caddy

In 2007 I kill a car. It’s no accident, not manslaughter. It’s murder, cold-blooded. I hate the car, a lemon from day one, a dud Subaru, unlike the other Suby which took me, two children and a dying dog up north on Boxing Day 1989. It’s a ripper. The dog dies on New Year’s Day, doesn’t make the 19-hour non-stop trip home. The car never misses a beat.

I decide to kill that second Subaru. I call myself a cyclist, pedal to work, pedal everywhere. I want to live without a car, a long-held aspiration. The dud Suby has turned my shallow pockets inside out and when the rear wheel bearings go its fate is sealed. I will spend not a penny more, but drive it, if I get in it at all, till it dies. By August 2007 I’ve gone six months without driving the car.

Circumstances: my daughter lives in Bendigo; my bike sometimes needs to get to different places for events I’m riding; occasionally I hire cars at minimal cost from my employer at weekends, but I want to change jobs. After much agonising and research I extend my home loan, buy a Jazz, certain it’s the last car I’ll ever own.

I’m the glummest new car buyer to ever leave the showroom. I don't want to be a motorist but can't carry a sack of dog food on a bike, stick shelves from Ikea in panniers, transport seedlings from Bunnings in a backpack as I pedal up the highway. So I drive.

The Jazz has the lowest emissions in its class. The Cervélo fits across the back seat on trips to Bendigo. In less than a month I’m not thinking like a cyclist. Without a functional car I don't think about pedalling to the shops, the dentist, or netball late at night; I tog up and hit the road.

Salary packaging is cost-effective. With my previous employer, a community welfare agency, I could package about anything. My new employer is a peak body for principals: MM is one its projects. They salary package only cars, computers and super.

Today I visit a VW showroom with my good woman. I’ve done the research: small van, miserly petrol consumption, rear seat for a grand-daughter, huge rear opening, side doors, no wheels off bikes. From the street we walk between ranks of shiny vehicles, right beside what I’m here to forensically examine, a Caddy Trendline. My emotions lurch.  

It costs twice what the Jazz cost. It’s the only thing that could turn my head from the car I’ve learned to love. My good woman stays silent. I ask what she thinks, get a cryptic, “It’s your year.”

I ask prices, colours, options, tell the salesman I need to speak with payroll at work, to think it over. In my heart it’s a done deal.

Rock on.