Compared to the clapped-out old banger, my shiny, gadget-loaded BMW is just too sleek to love, writes KILIAN DOYLE
I WAS SLOUCHING on my sofa last Saturday plotting global domination, as is my wont, when the doorbell rang. It was my neighbour, a lovely woman altogether.
In a fluster, she revealed she’d just reversed out of her driveway, across the whole width of the road and into my new car. Pretty impressive, eh?
The damage – an axe-wound in a wheel-arch – was minor. I would not normally have been overly miffed. But in this instance, I was. Exceedingly so. For I had, mere minutes earlier, decided to reverse my previous plan to sell Homer, my 19-year-old BMW estate, and flog the Millstone instead. Now I have to fix it first.
I can’t explain my decision logically. There is no question that the Millstone – a 2005 BMW 320d Touring – is the better car by far. It has more gadgets and gizmos than Nasa. Homer has none. The turbo-enhanced Millstone is bottom-clenchingly quick. Homer is not. The Millstone grips like it has claws in lieu of tyres. Homer slides about like a giraffe on rollerskates.
However, fantastic piece of kit though it may be, the Millstone and I have failed to click over the past few weeks on any level other than a utilitarian one.
Were the Millstone human, with its sleek lines and bulges in all the right places, it’d be David Beckham in his underpants, while Homer, a shabby, battle-scarred old banger, would be me in mine.
But then, I’m as beyond fretting about Homer’s appearance as I am about my own. How could I not be? Another bit of trim falls off every time I slam his tailgate; his seats are saggy as a sow’s udder; and a colony of unidentified organic matter is flourishing in his boot. But these, to me, aren’t faults. They’re character.
Therein lays the crux of my decision. The Millstone has no character at all. I may as well be driving a fridge. Its sole raison d’être is to get me to my destination quickly, safely and with minimum fuss. A job it does impeccably, admittedly.
Whereas with Homer, I never know if I’ll get anywhere without him disintegrating en route. And do you know what? That’s half the reason I love him. Anyway, where’s the fun in knowing a car will always do exactly what you tell it? I like pressing Homer’s fog light switch and watching the sun roof open – and I always get a giggle when I yank the handbrake and the bonnet flies up. The Millstone, on the other hand, is too clinical to love.
Take the recent snows, for example. I’d left it in a train station car park that had become a polar bear’s back garden by the time I returned. When I tried to drive off, the traction control decided to override me. The car wouldn’t budge. A leather-clad Teutonic hand came out of the steering wheel and slapped me across the chops. “Zis is too dangerous for dummkopf humans,” a voice snapped.
Homer, on the other hand, was straining at the leash like an excited puppy when I, pushing the recalcitrant Millstone, arrived home. “Bring me for a spin, willya? Please?”
So I did. And promptly skidded right through a hedge, leaving Homer with bits of branches sticking out of every orifice and me wearing a grin the width of France. The Millstone snorted superciliously when we returned.
My experiences with the Millstone have merely served to reinforce my view that I like cars to be like me – a bit mad, decrepit and liable to blow up at any moment. So what if the Millstone attracts stares of slack-jawed admiration while Homer is received with universal contempt? I care not a whit for wealth or prestige. And even less what anyone thinks of me. And that, dear friends, is the secret to a happy life.