My 15 year old Car (Rover 218 Turbo Diesal) died last week and I needed a new one quick, so I went for an old cheap one. A 1996 Fiesta for £400 that I hope will get me through to the summer. After alot of thinking with no obvious choice I just went for the first small car that I came across locally.
I’m pretty happy about it. The dead car was a diesel so the Fiesta seems really quick off the mark, it cost just less than £30 to fill it with fuel rather than just less than £40. But it is on 2 really important criteria that it made me smile. The seats have good lumber support (even after 10 years use) and the radio is controllable which after 3 years of listening to nothing but Radio 5 in the old car is like heaven. The bonus of having a cassette means my iPod can be easily plugged in too – if it had a more modern CD player I’d have to mess about with a iTrip type device which I never found very satisfactory.
I decided on a smaller car for economy and parking. And in the last 3 days I’ve been able to park outside the house almost all the time, cos there was a little tight spot that I found quite easy to get into but no one else did.
Ideally I’m thinking about a small VW (Polo) or maybe Fiat Punto, but there are so many short hatches around that are higher rather than low slung. And thats the point for parking. I wouldn’t mind going for an old 80s quality European or Japanese car. But they are slung low.
