received from mate in USA a while back poking fun at the electrics on English cars. Maybe it's already widely known, although I'd not heard it until then.
   
   A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it,
   realization of a basic truth came over me. So simple! So obvious we
   couldn't see it! John Kuivinen, Chairman of the Palomar Repeater
   Committee, an amateur radio group I think, has discovered what makes
   integrated circuits work. He says that smoke is the thing that makes
   ICs work because every time you let smoke out of an IC it stops
   working. He claims to have verified this through thorough testing.
   
   I was flabbergasted! Of course! Smoke makes all things electrical
   work. Remember the last time smoke escaped from your Lucas voltage
   regulator? Didn't it quit working? I sat and smiled like an idiot as
   more of the truth dawned. It's the wiring harness that carries smoke
   from one device to another in your Mini and when the harness springs a
   leak, it lets the smoke out of everything all at once and then nothing
   works. The starter motor requires large quantities of smoke to operate
   properly, that's why the wire going to it is so big.
   
   Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis. Why are Lucas
   electrics more likely to leak smoke than, say Bosch? Hmmm. Aha!
   Lucas is British. Things British always leak. British convertible tops leak water. British engines leak oil. British displacer units leak hydroelastic fluid. British governments leak defence secrets. Naturally! British electrics leak smoke.

[wsmempson]

The joke that used to do the rounds in the Triumph TR6 and TR5 community was that the reason the British liked warm beer, was that they all had fridges made by Lucas....

[administrator]

His nickname was always 'Joseph Lucas, Prince of Darkness'.

[nikbj68]

A somewhat more replete list of Lucasisms:
   

• It has been determined that we are all wrong with the laws of electron flow. Lucas' theory simply says that it is all done with Smoke. A charged battery is really full of smoke. The wires move the smoke around the system. If the smoke escapes, that's it, she's dead.

   
• The Lucas motto: "Get home before dark."

   
• Lucas denies having invented darkness. But they still claim "sudden, unexpected darkness"

   
• Lucas--inventor of the first intermittent wiper.
     
• Lucas--inventor of the self-dimming headlamp.
     
• The three-position Lucas switch--DIM, FLICKER and OFF. The other three switch settings--SMOKE, SMOLDER and IGNITE.
     
• The original anti-theft devices--Lucas Electric products.
     
• "I've had a Lucas pacemaker for years and have never experienced any prob...

   
• Why do the English drink warm beer? Lucas made the refrigerators, too.

   
• Alexander Graham Bell invented the Telephone.
     Thomas Edison invented the Light Bulb.
     Joseph Lucas invented the Short Circuit.

   
• Recommended procedure before taking on a repair of Lucas equipment: check the position of the stars, kill a chicken and walk three times sunwise around your car chanting: "Oh mighty Prince of Darkness protect your unworthy servant."

   
• Lucas systems actually uses AC current; it just has a random frequency.

   
• Bumper sticker reads: "Do not follow too close, I have Lucas brake lights!"

   
• If Lucas made guns, wars would not start either.

   
• Did you hear about the Lucas powered torpedo? It sank.

   
• It's not true that Lucas, in 1947, tried to get Parliament to repeal Ohm's Law. They withdrew their efforts when they met too much resistance.
• Did you hear the one about the guy that peeked into an MG and asked the owner "How can you tell one switch from another at night, since they all look the same?" "He replied, it doesn't matter which one you use, nothing happens!"
• Back in the '70s Lucas decided to diversify its product line and began manufacturing vacuum cleaners. It was the only product they offered which didn't suck.
• Quality Assurance phoned and advised the Engineering guy that they had trouble with his design shorting out. So he made the wires longer.
   

[nikbj68]

AT LAST! NEW OLD STOCK FOUND!
   
   
   Courtesy of MEZ, sadly departed of MEZ PORTING, looks like a real character lost.

[linklaw]

Didn't Joseph Lucas have a famous quote that went something like "Gentlemen should not motor about after dark"?

[Mark IV]

Or the MG driver that stopped in the country to releive himself on a tree. Upon re-entering his MG he discovered it would not start due to "too much moisture in the air"