RAB MCNEIL: It’s time for a new car – but what?
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In the absence of a boat – see last week’s lamentations – my attention turns once more to landlubbers’ transport: my car.
I’m fond of my jalopy but fear the end is near for our relationship.
She’s been in and oot the garage regularly for a while noo, and the only saving grace has been that, when breaking down, it’s been reasonably near the hoose rather than in the middle of the Highlands somewhere.
So I’ve been researching a new motor, with admittedly ridiculous criteria.
A nice person’s car
Well, the first isn’t so uncommon: I’d like something with a high driving position. How fine to be master of all one surveys, rather than crawling along the ground, feeling at risk of being flattened by an oncoming lorry.
My second criterion is absurd: I want a car that nice people drive. I even Googled it.
By “nice people”, I mean polite road users, folk who don’t drive up your backside or overtake on blind bends.
Google wasn’t much use, but my own observations lead me to believe I should get a car beginning with V: a Volvo or a Volkswagen. Indeed, I have a Volvo, but feel the need for a change.
Criterion number three is a vehicle that’s nippy, as my last two cars have been.
In the Highlands and Islands, you often end up trauchling along behind irresponsible slowcoaches frustrating those behind and tempting even decent drivers into overtaking ill-advisedly.
Need for speed
I never do that. But I know the places to overtake and, if the coast is clear, ’tis best done quickly. At other times, speed is satisfying.
Recently, on the A9, I saw in my rear mirror the driver of a huge lorry tailgating the car in front incredibly closely: inches from its rear bumper.
When that car left the road, it was my turn to get the treatment, which I tholed because I knew that, when it came to a stretch of dual carriageway, I’d leave the monster behind, which I duly did, watching him dwindle to nothing in my mirror.
Great being able to do that though, mission accomplished, it’s important to return to regular speed.
White van man is notorious for tailgating, so it’ll dismay you to know I’ve been thinking of a van: but just a wee one.
The truth of my car
The back seats of my car are always down, as I’m forever transporting DIY gubbins, horticultural material and bits of buckshee tree from the woods.
Alas, that means the back is always mucky. Indeed, the front isn’t much better, since you know that (a) my car is my favourite restaurant and (b) I spill more food than I eat.
That could be a problem if leasing a vehicle. When I tried returning it after the leasing period, they’d have a fit and refuse to accept it in such a condition.
If I lived in the city I might not have a car. But, in the sticks, it’s vital. Mine was recently off the road for 10 days, and I was going stir-crazy.
When I got her back, I felt the freedom of the road once more. It’s not as free as the sea, but it gets you from A to C. Or, with my current car, to B if I’m lucky.
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