Interesting to find my friend Ian in Dublin blogging today about cars in hyper-affluent south Dublin – he it was who suggested [I think correctly] that the faithful Passat [155000 miles] defined me as ‘old money’. Today stretched from a totally unreasonable dislike of the Merc with blue-tinted windows which loomed up and single-handedly filled the Office car park – to an interest in the launch of the Tata Nano, the new ‘people’s car’ in India. The price? £1200. I suppose it is today’s Beetle or 2CV.
It promises a nightmare on the congested roads of India – where 10% of households have a car – unlike the US where there are three cars per household. And of course it’s very aspirational.
If only we could detach cars from aspiration as many of the next generation seem to have done … our Simon is at this moment driving a 1996 Mitsubishi across the Nulabor Plain and says that the 1997 Golf which we are keeping warm for him has ‘lots of life left in it’