The final (for now) instalment about my cars. I drive far more miles in hire cars for work these days than I do in my own car, so I tend not to get as attached to them as I once did!
Bought on 4 August 1993, this is our Ford Fiesta, "Wee John Henry". I was a bit worried about moving back from the Sierra to such a small car, but in the event it was a nice car to drive and we had little trouble with it, despite taking it from 26,500 miles to over 97,000 miles!
It certainly wasn't as comfy on a long journey as a larger car but it was fun to drive, easy to park in small spaces and just kept going when we wanted it to.
The Great Green Glittering Machine. The Mark I Ford Mondeo was an automatic and a Ghia. It was luxurious, it was fast, it was just gorgeous. Next to the Cortina Mk3, this would have to be my favourite car of all time.
I bought it in 1997 with 72,000 miles on the clock and I have photos of the odometer at 100,000 miles in September 1998 and at 123,456 miles on 8 May 2000. It had gone up to 197,000 miles by the time I part exchanged it for its replacement.
The Mondeo Mark III is seen here on the test drive in October 2004, hence the trade plates in the window. This was a manual change basic model and after all the extras of the Mark I Ghia, it was a bit of a disappointment. A bit under-powered and not as comfortable. And despite me starting to use hire cars for work, meaning that I struggled to drive 10,000 miles a year in it, it still gave me several problems. However, it did take the band's gear easily enough and we went all over the place in it to play music!
By this July though, I was hankering after something else and must have been a nightmare for the salesperson at the garage.
"Do you want a new or second-hand car?"
"Not bothered really..."
"Do you want a Ford or a Mazda?"
"Not sure..."
My only criteria really was that I must be able to fit the band's gear inside the luggage space. I looked at a Mondeo Mark IV, but the boot space, though still the same width as the Mark III, now has wheel arches sticking up from the floor. I looked at estate cars, but they didn't excite me.
Then I saw the one. OMG! It wasn't a Ford!!!
A Mazda5 TS2 is my current runabout and first impressions have been very very good! Extremely low geared - it copes with 6th gear at 30mph - means it is the fastest car of its type (MPV) 0-60.
Not that speed is a great incentive to me these days. Too many cameras and too much traffic. Though Blackpool's blanket limit of 30mph which includes a few dual carriageways is unneccessary to my mind. Judging by the amount of people who todge along at 25mph, the risk-averse culture fostered by the government is taking hold of a lot of folk too. Though the number of people who drive at 40 on a 60mph road and who don't change speed when passing into a 30mph limited area is very annoying too.
What the future is I'm not sure. Councils are trying to force people out of cars but without being able to ensure there are regular and fast bus services. In fact there can't be. To lose our cars is to go back to a situation where we travel less. To a situation where we work closer to home. It can't happen. We can't all work at computers from home, administering what each other does. We can't go back to cottage industries on a large scale. We can't expect workers to spend two hours at each end of the day on buses, commuting to work that's only 20 miles away when a car will do it in between 30-60 minutes. Ask the ones who have hours long commutes now into major cities and see whether they really enjoy it. You can't promote that and promote happy family life at the same time. If you work 7 or 8 hours and travel 4 daily then you see very little of your kids during the week.
Councils are busy building technology sites and office blocks for hundreds of workers with only 20 very small parking spaces allowed. Because they tend to be in the middle of nowhere, bus companies won't put services on until they know there's enough workers to make the route profitable. Result? The offices stay empty. Why can councils not understand this? Do they think the quick win of development money from Europe means these simple facts don't matter?
And until you can charge an electric car fully in half an hour or less, no matter where you are, to a point where they can travel over 100 miles, they won't be the answer either. Besides... You still have to make the electricity!
Interesting post, can't remember when I last saw a Cortina on the road - they used to be everywhere at one stage! Great blog btw
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