Pulling into the hospital car park roared the unmistakable silhouette of an Aston Martin recovery vehicle. They’re as rare as ravens in this neck of the woods so I stopped to stare at the racing green and gold-trimmed truck. My morning had been tedious and repetitive, so I felt much uplifted when the driver hopped out of the carriage and asked the way to Reception. I resisted the temptation to say ‘Oi! you can’t park that there here chum’ and asked the question we usually ask of ambulance drivers.
“Picking up or dropping off?” It had to be one or the other.
“All sorted. Service time for some lucky chap.” Sensing I might be envious of his cargo rather than nosey, he completely misread my body language and carried on talking just as the Hospital Director trotted towards us jangling the keys to his red thing.
“Everyone wants one of these” the driver confided. “How about you?”
“Sorry … it’s not for me. I’d prefer something younger.” Like the compact Mercedes AMG hiding in a sea of Mini Coopers on the staff car park. I can’t afford one of those either. Well, not this month.
My old Peugeot is due it’s 15th MOT imminently and not looking or sounding great either. Against my better judgement, I’ve set about touring car dealerships hoping for a cheap, barely-driven replacement with mixed results. Alphonse solemnly volunteered to accompany me but I’ve decided to fly solo on this one. Experience tells me they would ask him all the tech stuff and interesting questions and I’d only be consulted when it came to colour choices. Besides, we wouldn’t get far in one day because he starts to drool at the sight of a Toyota GT86 brochure and frankly, it’s undignified.
Aware of the pitfalls? Indeed I do and sure in the knowledge that sales people use all sorts of psychology to size up the weight of your wallet, I parked the Peugeot at Morrison’s. I’m 5’3” tall in Primani ballet pumps, so would automatically be shunted into Ka, Micra, Aygo, Adam, Twingo, 500 and Up! territory. You know the mindset - one size fits all! I landed in the bottom section of the car lot amongst the unpriced, mainly abandoned wrecks, and quickly spied an 03 plate Yaris with a very low mileage. This would be perfect for my seven minute commute to work which has ultimately wrecked the Peugeot’s engine. The main dealer alerted me of this a while back so I queried whether I should drive via Carlisle three days a week just to blow out the engine? Humourless to a fault, the bloke didn’t crack his face.
For a chunk of the last decade I made a weekly round trip up the M6 to Manchester which was made bearable only by a German touring car. The only flat bit is the Toll Road, the outside lane is filled with brake-happy morons who tail-gate and Stoke on Trent is better on an empty stomach. None of this compares to driving in Leicester; up here we've changed the rules:
• The Highway Code is forgotten once you’ve passed your test.
• Traffic lights are an advisory measure only.
• Stopping at roundabouts? Why?
• Clarkson Parking in the centre of two usable spaces is de rigeur.
• Women are to be driven over if you’re late for Friday prayers.
Don’t believe me? Last week I spied a city-blue Citroen which had broken down on the grass verge opposite a huge branch of Sainsbury’s. In less than 24 hours the tyres had gone although it had been thoughtfully left on bricks. Another 48 hours passed until I next drove by and some wag had graffitied it with ‘Welcome to Leicester’. Quite.
Car salesmen should come with a Haynes Manual. Fans of “The Fast Show” will remember the genius creation of Swiss Tony with his pale grey suit and immaculately groomed quiff, who insisted cars should be treated ‘like a beautiful woman’. Not this morning it wasn’t as I received a teeth-chattering greeting from his counterpart Swiss Tariq. Oddly, he seemed to know less about his cars than I did and as he escorted me back to the showroom he made the stupidest mistake in the book.
“So Raven …” they get your name first “what’s your favourite car on the lot?” I replied with my characteristic, savage honesty.
“The compact Mercedes.” Well he asked! Poor Tariq wanted me to choose the titchy Noddy cars I’d been inspecting but somehow they didn’t make me drool. Ever keen, I was gently ushered inside past a woman who sits on a plinth and reads the paper; it’s her job apparently. I declined a machine coffee and listened patiently while he dismissed the cheaper cars on the list because of their poorer resale value in five years time. I didn’t care about five years from now when the Peugeot’s MOT is due in five weeks’ time. Tariq wanted me to buy a new shape box with 13K miles on the clock costing three times the amount I’d declared as top of my budget. He mentioned it’s major selling point.
“It has parking sensors.” Did this idiot come fitted with earplugs or what? Enough now.
“I’ve been driving for forty years …” longer than he’d been alive by the look of it “…and I don’t need parking sensors to put an OXO cube on wheels between two other vehicles.” Undeterred, he leaned back and sighed, then tapped extra information into the computer.
“So, let’s have a plan.” I had a plan and it was to go somewhere else but I’m too polite. Tariq was still talking. “So … we’ll put a thousand pounds down and finance the rest on the pretty white one say over five years and you should be paying around a hundred pounds a month and before you make the final payment, it’ll be worth … scrap value.”
“…” I’m good at maths particularly when I’m being robbed.
“So let’s have a look shall we?” The printer spewed out a piece of paper that came up with a number I was unhappy with.
“What happened to my deposit?”
“Oh that’s in necessary charges.”
“Well make them unnecessary! If I pay this every month for five years and haven't driven the cube off the cliff in the meantime, I’ll be paying somewhere nearer ten grand for a car you’re telling me is only close to six which is well over my budget.” Deep breath Raven, deep breath. “And I don’t like WHITE cars.” Tariq remained unfazed and delivered his coup de brass neck.
“So when can we get it ready for a test drive?”
Talons firmly fixed into my palms and drawing blood, I fled from the dealership and for a moment took a fleeting glance at the Ford Dealership over the dual carriageway. No. Not them again either. Clutching my redundancy in 2007 I dropped in for a chat about a new motor and was told “when madam has decided what car she’d like and how much she’d like to spend, perhaps she’d like to come back.” I believe car dealerships are one of life’s little tests. Like on-line dating sites and chia seeds.
Tip of the Beak: One of our auditors is having problems finding true love in London. She’s tapped countless apps and finally hit on a dream date only a few weeks ago. I understand he was gorgeous, clever, funny, beardless and obviously quite well-healed, and they hit it off up to the point where he offered to drive her home. She accepted gratefully but on jumping into the front seat she experienced a moment of true horror on discovering he had Batman-themed car mats. She was gutted. Her perfect man was flawed.
“Is that it?” I exclaimed at the brevity of her short list.
“Those car mats sound great … where can I get some?” asked Alibone.
Even Lucinda was interested. “What’s his number?” But the poor bloke had been rejected purely on his inappropriate choice of car mats and our lovelorn auditor had failed another one of life’s little tests.
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