Man’s “wife”

Most men treat their cars especially their first car like or better than their wives. For me, it’s already a thing of the past since I’ve been driving for the past 20 over years and driven more than 10 over brands/models of cars.

My dad’s first and only car was a Peugeot 404 bought for only S$3,500 in the early 70s. It was a 3yrs old car and most people go for a Continental car instead of a Japanese car then – the reason guessed Chun See had mentioned it before in his blog.

The thing I remembered well was that my dad would start the car engine about 15 minutes beforehand so as to warm up the car! We enjoyed the drive from Serangoon to Changi Point for our usual swim; there wasn’t any expressway then.

I got my first car (a 3yrs old car also) in the early 80s and it was a Ford Laser 1.3L. Luckily there wasn’t such a thing as COE then.

Don’t know why men like to pose with their first car? Also many of us like to spend hours waxing and washing our cars. Now I can’t remember when was the last time I go for a car wash hehe.

I recalled after collecting my first car, I drove into Joo Chiat those small One-Way street and went against the traffic. I hit my headlight against a lamp post while doing a 3 point turn out! Fancy getting into an accident on the first day of driving my own car.

Throughout my years of driving, I’ve only bought one brand new car and that was during 1991 when COE was introduced recently then. My first brand new car was a Subaru Viki 800cc, a car which will trembled when a lorry drove past you. The COE then was less then $10K and thereafter it escalated sky high. After driving this car, I wouldn’t settle for any car less than 1,600cc.

Now with the COE, ERP, Insurance, Parking charges, Rd Tax, Petrol tax, etc… it’s really a heavy burden to own a car.