Diesel Do

In one of those moments of boredom I scribbled down the inventory of cars that I have had since passing my driving test in what I think was 1982 or thereabouts. Is bad memory sufficient grounds to have my licence suspended?  The list is quite long but I have been in the fortunate position of having had employment where a company car was part of the package and this was the situation until 1992 when I went self employed. Technically I have not personally registered or owned a vehicle as this has been done through employers in the early years of my career and through my self employed status latterly. My first driving lessons were taken in my parents' Morris Minor convertible, a 1957 model in light green with grey hood. I remember my father hanging onto the handbrake during my very erratic early sessions out on the minor roads between Beverley and York. My first schooled lessons were whilst a student in Nottingham but on a tight budget I could not sustain any period of concentrated learning but did get to know the city quite well when I did manage to afford an actual 40 minutes driving tuition. I started with Genesis Driving School which included periodic religious instruction from its born again proprietor. The transition from accompanied learner to single qualified driver is quite a shock at first even though the feeling of freedom and independence is one of the best possible. I shared Percy the 1966 Mini with my sisters mainly during my year out in industry in 1984 when I needed transport to and from Lincoln. The mechanically sound but grossly underpowered roller skate was good fun although the sliding drivers window was not fully watertight as demonstrated by the penetration of spray or higher volumes of surface water from passing lorries. The mini has only just left the family ownership hopefully for a full reincarnation.
I have annotated the schedule of vehicles on the basis of whether they were any good or served me well.
Vauxhall Astra 1.6. Bright red, new sporty shape for 1985. Good looking car. Nearly killed wife to be and best mate Dave during sleepy eyed few seconds on a 5am drive back from Manchester Airport.
Mini Metro Van den Plas. A bit of a granny car, metallic gold and with walnut trim. Work ladders had to be fed through the hatchback and hooked over the passenger headrest. As part of a merger with an upstart company from the sticks the metro went to a wife of one of the new partners.
I got a second hand, rusty orange coloured Ford Fiesta Diesel in the new company set-up. On driving, fortuitously, past the local Ford Dealership it caught fire. Replaced with a brand new deep red Fiesta Diesel. No chance of quick getaway as the fuel had to be pre-heated before starting. Sounded like a taxi and I was frequently hailed by drunks if out on an evening. Crashed it badly and hospitalised my brother overnight with concussion.
Qualification in my profession placed me on a higher reward scale in company cars and I graduated to a metallic grey Fiesta XR2i, fast but very unpredictable in its front wheel drive if putting down full power. Promotion within the company was marked by two consecutive bright red Escort XR3i's. First grown up type car and well styled. The Best Man at our wedding got caught speeding in one of them during official duties the day before my wedding.
New job, different car regime. Crappy Ford Sapphire, a booted Sierra, which had a major engine blow-up three miles from home and had to be abandoned. I stepped up a bit with a Rover 214i , a brand new model but a bit elderly and pedestrian. Soon replaced in my Corporate job with a typical corporate reps car, Vauxhall Cavalier with jacket hanging up in the back. On the day of delivery some idiot reversed into me on the petrol station forecourt. I later piled it into the back of a line of stationary traffic on the A63 when daydreaming about going self employed. I thought it better to actually go self employed and hand in my notice along with the damaged car.
Cash flow and start-up capital in the brave new world of working for myself purchased a brand new Sierra hatchback in silver. This car wore out so quickly it was unbelievable. The business was having some good years and I was able to afford my first Volvo. I had been impressed by the racing estate cars in the British Touring Car Championships in the early 1990's and acquired an 850GLT. Deep blue paintwork, acres of space for growing family and dogs, but only a 2 litre engine so petered out at 90mph.Took me 120,000 miles to decide I needed more power to shift my tribe. Lovely engine tone from the wide exhaust pipe though. The shortfall in that engine department was more than made up for by the 850 turbo estate. It was garnet red and not, as my children argued, pink. Did look a bit like Barbie's station wagon in a certain light. A beast of a car, all wheel drive, 200 bhp but only 20 miles to the gallon. The XC70 estate next caught my attention and I was able to trade in the pink car for a nearly new silver AWD version with no cash changing hands. Still working that one out but certainly in my favour for once. Only snag was the automatic transmission and the sequential shift was a bit tiresome around town. My local Volvo dealer, keen to keep my business which must have been a good income stream for them, alerted me to an ex-Volvo staff vehicle. A black XC70 with TV and as many accessories as you could fit on without causing a hazard to pedestrians. Beautiful car, posh but not pretentious. The TV only worked when the car was stationary so at 6pm when the Simpsons were on Channel 4 I actively sought out a traffic queue,be it  legitimate road congestion, tea time at the drive thru' or amongst parking church congregation- Catholic Mass the best. The economic downturn and a surplus company vehicle meant that something had to be surrendered. The decision to sell the luxury motor was assisted by a major engine management system failure (£2800), a pheasant through the bi-xenon headlight (£800) and the cost of fitting another all day bulb at £90 a pop. Thanks to 'we buy any car' they did . My menopausal days were accelerated by the replacement car, an electric blue Skoda Octavia VRS, the proverbial greased lightning. Such a lot of excitement and fear in one package. I liked that car but the lease expired and away it went to, I expect, a large housing estate in Essex and shortly to be seen on Crimewatch. The need for speed was surgically removed by the arrival of the new shape Passat estate but I am now so green and eco that I can be a bit smug and have no problem doing 57mph amongst the lorries on the nations motorway networks. The reward, 60 mpg and a fantastic digital radio. 57mph with Planet Rock feels like at least doing a ton. The small bluemotion logo on the tailgate is licence to dawdle and look a bit eccentric and constipated.

I have condensed some of the main facts into a broad summary of my motoring to date. Cumulative distance driven about 800,000 miles, mars bars 1 per every 374 miles at least, animals run over or collided with 20,568,956 if you count the flies, points on licence 3, hitchhikers picked up 2, number of shallow graves dug in remote locations 2, most bought colour silver, number of British marques fairly nominal, gallons of fuel used- about 2 hours production of a dodgy nepotistic regime.

Amount of CO2 and particulates pumped into the atmosphere - about enough to form a small gaseous and tarry island.