On the 16th of February I went by car to the Utrecht auto boulevard and tried to sell my Opel Corsa at one of those dodgy companies where they sell and buy cars. I tried several establishments, but quite a few weren’t even interested in buying it. They weren’t interested for several reasons. Despite it only being four years old it has already run 112.000 kilometres. It has some scratches on the door and it doesn’t have airco. But I did manage to sell it in the end. Which left me with the problem of getting back to my place, as I now was carless… I was lucky and managed to find a bus that took me to the main train station. From there I could take a taxi to my place.

Of course I am not completely carless. I still have the company car I drive to work every day. It’s a 2006 Ford Mondeo station wagon with a 115 bhp engine. It’s a big, kinda ugly car that isn’t very easy to park in my rather narrow parking spot under my apartment. It is rather quick though. I like the acceleration, which comes in handy when you drive a lot in traffic that is continuously speeding up and slowing down.

From March I can choose my new car. I have been test driving two so far. I drove a rather luxurious Skoda Octavia, which isn’t the prettiest car there is, but it is very well built and even quite luxurious versions are affordable. It won’t win any style awards though. There were two issues with the 1.9 tdi, I drove. First of all, nothing much happens after pushing the gas pedal and my knee kept hitting the car key when I was driving. Quite annoying. But it did feel very sturdy and it’s a quiet car.

The second car I drove was a Volvo C30, an attractive stylish car. Although I’ll never completely like its backside, I did appreciate its styling. So far it’s prettiest car on my list of possible next cars. It was fast enough, but the acceleration is pretty slow. I’m looking into seeing if I can get it with a bigger engine. Probably not though.

All in all it’s not easy to find a car that suits my needs and is good to look at. They’re either too slow, too expensive, too ugly and most of the times I just don’t fit in. I can for example forget about driving a French car. They are just too small. Funny I could sit comfortably in my Opel Corsa as it’s a small car and the seat is hardly adjustable. The search goes on.