Sense and sensibility...

I’m not big on cars, the petrol head thing seemed to pass me by and for most of my driving life I drove a series of company cars with sensible petrol consumption and not much fun in them either. In fact I didn’t even pass my test until my latish twenties and it took me six attempts. Yes, six - mind you four of them were taken before I was eighteen in Aylesbury with the same tester who obviously hated me. I don’t mind now, it’s probably best that I wasn’t on the road in my teens as I do (or rather did, I don’t drive much these days) have a tendency to put my foot down.

I passed my test on my birthday in 1989. My wife on the other hand passed at seventeen after half a dozen lessons and likes her wheels much more than I.

I bought this Puma for her about nine years ago. It was immaculate and had just twenty thousand miles on the clock. It still has less than sixty thousand, but last week it failed its MOT for the first time. It wasn’t going to cost much to put it right, but it got us thinking and you know how difficult that can be. In the last five years I’ve gone from driving fifty thousand plus miles a year to almost nothing and my wife’s car has sat outside the house for months hardly going anywhere because she has been using mine.

It posed the question, why did we need two cars? And after a great deal of soul searching we realised that the truth is we don’t. So with much deliberation, repetition and hesitation we have decided to face up to that horrible truth. Sadly (despite it being a nice looking vehicle much loved by the Top Gear team when they test drove one) it has gone. In cash terms it was only worth a hundred quid even with the low mileage. But in sentimental terms – well at least it didn’t have a name. The world of motor sales is a very cruel place indeed.

It still goes like that proverbial shit off a shovel and its fun, but fun really isn’t the name of the game these days. Thanks to a little man we know we’ve found someone who will pass it on to someone who will use it. He even paid us a little more than We Buy Any Car Robbing Bastards Dot Com. But that isn’t really much consolation.

Why do you have to become sensible as you get older? It’s not as if we can’t afford a little fun. Bye-bye and thanks to the Puma. I hope that you have many happy and productive years of driving left in you and that you are loved. By the way, although I never told you your name is Penelope.