A Brief History of Time… in Cars
Every car I've owned, more or less in the order it showed up.
People measure their lives in all sorts of units. Jobs, houses, haircuts. I seem to measure mine in cars — so here they are, roughly in the order they turned up, each one a little time capsule of whoever I was when I bought it.
(One of them, the Audi S8 called Rocinante, got so out of hand it earned its own book. That story lives in Roci and I.)
VW Golf TD — the first one (~1987, dark blue)
Everyone should learn on something this honest. Mine was dark blue, with those funny little triangular vent windows up front that you could crack open with a thumb, and a diesel engine that clattered like a bag of spanners and would apparently run forever out of spite. Slow? Gloriously. But it went, and it was mine, and nothing since has felt quite that big a deal.
Honda Prelude — the coupe years (1992, black)
Low, wide, black, and far more serious about corners than a car that shape had any right to be. The Prelude was where I learned that a car could be a hobby and not just an appliance.
Mitsubishi Montero SR — the go-anywhere phase (1996)
Big, boxy, V6, and utterly unbothered by weather, terrain, or good sense. If the Prelude was about corners, the Montero was about not caring whether there was a road there at all.
Honda Odyssey — the sensible chapter (2001)
The least glamorous and most useful vehicle I have ever owned. Every life needs a minivan era, and I am not too proud to admit I enjoyed mine.
Honda S2000 — Baby, the one and only (2002, silver)
And here she is: Baby. The last-and-best year of the AP1, a four-cylinder that spins to 9,000 rpm and sounds like a superbike, and a chassis that talks to you the whole way. Of every car on this page — and there have been a few — this is the one. My all-time favourite, and, cars coming and going as they do, the only one still in my driveway. Everything else was a chapter; Baby is home.
Alfa Romeo 4C — the head-over-heart one
A carbon-fibre tub, an engine behind your shoulders, no power steering, and no interest whatsoever in your comfort. The 4C doesn't do sensible. It does Italian, which is a different and much louder thing.
BMW 3.0 CS — the beautiful one
The oldest and easily the prettiest thing in the garage — a 1970s coupe with chrome, glass, and proportions they simply don't draw any more. You don't so much drive it as apologise to it.
BMW 535d — the quietly rapid one
A diesel that has no business being this quick. All torque, all manners, the kind of car that covers a stupid distance before you've noticed you left.
BMW 640i — the grand tourer
A silky straight-six and a long nose pointed at the horizon. Not the fastest thing here, but possibly the one I'd pick for a day I didn't want to end.
BMW 840i — the big coupe
The current chapter, and a fittingly large one — a proper two-door GT that makes every drive feel like it's going somewhere worth arriving.
More to add as the list grows — and as the older photos surface from whatever shoebox (real or digital) they're hiding in.