Goodbye boy Golf, hello...

.... lady-boy Golf?

Its been all-change in the SS7 garage recently. The VR6 has gone to a discerning buyer, as has the Cayman. Each buyer had a bit of a profile; that of the VR6 was the MD of a Porsche specialist dealer and expensive-wax importer. He was looking for an excellent VR6 to use as a show-car to advertise their wares. Mine met his requirements precisely, and what's more, inspite of the pesimism of the naysayers on the VR6OC website, he paid good money.

The Cayman went to the engine builder at a well know British sportscar manufacturer (think 4 wheeled motorbikes.....) within 3 days of me putting it on the market. And the agreed price was around 60% of what I paid - a pretty good result in today's market; I'd had the car for 30 months and 16k miles.

So that reduced the fleet to 1. I believe there are some families who can manage with one; ours can't, so the search was on for a replacement.

Now the SS7 forecast for summer '09, is Long, Hot & Sunny. The nippers (SS7 jnr and SS3 1/2) have also now reached the stage where they can be trusted not to launch themselves out of a roofless vehicle, and Mrs E-H and I have fond memories of driving a soft-top in the South of France.

With that in mind it made sense to look for a convertible - one with 4 seats. Once Mrs SS7 and I had rejected several offerings on the grounds of image(her) running and purchase costs(me) the usual suspects remained; BMW 3series, Saab 9-3, Audi, and Golf.

The search took a couple of weeks, and included the usual experiences of dodgy private buyers, and dealer cars described as 'mint' when in reality they were worn out and shabby. Then one evening ebay turned up a low mileage 2 owner Golf Cabriolet within 10 miles of us. This was in black (not my no. 1 choice I'll admit) and was a 2.0l Avantage with rare aircon and electric everything.

I did get a chance for a quick look-over even though the car wasn't taxed. Compared to the other cars I'd looked at this was nice and clean and obviously had been cherished and garaged for most of its life. The sellers, (about to drop sprog #1) were genuine, albeit not car people.

That evening we 'won' the ebay auction, and although we were the highest bidder, the optimistic reserve wasn't reached. However a deal was reached by phone afterwards, and next day the car was ours.


So far, after an over-due service and the addition of 6 months Brown tax, its been a lot of fun!



SS7