I used to judge people who finance their cars, but now I’m not so sure – who has it better?
Sometimes people are sniffy about those who buy a new car on the never-never, the drip or whatever they want to call it.
And as an enthusiast, it’s not how I like to buy cars either. I don’t want just a tool, something I won’t bond with, merely what I budget for in order to go to work and the shop.
But I’m not everyone. There are loads of objects in my life to which I have no attachment. Things I will buy, use until they break then have repaired if they can be or recycled if they can’t (a subject for another column, this).
I’d rather buy better and buy once, but this is harder – I suspect deliberately – than it used to be. But still, some things I care about, some things I don’t. And cars? Well, yes, I do.
Or do I? It’s not uncommon for car YouTubers to post an occasional garage tour video – a look around their collection, all things shiny and polished. Hi, guys. Do like and subscribe. But I don’t think I’ll do one of those for the Autocar YouTube channel (although please also do like and subscribe), because, honestly, it’s embarrassing in there.
Where to start? The high points? There’s an Audi A2. This was cheap, and even though I didn’t think I needed it, it has driven 10,000 miles this year. It mostly works, too, although I still haven’t replaced the glovebox after changing the fan motor a while back.
The huge single windscreen wiper has a pivot that has worn down, too, so it scratches the bottom of the windscreen. Last weekend I bodged it with two cable ties and two rubber grommets, and if this lasts well (say for a year), this will be how I always fix it.
But at least everything that goes wrong with the A2 is cheap (the blower motor was £35), because I also have a Land Rover Defender Td5, and I like to joke about how every time I drive past the local garage, it costs £800. Which was half true until its last visit, when it cost £2000.
It’s tempting to make a Land Rover reliability gag, but my Defender is 20 years old and has been around the world 10 times. There’s always something that doesn’t work, but it’s very rarely anything important. I’d back it to make an 11th trip leaving tomorrow.
I still have a Volkswagen Beetle, too – a Baja Bug. But the shame of this… It did run roughly at one point, and the good news is that I know how a Beetle engine comes off, comes apart and goes back together. And I had fun doing that. But it still doesn’t run very nicely. It has moved a couple of times this year, because it’s in the way of my garage doors. I needed the exercise.
And there’s a Hillman Imp. Progress is… describable as progress. At the start of the year, I had vague plans to do a BMW motorcycle engine swap, and at the end of the year I have a BMW engine to swap in. But nothing has actually happened and I’m a bit scared to start.
Then there’s a motorcycle, which a reader or two will tell me is not the subject of this website so I won’t dwell, but it works fine. There’s a project motorcycle, too, which doesn’t. That makes three vehicles out of six that work, which I am very fortunate to have the space (if not the time) for and which combined cost me less than a new Dacia.
I perceive this as winning. But am I? For every weekend I don’t work on them I feel guilty, and on every long journey I wonder: will this be the big one where something terminal breaks? I say I like cars but I poorly treat some and neglect others, and a tremendously scary bill could drop at any time.
Meanwhile, someone pays £250 a month for comfort, convenience and the knowledge that if there’s a problem, it isn’t theirs to deal with. I like what I do, but who can say who really has it better?
