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Dad took it out for a test drive. He said it was misfiring slightly and was not quite so fast off the mark as he’d expect from a car that size, but aside from that it was in good order.

By that stage I was beyond such considerations. It was the cutest little thing to watch, very quiet and just zoomy, and very responsive. I loved it. I was convinced it was the most perfect little car in existence. I wanted it.

Dad asked the guy if he’d accept $3000 for it, and he agreed. And there it was. It was to be mine. We agreed to return the next morning to hand over the money, pick it up and sign the papers for it, and drove back to my Aunty’s flat. I was estastic. I felt delirious with joy. I was going to own the cutest little car ever.

Strangely enough, I slept very well, and morning arrived all too soon. We jumped in the rental car and drove off toward the centre city. Dad wanted to check the spark plugs before we finalised it, as he was worried if they might have been the source of the misfiring, so our first task was to find a Super Cheap Auto or Repco or something. Being the centre of Auckland, that was difficult.

After driving around and around and around for a good half an hour, we finally stopped for directions, and were pointed out a small Repco not far away. Unfortunately, they only had three of the right size spark plugs, which wasn’t very helpful. Then we had to get some tools for actually sticking the things in, which wasn’t easy either.

At last, a good hour late, we arrived at the car with the money and the tools and sent the guy a text. He arrived promptly, and he and Dad disappeared under the bonnet, from which they emerged sometime later, Dad apparently satisfied that the spark plugs were in good order.

Seeing as Dad had to drive the rental car I got to have a ride in the CRX with the Russian guy to the post office. It felt very low, and very speedy. It was awesome.

And then we exchanged a couple of papers, and it was mine.

We drove both cars to my aunty’s house where they dropped me off to pack up our stuff into the boot of my car. My car. My car.

My dad left to drive the Russian student back to his flat, drop the rental car back at it’s home at the other side of town and then bus back, while I sat and bonded with my new car. MY car. My car. *sighs ecstatically*

After a while I settled down to pack up our stuff, sending frequent glances out the window at my car as I did so.

At last I sat down to watch on of Keren’s movies to keep my mind from imploding. I watched Blood Diamond, a very powerful movie about the diamond trade in Africa and how the Africans were and are trod underfoot by the different factions struggling for wealth. It was a really, really heartbreaking movie. Obviously, being about the brutal sort of stuff that goes on in those places there was a lot of violence, and there was also quite a bit of swearing. I definitely wouldn’t recommend it for younger audiences, and it might be good to have one’s parents screen it first… but it was really powerful.

It was most notable, however, for the fact that it was the first movie I’ve watched for… well, all year at least, that didn’t have any kissing in it. *eyeroll* I mean, I don’t watch all that many movies, but it seems that every single one without fail has at least one smooch somewhere, whether cartoon, action movie or documentary. Even Black Beauty had some pretty passionate horsy kissing going on… ;)

The most amazing thing about this one, though, is that there was even a slight romantic interest between the hero and heroine, and they had a moonlight chat alone over a glass – well, milkbottle, actually – of alcohol, yet it still didn’t get at all physical. How’s that for restraint? *sigh* Isn’t it awful that that’s so notably unusual nowdays? I mean, come on, people, the world does not revolve around pairing up!

*flicks the switch on budding rant, and returns to subject*

So Dad eventually returned, and we set off into the sunset. Or the afternoon sunlight. Whatever.

I was rather frightened at having my first go at driving the car with that much traffic around, country girl that I am. Traffic freaks me out, and that much traffic… *shudders* Especially Auckland traffic; they have almost as big a reputation for pushy driving as Californians.

At least the car was an auto, so I didn’t have to worry about driving and could just concentrate on the traffic. It wasn’t actually as bad as I had expected; I almost wrote off my car once by not checking my blind spot before changing lanes, but thankfully Aucklanders have fast reactions. And he was very nippy at changing lanes and taking off from intersections and stuff; he’s such a little, low thing, he has hardly any drag at all.

We filled up with 96 a little way along. It’s a few cents dearer than 91, but the car thrives on it! It was pre-igniting a little on 91, but that all got cleared up with the better fuel.

Fuel is just so expensive, though. I got thirty litres for about $55 dollars the other day, with a 22cent per litre discount! An American gallon is four and a half litres, so that puts it into perspective for you Americans. It’s like… six and a half gallonsish. And that’s with a 10%ish discount.

Thankfully he isn’t a thirsty car!

He’s beautiful to drive, absolutely beautiful. He sits so low and sleek on the road and corners like a dream. His acceleration is marvellous; he’ll just go when you put your foot down. It’s a big change from driving the slow, heavy MPV! His speed is just right, too; he’ll sit at 100ks up any sort of hill without trying at all, yet he isn’t constantly trying to go at 150ks like a bigger sports car would! He’s comfortable, too. Absolutely the nicest car I have ever driven. Not that I’m in the habit of taking Ferraris or Peugeots for spins, but yeah… :D

I drove until 10pm, when my licence turned into a pumpkin, and then Dad took over over the Napier-Taupo. That’s a long stretch of road over a bit of a hilly section. It isn’t quite mountainous, but they’re pretty high and there’s a lot of climbing there! Plus it’s one of the windiest sections of state highway in New Zealand, and that’s saying something.

Dad really pushed him hard, but he just flourished on it, it was absolutely beautiful, I tell you! He sits so steady on the corners; she just needs a bit of accelerator to pull her out and he’ll keep her speed smoothly the whole way. He tried some 45k bends at 100k, and there was no hint of lurch in him. That’s the equivalent of about 30 mile bends for you Americans; basically a very sharp C shaped corner.

In other words, the kind of corner you just don’t find in America. We toured all around the States - three months constantly on the road - and saw nothing of the sort. The sharpest of bends we saw over there would just be 70k-ish ones here. For one thing, there’s no need to build that sort of road over there. Americans have Space and Flat Land, two things us Kiwis are rather short on! I have the testimony of numerous Americans that they have never seen roads as terrible – which is American for windy and narrow, of course – as ours. I don’t doubt that up in the mountains somewhere they have some proper bends, but other than that… well, face it, Americans just don’t do curves. When they find a mountain in the way of one of their roads they go through it, not over it.

*flicks rant switch again*

Anyhow, I’ve loved every moment of driving him. And that’s absolutely true – I even enjoyed it at the coldest, most uncomfortable point, when my fingers and toes were ice and I could hardly keep my teeth from chattering. Convertibles are cold. Especially at night. *grin*

He’s so incredibly eager and responsive, always ready to dive into action. He’s very quick off the mark, accelerating very fast and smoothly right from a standstill. It’s incredibly cute how responsive he is; the slightest touch of the brake or accelerator and he’ll act immediately. No waiting for the turbo to kick in like one must in the MPV!

Plus he has the most adorable wee face. There isn’t much sophistication in it, but there’s an abundance of eagerness and a perpetual excitement that is very endearing. He’s so gorgeous; I love every bolt of his body.

Even though I’ve spent all my life savings on him already, and have just enough to fill him up with fuel five times before I’m dead broke, I don't regret it a bit. I just badly need a job.

But first I need to think him up a name…

On Monday night we sent the guy who owned the ute a text asking when we should pick it up, and the bombshell was dropped. Apparently the test it was sitting on Tuesday was not the final warrant but just an initial test to check on what needed fixing, and it would be another week before it would be ready to drive. How this misunderstanding came about I’m still not quite sure, but however it happened it was somewhat of a problem.

We couldn’t sit around Auckland for a whole week, and we needed to get home. Our only options were to take a bus ourselves and arrange for the ute to be trucked down to Hawkes Bay - which, with petrol this high, would be terribly expensive – and there fix it and certify it ourselves; Bus back home, leave the car in Auckland for the couple of weeks it would need and then fly or bus back up to collect it; or drop out of the sale.

Worst of all, it was going to take the whole day to sort it out, which meant my last hopes of seeing Prince Caspian in the theatres were dashed. Ok, maybe not worst of all, but that was a bit of a disappointment, too.

We still hadn’t actually seen the ute, so we arranged to go and have a look at it the next morning. We decided that if we really loved it and couldn’t bear to let it drop we’d do what we could, but if we weren’t totally happy with it anyway then it just wasn’t worth it.

So we got up early and caught the bus, and ambled along to his house. The ute was very impressive. It was very big and very low and very sporty. Big according to New Zealand standards, however; our roads are narrow and windy and half the Big American Trucks wouldn’t even fit on them. Honestly, your roads! Well, they’re certainly something for a Kiwi to behold, I can tell you! I’d bet a good half of you Americans have never actually driven a proper corner at 100ks! Or 60 miles, or whatever…

Just a sec, let me find you a pic or two…
 

It was all fitted out pretty nicely. There were a couple of things we were concerned about, though. Firstly, the roof leaked. Pretty badly. It had been a bit of a home job, and the seals were wasted. They had had a soft top for it for summer, but the guy had taken it apart to modify it and had munted it a bit, so we’d have to get a new one of those made up too. Secondly, the suspension was lowered. *winces* It might look racy, but it doesn’t make for the most comfortable ride. And Thirdly, the whole build and bodywork was a bit rough. It looked ok, but it just wasn’t quite finished.

All in all, it was slightly rough, but we would have been quite happy with it if it had been ready for it. For the price it was pretty great, and we were prepared to do a bit of fixing it up before it was all peachy. But it wasn’t ready, and that was the thing. I would have been ok with trucking it down and bussing ourselves home, but it was him who would be paying most of it, so it wasn’t really up to me!

I think it was the suspension that decided Dad. He’s had a bit of back trouble, and he just didn’t relish the idea of a bumpy ride, after the comfort of the MPV. Plus the difficulty of having to organize the fixing ourselves. My Dad, see, is the kind of guy who can do just about anything, and is also very finance conscious. So he’s the kind of guy who would never let anyone else do something like that if he could do it himself, and he really wasn’t relishing the thought of doing it, I think!

So we talked it over with the guy and he agreed to relist it. He had had heaps of interest in it and he thought he could get more for it if he warranted it first anyway, so he was pretty sweet with that.

And we left without a car. It was pretty disappointing, after finding something that seemed so perfect and looking forward to it for weeks and telling all one’s friends about it… *sigh*

We had arranged to go to my Aunty and Uncle’s house on one side of Auckland for dinner and we had several things to do on the other side. After our disappointing trek that morning we really didn’t feel like waiting for busses and switching them and everything, so we just hired a rental car at the first place we came across.

It felt good to be in a car, even if it wasn’t ours, and we were a little heartened by it. So we trotted back to the telecom shop where I used their wifi to say hi to all my blogging friends – well, the ones on my cbox, anyway – and Dad talked to the guys a bit more about his troublesome PDA. When Dad was finished we logged onto Turners and looked at their cars up for auction. Out of the hundreds of cars they had on auction that night only about twenty were manual, and only about three of those would have worked. And none of them were convertible.

Dad said they were sports cars, but none of them were cute sports cars. And, not being a car expert or a fast driver, I don’t really care what it is or who made it, I just want a car that’s going to get me from A to B and look cute while it’s doing it. Admittedly the Ute wasn’t exactly cute, but it was fun, which is almost as good.

And these cars might have had sporty engines, but, honestly, who cares? It isn’t the engine one looks at, and who cares that it can go to 300ks when the speed limit’s 100ks? Cars that are eternally wanting to go faster are just a pain to drive, anyway. There was a little red Mazda Autozam which Dad liked. I thought it was a pretty boring car, actually, after the ute… but then, everything seemed to look boring after the ute. We had another look at TradeMe and decided, while we were there, to drive over to see a couple of cars which looked interesting in a sales yard a bit away.

We ended up going to the wrong sales yard at first, and after they had told us the location of their rivals they detained us for a while to show us their own ‘better’ cars. Then while we were leaving we saw another one or two sale yards across the road, and then another four, etc, etc. Then we ended up stopping along the road at several more interesting looking car yards… honestly, the place was teaming with car salesmen of various shapes and sizes, it was dizzying.

Anyhow, it was tragic how few manual cars we saw. Each yard might have three manuals, all the cars coming out nowadays seem to be autos… *shakes head*

Finally, about twenty car yards down the road, we arrived at our destination. There we met a rather tubby islander lady with a perpetual smile and anxious eyes. There we discovered that the car had been moved to another sale yard in their chain just down the road a couple of days before. When she heard that we had seen it on the internet and had established that we had not come through any other agent in her chain her eyes took on a slightly maniacal excitement, and she insisted on personally escorting us to the sale yard to inspect it. We told her that we were sure we could find it ourselves, but she was insistent, and zoomed away in her car as fast as she could.

When we arrived at the other yard she was waiting, key in hand, to escort us to the car, where she hovered around popping the boot and starting the engine so we could see how it sounded and insisting we sat in it to see how comfortable the seats were and showing us the controls and worrying over the prominent lump of bird poo dropped on the roof. The maniacal light was in her eyes and her smile flashed at every opportunity.

It was quite a nice car; a cheap, economical Mazda Demio in a pretty bright blue. It was tall and not at all long, though, which gave it a very stubby look, and it simply didn’t have a bit of style to it.

We told her we were just looking at the moment and we’d return if we decided to buy it. Her smile vanished and she watched with despair as we walked away. Poor woman. She was so very, very obviously paid per sale.

I don’t know why all the cars we looked at were Mazdas. We didn’t do it on purpose, it just happened that way. It’s especially weird since both my Mum and Dad’s cars are Mazda… I guess they’re pretty popular here! *shrugs*

By the time we had to leave for my Aunty and Uncle’s house we still hadn’t found anything particularly nice. There were several cars that would have done, and I had resigned myself to a little dark grey Toyota which was unremarkable but still quite a nice car.

We arrived at my Aunty and Uncle’s house and were greeted enthusiastically by cousins and Aunty alike. I was soon absorbed in energetic romping with my little cousins, while Dad talked to my Aunty about our car finding woes.

He still liked the Autozam best, so he rang Turners and had a guy stand in the auctions for him. Half an hour later, while I was running around the lounge furniture being chased by three ferocious, weapon brandishing ‘tigers’, he informed me that we had been the highest bidders so had won. The car was still a long way beneath reserve, though, so they were going to negotiate with the seller and get back to us.

To be continued…