Truth is, for me, ‘twas never on the cards. Just as well: I used to get highly pissed off at the slightest of scratches on the cars that I could afford. For a brief period I had a Fiat X1/9 that I bought at the onset of my first male midlife crisis. I sometimes borrowed my wife’s sensible car if I had to transport something, and she hated the Fiat because it psychologically forced her to seek out the most distant, isolated slots at supermarket parking lots. She’d get mad that somebody would inevitably decide to park right up next to her. For a small exterior, it had a surprisingly Tardis-like generous people and trunk space. It would have been an ideal fit today for my solitary life - assuming it (the Fiat) hadn’t morphed into a handful of Italian rust. Actually, that should read Russian rust, because it was a disastrous deal between the two governments that led to the importation of rotten Soviet steel into Italy. So badly did it affect the Italian car market, that they had to withdraw the Lancia brand completely out of Britain. I wanted to trade my X1/9 for an MGB GT, but the dealers wouldn’t do a deal. In the event, I had to return to the Fiat dealership and that’s when I got myself the Alfa Romeo, less than a year before we decided to quit the UK for Spain. Luckily, I managed to get an excellent private sale to a chap who’d just returned from a life in South Africa, where he’d owned the same Alfa model. Two happy guys! That F1/9 should have had the Alfa Boxer engine… it would then have had wings.
All that history from an iPhone snap! Never happen with a Nikon or Canon. ;-)
