Memories of Cars

My first car was a 1977 Gallant sedan. I had saved from birthdays etc $1500 which I gave to my mum and she and my uncle went car shopping for me. When they arrived home I was shocked. All of my friends had nice newish or reconditioned cars and mine looked like it had come straight from the junk yard. It was a weathered blue colour with a few spots that were rust treated pink. It had a cracked black vinyl interior, no tape deck just an AM radio and when I looked at the speedometer it was in miles per hour. I was almost in tears when I saw her, ungrateful as I knew it was she was the ugliest car I had ever seen.

Once I drove her though I was in love, I had the fastest car of all of my friend bar one, she zoomed round corners and in the end I credit her with her with making me the driver I am today. Then one day she just stopped, engine seized never to be driven again, we had to pay a junk yard $50 to come and get her.

My next car was a 1983 Gallant station wagon, bright orange it had plenty of room for our dogs, my pride and joy until I crashed up the back of a woman outside of the pet food barn two weeks later. I couldn't afford to get it fixed and to make things worse my boyfriend thought it was in reverse when it wasn't and he drove into a pole.

I used to be able to drive for 20 minutes before I had to stop and refill the leaking radiator. Then one night I had a lot to drink and caught a cab home, the next morning when I went to pick it up from the station it was missing.

It was found 3 weeks later at Cabramatta station with a bag of rotten bananas inside, I had brought a new car by the time they found it so we sold it to a friend of my Uncles.

My new car was probably my least favorite car just because it was boring and a bit ugly, it was a storm blue Ford Laser. One day while parked at a ferry station at night (I didn't learn form the last car) someone keyed it, they didn't just run a key down the side they scratched swear words into each panel and drew a penis on the bonnet with 'suck my dick' scratched underneath.

Again I couldn't afford to get it fixed, and lived with it like that for a few months (including the week i had interviews at Compaq and Microsoft where I had to drive into car parks filled with BMWs and other luxury cars)

One rainy day I was driving through Leichhardt and a car pulled out in from of me, I ran into them and my car, thankfully, was written off through no fault of my own

The problem was that I didn't get much money back from insurance and struggled to buy another car, Andrew took me to Parramatta road and we brought a white Toyota Corolla with a beige interior. I didn't like it when we brought it but it was cheap and Andrew convinced me that it was a good car.

Sure enough I loved this car, it was such a work horse, with all the driving and bumping into thing I did it just kept going and going, and by the time I gave it to my Uncle because we were moving to Singapore I had still not needed to get anything fixed

When we got back to Sydney purse strings were tight and we shared a car for about 6 months, it didn't really work, I'm not much of a walker and there was no public transport between where I worked and where I lived.

We ended up getting me my dream car, a black, soft top Suzuki Vitara, I was over the moon that I finally had a groovy car, I drove it with the top 1/2 down even in the rain and I thought I would have it forever.

When I fell pregnant with Jack I went looking for the anchor point in the back and realised it didn't have one, I did some research and they were not recommended for carrying car seats because the back seats were removable and it was only a 2 door car, after lots of heartache we decided to sell it and buy a 'family' car

And that's were I am now, I have a shiny red Honda CRV. Its a great car, it has air con, a CD stacker, enough room for 3 kids 2 dogs and 2 adults, its has power steering and central locking and its my first ever Automatic. Its the perfect busy mums car and it has just become my longest owned car. I drive so much less these days but my need for safety and reliability in a car is so much greater.

So tonight little reflection is dedicated to all of my cars, who have been somewhat an extension of my home, especially my lovely CRV, its a bit of a soccer mums car, but I can live with that :)