It’s Saturday the 26th of November 2005, at approximately ten to eleven the morning I first spotted the car that would change my life forever. She was white, long, black metal rims (hubcap free), had a big scrape on the rear right door but I just I had to have it. The guy selling it needed a smaller car for his wife and was very sad to let it go, a pretty believable story but so very far from the truth. I took the car for a spin and 5 minutes into the test drive I bought it for the princely sum of R18 000.
December 7th 2005: The day I pick up my most expensive purchase to date and the beginning of my biggest love affair ever. A ’94 Ford Telstar with an idling problem and stability issues. Two days later I took my car in for a 204 000km service but that operation turned out to be a much bigger affair. Eleven hours later my car was ready to be collected and after emptying my wallet I drove her home mad as hell. Not the ideal start to the ownership experience; that was also the very night I named it The Perambulator.
A couple of days later I hopped into my now purring car and took her to meet my friend Gary. Gary is a Honda fan and me purchasing a Mazda in Ford drag didn’t sit very well with him. “Your car looks like it belongs in the FBI,” said Gary and that’s when I figured out my hectic attraction to this large family car I found myself owning. The Ford Crown Victoria is my favourite Ford. It’s a full sized sedan usually used by the American Police and Taxi industry and is probably the most crashed car in cinematic history. Next year will be its last year of production and I will enter a blog post on it in the not too distant future. My car has a slight resemblance to the American legend that is the Crown Vic and just like that my love for my new car was restored.
The Perambulator has a good couple of stories to tell in the three years I operated her. She has seen most of the club parking lots in Cape Town, she’s been driven to George while being in dire need of a service, many people learnt to drive using her, she was shot in a gang war (no they weren’t aiming at her), she has driven though knee high floods and she was even brutally smashed by a Golden Arrow bus. I’ve had some of my most memorable conversations in her, I’ve laughed my loudest and shed bucket loads of tears, I’ve kissed one or two guys and yes she’s even been stuck at the roadside without petrol. Two years ago the engine died on me at 316 000kms and I couldn’t even be mad at it because she was faithful for over 112 000kms. 112 000 kilometers in three years? You betcha!!
The time has come to sell the corpse of The Perambulator and it saddens me to my core. I know her memory will live on in the hearts and minds of most of the people she’s carried over the years. I’m a better man for owning that Ford badged Mazda and I’d buy another one if I could find one at a good price with a low amount of mileage on the odometer.
