I still don’t know when I’m leaving the UK and heading back to the states. Though I hope to finally hear good news in the next few days, it’s getting to the point that I need to assume the worst and start making plans to leave in April. So, for the last few days, I’ve been looking at cars.
I’ll need transportation when I get back to my homeland, and having driven a string of increasingly expensive “beaters” for the last few years (culminating with my current, and at nearly $1,900, most expensive car yet), I’ve been thinking this might be a good time to take advantage of my apparent financial solvency and actually spring for a new car, one that will hopefully last me for the next decade or so. I’d kind of been kicking around the idea of either a new MINI Cooper or a hybrid (even at $4 a gallon, I only spend about $40 a month on gas with my Polo, and I like it that way). But I’m not really all that happy with the current slate of hybrids, and at least one person who’s opinion I take seriously has informed me than the MINI is hopelessly uncool.
As a result, I’ve decided to broaden my search. But now I need help.
The trouble is, if I’m going to spend more than, say, $2000 for a car, I’m not really inclined to compromise. I want a car that is awesome, will keep me from being made fun of by my troops, and and will make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, while remaining reasonably inexpensive. My current favorite is this one. In hunter green. And left hand drive. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be possible.
...Zounds!
So, tearfully leaving behind my beloved but unobtainable Honda Type S Diesel, I also like the Renault Megane and the Volkswagen Golf (but hate the Rabbit, and am undecided about the new beetle). Seeing a trend here? Somehow my aesthetic sensibilities have shifted to the point where all the cars I actually like aren’t even sold in the North American market. Even the Ford Fiesta isn’t actually sold in the United States. Of the American (that is, actually sold in America) cars I’ve looked at, I admit I like the C30 and the Impreza. The only problem with these is that they’re expensive (I can see myself paying $20k for a new car, but $25 is a little much for a hatchback), they all get crappy mileage and they only seem to be available in red and about five shades of “asphalt.” The Honda Civic Hybrid isn’t even available in red!
Which keeps bringing me back to the MINI. It doesn’t exactly have great mileage either by my way of thinking, but it seems reasonably fuel efficient compared to its peers in the states and at least it comes in British Racing Green.
So. Opinions? Any fun, quirky, 45-mpg hatchbacks I’ve missed? Should I just give up on the new car thing and try to find an old used Golf for less than a grand? Or have I completely gone native over here? Let me know.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008