In all the excitement – I
actually never got around to talking of how I decided the W124 would be a handy daily driver
did I???
No. I was
not on an intoxicant. Neither was I delirious with fever. Nor was my brain
the end result of some fiendish alien experiment.
You don’t believe me do you? *Sigh*
It’s been a recurring theme from the time I was a wee child.
Never mind.
So, remember I spoke of not being able to drive my Delhi registered cars in Bombay?
Don’t you be nodding your heads like you remember, fellas – all of ya’ll are just snapping my chain, so stop it. I’ll have a pop quiz on the forum and the lot of ya’ll end up looking like wee fibbers!
Thanks to the fact that the cops were making my life a living hell (
and then some!) I now have
very very strong views on this practice of registering and re-registering a motor vehicle in different states of the same country. For those of you who think I’m in favour of it – do raise your hands, so that I can ask you to stand on one foot as you dance around while chanting,
“Oh My God, I got that completely wrong…” while I sermonize and rant and rave and spit. (
Okay, I won’t spit.)
See what you’ve made me do? Lose my train of thought. Where were we at? Ah. The 124 and how it came about.
You see, I was
hell bent on the Fortuner. The big brute, who spat (ufff…there I go again) cars aside like flies in your onion soup. I’d wanted one from
the day it first arrived, just never got around to driving one – but I wanted one nonetheless. You know – one of those
*guy* things! And I was far too used to the idea of an SUV where you didn’t have to worry your already frazzled brain about which kooky nut job was going to rear end you, or side swipe you, or be a douchebag and stop suddenly in the middle of the road to have a chin wag with the neighbour he has met only 3 hours ago???
So I got into my Safari,
drove past a Toyota showroom. Reversed and turned into it. Went barrel chested to the sales rep and announced, I’ll put down the full payment in 36 hours if you can have a car delivered to me by the end of the week.
THAT got their attention!
And a test drive vehicle!! I drove it out and was so gob smacked at being underwhelmed, that I actually didn’t know what to say. So I didn’t.
Say anything that is.
All the reasons - on another thread maybe. But at the moment...At 27 lakhs and
a lot of debt for it – I was not prepared to drive a Fortuner for the next 5 years of my life.
Then I got onto TBHP and once again noticed the world of pre-worshipped. And saw what my money could get me…! Civics, Lauras, Jettas, Accords..
I was like a kid in a candy store. Then it led to the question,
if I can get an Accord, I can surely stretch to the Bimmers of the world too…And renewed frenzy ensued.
Till.
I saw.
A W124 in the TBHP classifieds.
The apple
must have hurt Einstein when it fell on his head. Mine
still hurts – although that might have something to do with my being (willfully) bald.
He on the other hand, was a fuzzy fella with a head full of hair (if pictures are to be believed!)
That was that. Off I went searching every forum in every online nook and cranny. Which led me to many many cars. Many of which I saw, and drove. Including one
particularly colourful gentleman’s who claimed that the only cars he dealt with were “exotics” and imports and that his beige W124 was a German import in
impeccable condition.
What it was, was a
rust bucket, wheezing on itself as it struggled off from standstill. Clunking through the transmission and the most jerky kick down in the history of automatics. He then looks at me after an agonizing 10 minute drive (and that’s
after he’s made me wait for him to
show up in the first place for 40 minutes!!!) and asks,
genuinely surprised too, “You want to drive?”
“
No. I wanted to see your lovely face,
sunshine. The impeccably maintained car’s just a
lame a$$ excuse…”
He was big and fa…
errr ‘
healthy’, which is why I kept my mouth tightly shut though.
Lets just say,
I didn’t call him back. Like ever.
Then some others came and went. Nothing felt like I wanted to pull my cheque book out instantly and drive the little boy back home. (That actually sounds wrong, in
so many different ways…) *sheesh*
Okay, lets do this again... Drive the big man home. (
That didn’t make it much better now did it?????)
I tell you,
we live in complicated times. Anyhow, it all went down, till that fateful phone call to this friend asking if I could come over for a chat… The
thereafter is in a post on the first page.
I came into the world
upside down i.e. I was a
breach baby (or so I’ve been told), therefore my order of things has never been the best.
Apologies for the all over the place posts, but it will get better from here. I to be
promising saars (and madamz).
More soon...