For me a car is a comfortable chair inside a waterproof box, with wheels and an engine. It's principal activity is to get me from A to B reliably, safely, and as economically as possible.
But for many people a car is an altogether different beast. It is above all a status symbol.
Living, as I do, in a reasonably wealthy small city, big fat cars are everywhere. Not only of the Range Rover 4 by 4 variety, but also big noisy supercars. If you can't actually see them, you can certainly hear them. Occasionally it's like being outside Harrods in August.
Possibly the most noticeable are the big white Mercedes cars, driven by bottle-blonde women of around 35-40 years old. For me the other most noticeable cars are Teslas; again they seem to be everywhere. I imagine there must be a major dealership in town.
Back in the good-ole Thatcher years when 'Loads of Money' was flashing his dosh, young tradesmen all drove Porsches. These days those same type of people drive big 4 by 4s, etc. Why they need them, I really don't know. I imagine they would be ashamed to be seen in anything that looks like my own 'Compact Royce Mk 2'.
Choosing a car for it's kerb-appeal is totally alien to me. All my cars have been basic workhorses (other than one Triumph sports job), and all have been bought second-hand (probably 6th hand). I have never bought a new car; nor would I.
I'm hoping that the one above will be my last. It has done very few miles, and should have a few more years service under her timing belt. As she's still in good condition, I'm considering having her regularly serviced. Something I've never done before!
I used to drive a tiny Toyota for my work commute. Economical, easy to navigate and park. It was always quite disconcerting to look in the rear view mirror and see only the threatening bull bars of a 4x4 looming there behind me.
ReplyDeleteCars have become so HUGE these days, and I don't understand why. Every time you do any repair or replacement it costs a fortune. Small is beautiful.
DeleteWhen my farmer died I exchanged his work horse of a vehicle for a tiny Vauxhall Corsa. I loved it and we tootled everywhere together until I developesd epilepsy so am now no longer allowed to drive. But being 90 I would have stopped anyway. In my view however fit one is at niinety one's reflexes are not as responsive as they were. I believe there should be a ban on all driveers over 90.
ReplyDeleteI still feel very confident driving. I'm never in a hurry, and take extra care driving in town. But I'm only 76.
DeleteAs people live longer more people drive well into their 90s, and safely.
DeleteI hope you are right, Rachel, re "driving well into their 90s, safely". Alas, a long ago blogging acquaintance of mine (she was in her late seventies/early eighties at the time) boasted that she still drives despite the fact that she is severely visually impaired. No shit, Rachel. Remember it I am now reeling. Let's leave aside that she is American. That's not an excuse :). It was so beyond the pale I didn't even grace what she said with an answer. My only comfort being that in England (I dare say, in all of Europe) her attitude wouldn't be practial - not least for insurance purposes.
DeleteU
I have first hand knowledge of the people I talk about. P's mother gave up at 95 and my builder's father was still driving to the shops at 99 quite safely before he hung up the keys. The local paper featured a 92 year old taking delivery of her new car only a few weeks ago. Norfolk has some of the longest living fit people in the country.
DeleteWeaver, good on you to recognize that age will bring limitations.
DeleteOn the upside age may bring advantages. Some years ago (fairly early considering age) I was diagnosed with cataracts. I hesitated, hesitated, and then some more years to submit to the operation. In gratitude I embraced my surgeon within an inch of her breathing capacity after she had managed the second miracle of my life (the first being my son). Having been sverely myopic all my life since age eleven (corrected by glasses and/or contact lenses), then nearly blind, I now have perfect vision. How is that for jumping with joy? Touch wood. And don't fall over!
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I dislike blanket prohibitions. Most unfair on some like the ones I described, fit to drive. There are procedures in place to stop the medically unfit through age or other reasons from driving.
DeleteDuring my short spell in Shropshire in the 80's, there was a well known elderly couple who shared the driving duties, He was blind but could work the gears, pedals, etc, and his wife steered the car and told him to speed-up or slow-down, etc. I used to see them quite often.
DeleteI feel exactly the same about cars. They are functional machines whose sole purpose is to get me and any passengers I might have from A to B safely and relatively quickly. To use a technical term, those who largely pick cars for their value as status symbols are tossers.
ReplyDeleteThey have become SO BIG in recent times. When I'm out driving I feel as if I'm in a bubble car.
DeleteI buy my car with the fact that I live on an Island and all my Mainland journeys tend to involve at least 1000 miles. They also involve carrying lots and lots of 'stuff' from going to the coup with rubbish to bringing furniture etc and shopping back from IKEA and shops in Glasgow. So it has to be quite large, very reliable, an estate. and comfortable. I owned Volvos for many years because they were reliable workhorses. Now they are just luxury status symbols. My best was a Honda Accord Tourer which I sold 4 or 5 years ago at 13 years old with 130,000 miles on the clock (I was living 6 months of the year in New Zealand hence the low mileage) and virtually every part (including the exhaust) was original. It was pristine for its age. I like my cars.
ReplyDeleteMine is an estate. We do 700 kms to our home in France, so I do need reliability for that. Otherwise my weekly shopping trip to Sainsbury's is all I do.
DeleteYou don't get your car serviced regularly? Please don't tell me you are one of those reckless people who never check their tyres' road worthiness and brake pads until both fail at the annual MOT.
ReplyDeleteAs to driving from A to B: Wait till a windfall makes your wallet overflow. Then we'll talk again. Not least, time machine going back to when you were a wildly testosterone driven twenty five year old or a losing it middle aged guy (if the latter - think Lamborghini).
Make mine a BMW - though a Mercedes (at a push) will do, brum, brum,
U
My MOT always pinpointed what needed doing, so it was a lot cheaper. Now I'll do the service and MOT together. I couldn't do that before as the MOT garage in France only did MOT's.
DeleteYou haven't forgotten the cam belt already have you? Regular servicing will get the cam belt changed at the right time.
DeleteThe car's only done 30.000 miles so I don't think it'll need changing for quite a while. At least I'm hoping so.
DeleteI change cam belts at 30k/40k, they and the tensioners are cheap and it's only a couple of hours work to swap one depending on the vehicle. Chain driven cams will last the life of the engine and if they don't they get noisy long before they break.
DeleteOr three years.
DeleteMy last car had done 180,000 kms, no wonder the belt exploded.
DeleteMost of my cars (and I have owned I think 17 of them) have been bought for very practical reasons, most of them small cars. I loved my four door hatchbacks. Two exceptions, I owned a Cadillac Eldorado for a few years, I bought it out of an estate a decade old with 12,000 miles on it. When I moved to a real city, parking it was painful, and it went. I am currently driving a VW Eos, the little hardtop convertible (cabriolet.) I LOVE it, it is terribly impractical, but every time I put the top down, it puts a smile on my aging face. I bought used, I drive very little. My husband has the Mercedes.
ReplyDeleteSo, you're an all German family. I've had 2 VWs, and my oldest currently has a big BMW. They make their cars well.
DeleteSeven years ago I bought my first new car, a Skoda Citigo. I think you call it a microcar, but comfortably seats four grown-ups or two grown-ups and quite a lot of luggage. I wouldn´t drive it more than 200 miles, the seats might get a bit uncomfortable. I never have any problems finding a parking space, I only laugh about high petrol prices. Sadly they don´t make this car any more, nor does Volkswagen make their Up (same size) or Seat and Toyota their similar cars. They all say people don´t want cars like this any more.
ReplyDeleteInstead they all offer cars the size of tractors.What I notice more and more in our village is that you find the biggest cars in front of the shabbiest houses. Of course these are not Mercedes or BMW, but what we call cheap
heaps of metal.
Hilde in Germany
My favourite cars have all been of the 2CV, Renault 4, VW beetle, etc, types. Small, simple, fun. and cheap to run.
DeleteI just wondered if the Compact Royce Mk 2 has self identified as 'she'. My PugT (Peugeot 308) is a 'he'.
ReplyDeleteShe is definitely a 'she'. In fact all my cars have been female.
DeleteCars mean nothing to me beyond transportation. I do service my Subaru Outback according to manufacturer guidelines and have never had a problem. There is nothing worse than a car failing. (Your France to UK car failure was epic.) Reliability is important to me.
ReplyDeleteOur breakdown was a nightmare. I'm hoping the new one will behave impeccably.
DeleteLike you and many others, my primary requirement from a car is being reliable and spacious enough for what I need to carry. I am certainly not into the status symbol market, and am finding that newer cars are getting to be more like tablets with wheels. Given all of the concern about drivers using phones whilst driving I am surprised that the manufacturers are getting away with making almost everything that the driver needs to use to control the car involves fiddling with a touchscreen.
ReplyDeleteMine has electric windows, but that's as far as its technology goes. I had hoped it had a bleeping reverse gear, but it doesn't even have that. I'm perfectly happy with its lack of gadgets.
DeleteRegular servicing should see her last as long as you do. I have never owned a car. First husband owned several over the years, always drove them "into the ground" none lasting more than two years, most less than that. We had a lot of burned out gear boxes.
ReplyDeleteHe sounds like someone who got the most out their short lives. Yes, I shall have this one serviced every year. There's even a garage within walking distance that will do everything.
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