Tyred out

Dacia Jogger before you need the new tyres.

Anyway, my local (walking distance) garage are too busy to do the tyre swap this afternoon, and I need the car every day for the next week or thereabouts, so I shall just kick it all into the long grass for now.

I quite enjoy inertial solutions to problems.

You are absolutely right, and I’m as extremely wrong.

It’s a very old prejudice/preference, call it what you will in me. It’s genuinely not about what others may or may not think, that really isn’t of the slightest concern to me and never has been. But, I’ve just always had a thing about Mercs. I’ve had several of them and they have all pleased me for reasons I can’t actually define. They just seem to float my boat in a way other cars can’t.

I’ve had other cars that were arguably as good, if not better but for some nebulous reason, I just feel very at one with the three pointed star.

I first started wanting one when I was about 4 years old.

No idea why.

You could ditch the fashion victim wheels Humph and put a set of 8x17 wheels all-round wearing 225/50x17.

You'll get tyres in that size in all season flavours.

I suppose I mustard mitt that I feel a bit the same about Alfa Romeos. That's probably the only badge I'd get a bit fluttery about having on the drive. So OK. I get it.

I don't care about what others think, but I care very much about how I feel, if that makes sense. I had little interest in cars as a child, and not much more as a teenager. I only learned about them and their workings s being the only way I could afford to keep some old wreck on the road.

A million years ago I was dispatched from the office to get something, I no longer have any idea what. I was loaned a company car for the purpose by one of the salesman. It was a BMW, a new one. I was so impressed and in awe that I remember it to this day. I can remember rolling up to a roundabout really wishing that one day I could own something like this car with the badge in the middle of the steering wheel. Ironically looking back, I think it was the most basic of 316/318s, though it did have leather seats., but it impressed me. Mind you, at the time, I think I had a beaten up old Chrysler Alpine, bright orange at that.

I think that was the beginning of my ambition, certainly I had none before that, and it was about 18 months later that a company voluntarily supplied me a brand new Vectra/Cavalier and about about a year later that it was replaced with 525td. "Chuffed" doesn't even get close.

Other than friendly conversation and sharing, I have never had any interest in what others think of what I drive, certainly not from a value perspective, but there have been times in the past when I have cared very much what I think of it - usually driven by a combination of badge and newness, neither of which interest me one jot these days.