Cars - what colour is yours?

What does you car say about you? Did you choose the colour, did you buy it on the recommendation of another or do you really just not care?

I have had access to various cars (through ownership and company cars) since I passed my driving test (first time pass!) in September 1987. The first car I was given was a white Vauxhall Cavalier with a 1.3 litre engine. A few days after I got the keys to this company car, I discovered that the day before it was handed to me, it came out of the repair shop having being in a pretty severe front end smash. I spent most of the time wondering if the front end would drop off on my many trips to and from London from the North-West. My manager at the time was concerned about the car's history and managed to get me a red BMW 318. Wow, I had been driving for just 2 weeks and the prospect of having access to a Beemer was tremendously appealing. Huge disappointment though when I sat in the drivers seat!!! The car was obviously designed to be driven by vertically challenged Bavarians. I would have suffered a permanent crick in the neck if I had taken that car. So I handed the keys back and took back the white cavalier with it's smaller engine and considerably less street cred. In early January 1988, I handed in the keys prior to being posted to Hong Kong. I would not get a set of keys to another car for 3 years!

In January of 1991 I was transferred from Hong Kong to South Carolina, USA (talk about a culture shock!). I was given a long term hire car (for 2 months) until a suitable company vehicle could be arranged for me. The hire car was a maroon Mercury Tracer (a fancy version of a Ford Escort) with a 1.8 litre engine (so small for an American car!!) . I liked it so much that I got a silver Mercury Tracer as a company car but the company insisted it was an automatic (90+% of cars in USA are automatics) in case other employees needed use to the vehicle - so a 'stick-shift' was out of the question! The car was reliable but despite it's attempts to have a 'European' feel, the velour seats and the bizarre mechnical seat belt arrangement made it very American. It also felt particularly small against the typical gas guzzler Detroitmobiles that were still prevelant in the early 1990's in the USA.

It was in the USA that my penchant for more unusal vehicles surfaced. A new car from Dodge (at the time a much maligned and not-taken-seriously car producer) caught my eye. It was the Dodge Stealth R/T- the result of a collaboration with Mitsubishi who sold their version as the Mitsubishi 3000GT. Amazingly, the Dodge version was more eye-catching than the 3000GT - especially in the pearlescent egg shell white colour I opted for. The only option I did not take out on the car was automatic transmission. It seemed inapporiate to have an automatic with a V6 under the 'hood' and 250+ BHP! I was the dealer's first customer to take a Stealth and the dealership staff lined up on the forecourt as I drove off. I loved that car....such power and satisfaction.

On my return to the UK from the USA I had to very reluctantly sell the Dodge Stealth. That was a sad day!

Despite 5 years overseas working my way up the greasy pole of promotions, the best car the company could give me in early 1993 was a red Vauxhall Cavalier! It did though have a phone installed in it!! I did a lot of miles in that car but never cared too much for it and regarded it as a work horse. Later that year after redundancy, I returned the keys. Then started another period of non-car ownership as I lived in London and decided a car was more a liability than an asset there.

When I started with IMS in May 1995, a car was on offer and the tax situation on company cars was still pretty reasonable. I opted for a white Peugeot 405 with a diesel turbo engine. It was quite a nice car and always seemed to have plenty of uuummmpphh despite being diesel. I was amazed at how much less fuel it took than my previous all petrol cars. It did though seem to get through batteries and it was only when a battery replacement guy came to house and fitted a 'truck strength' battery did the starting problems disappear. The car had several trips to Europe through the Channel Tunnel and I made full use of the large boot to stock up on French goodies on the way back home!

The keys of the Peugeot were handed back in December 2001 when I decided it was better to go for the cash for car option at work because the company car tax situation was just not favourable for me. Also, I was ready for a change. My next car was a hate it or love it vehicle. It was a dark blue Chrysler PT Cruiser. I loved it (apart from the turning circle of an ocean liner!). It was a bit noisy (wind) at speed but it was a very comfortable car to sit in and drive. It was a head turner too, especially on the fairly frequent trips up North where it was still quite a rare sight

The PT Cruiser was sold in March 2005 just before I went out to Australia. It is still being well looked after by the person I sold it to.

In Australia I drove around in a anonymous Holden for a couple of months while waiting to take the keys of a silver Mercedes C200 Kompressor that was being handed to me by my predecessor on his retirement. The Merc looked nice, was only 9 months old, had every extra possible and could leave traffic lights avec tout vitisse, however, it really was not a suitable car for a 1.93m tall man! I had to put the seat all the way back making it impossible for anyone with legs to sit behind me. I had to put the seat as low as it would go to prevent my head from being wedged against the roof. The resulting effect was to give me terrible back pains anytime I drove the car for more than an hour. I bitched and moaned to my boss about the unsuitability of the car for a tall Area Vice President and complained that I was the only AVP in his management team that did not have a chauffeur!!! Well, the other AVPs were in India, China, South Korea and Philippines and I guess chauffeurs came cheap there!! My boss relented and let me get a car that was more suitable to my position. Heads were turned when I opted for the fairly recently introduced Chrysler 300C. What a car!!! It was magnificent, all 5.7 litres of Hemi glory and a wealth power under my right foot. As with the PT Cruiser, this new beast of a car turned heads wherever it went. I so miss that car, it was just perfect.

On my return to the UK I opted for a car allowance again but was subsequently made redundant for the second time on returning from an overseas posting! As part of my divorce settlement, I agreed to buy the Lime Green VW Beetle that my wife had bought while I was in Australia. What a come done after the magnificence of the Chrysler!! It is a high spec Beetle but I miss the power under my right foot. I still have the Beetle and I guess it is head turner too...especially the colour it is! I think it will be the only lime green car I will ever own!

What colour is yours?!

Ups, Downs and Ups of Life

A year ago, everything was falling apart in my life. A year later having experienced a major move from Australia back to the UK, redundancy, selling an apartment in London, seeing my son move to the USA with his mother, the loss of my brother Paul unexpectedly and suddenly one day before his 48th birthday, my divorce and my mum needing hospital treatment I sometimes wonder how I managed to get through 2008 all in one piece, but I did. My smile never completely deserted me though and my close friends and family stuck by me through the deep dark days and nights. There were positive experiences though during the year and they helped me mostly maintain my 'the glass is half-full' optimism that gets me through life.

Everything now seems so much calmer for me and life is getting more positive than negative. People often talk about life being a challenge and perhaps this is not the approach to take. Life is about experiences, some of them good, great, fantastic and maybe unbelievable and yet some them are sad, depressing, painful and maybe unbelievable too. The sum of all these experiences make up a life. No-one really gets 'issued' challenges and in the same way they don't really get 'offered' opportunities. People find the challenges and the opportunities themselves. Is it fate to be in the right place/wrong place at the right time/wrong time? Perhaps yes, but then again perhaps no. Is it possible everything that happens to us is of our own making? I guess what I am trying to say is that we should stop looking to blame and start to accept the things that happen to us. Maybe if we embrace the good with the bad we can have a better understanding on how to truly experience a better life and that perhaps this would rub off on the people we love and care for.

Going through a bad patch in life has the potential to make your life perpetually miserable or it can make you realise that there are many aspects of a life that make it worth living, no matter how bad the circumstances might be!

Give someone a hug today...when was a hug ever negative?!