Stellar: Cars
Up until this week I’m not afraid to admit that I drove an Opel Corsa 1.2 litre from 1997 (rather appropriately the year Titanic came out). It was my first love, the car I learned to drive with and it has never let me down (except when I ran out of petrol on the M1 to Belfast which is ridiculously easy to do, right?). It had its faults: it’s badly dented pretty much all over, the interior is an unpleasant greenish grey and smells of damp and the pesky local kids keep stealing the side mirrors. Nevertheless, I had become quite attached to it. It had weathered 13 years of grinding the clutch, coasting, infrequent oil changes and sporadic services by cheap mechanics and never let me down. Of course my wife wanted to set fire to it the first time she laid eyes on it.
In fairness, Dara’s not precious about anything, but she does have a thing about cars, which she gets from her family. So it was no surprise that Dara’s distaste for my banger was infectious. As my in-laws got more comfortable with me, mocking my car quickly developed into a full-on family sport. Let me give you an example:
I was visiting her parent’s house and when I pulled up outside, Karl, Dara’s brother said, “I wouldn’t park there if I were you”.
“Why, will it get stolen?” I said, innocently.
“Jesus no, that’s why I wouldn’t park there”.
Slapping of the knee and high-fives all round at the dinner table as the scene is replayed over and over. This sort of childish nonsense went on for a year or so. I got a Mercedes keyring for Kris Kindle and copies of Auto Trader would be left in my house if we had Dara’s brothers over for dinner. My birthday card had a picture of a rustbucket on it and the slogan “Your car is so slow it does 0-60 in THEORY”. I knew it had to stop when Dean started in on it. Bad car, he would say every time he saw it and smack the tyre with an open palm. Whether this was something Dara’s 3 year old nephew was trained to do or not remains a mystery but the little butterball’s performance was always rewarded with squeals of approval. So the time had come to say goodbye to my dearest banger and embrace the world of power steering, central locking and possibly even a CD player.
A quick browse through Carzone brought me to a dealer who had a sensible and reliable fuel-efficient car with low mileage on his books. After about an hour of rational discourse Dara eventually conceded that it was boring, but good value. And most importantly an improvement. When I got to the address it wasn’t so much of a showroom as an industrial wasteland. A temporary plastic sign outside the “dealership” didn’t exactly inspire confidence: Drive away your dream motour today! There were only two cars in the lot, the one from the ad and an older coupé sports car. An intimidating figure appeared from a tiny Portacabin buttoning up his jeans. He looked like he was part of the Russian mafia: burly with a bald head, wearing a bomber jacket and stonewashed jeans with Doc Martens. I gave it the once over, trying to look like I knew what I was doing. “What’s the mpg on her?” I said, awkwardly leaning on the bonnet, like some pit-stop babe. My petrolhead friend told me that that you always refer to a car as a she, as opposed to an it, but it sounded ridiculous when I said it. He gave me a look I couldn’t quite place and then handed over the keys speaking in a thick accent said only “Is best car. You drive.”
From what little I know about the world of chasses and gearboxes, it seemed perfect: diesel engine, no strange noises and really low mileage. I had checked out the reg online earlier and it came up clean; this baby was a bargain. There was absolutely no reason not to buy this car. Not one single reason, except for little Dean’s squeaky voice in my head, like a kindergarten Yoda: Bad car, bad car. As I hummed and hawed, I looked across the lot at the sports car. It was a 2-door, 2.3 litre 14- year-old coupé with bucket seats and a sports interior, heated seats and automatic transmission. Essentially a rainforest killing, beast of a thing that’s a fortune to tax and bitch to park: the exact opposite of the car I had come to buy. But what Boris lacked in English he made up for in sales technique, “Is babe magnet” he said with a cheeky grin dangling the keyring. Sure just for the crack, I sat behind the wheel.
You know the rest of the story, because men are nothing if not predictable. I drove home in a completely unsuitable car two years older than the one I had replaced. I beeped the horn for Dara to come out and inspect my new purchase, entirely unsure how she would feel about it. Slowly, she circled the car, inspecting it like she was giving it an NCT. Finally, she comes round to the driver’s window. I rolled it down and she kissed me on the lips. “Good car” she cooed, “good car”.