In which The Beast retires

After a long and sucessful life of 15 years The Beast has been asked to retire. The decision was not an easy one. I had three main choices. I could repair The Beast (yet again) and hope he would last another year or two, I could repair The Beast and buy a little run around car leaving The Beast only in semi retirement pulling the float, or I could get a new 4x4.

We searched around for a second hand 4x4 but could not find any which fit my requirements. So in the end we found a new Holden Colorado for the new 4x4 option and a Toyota Corrola Ascent as the little run around car. The problem then came in deciding which was cheeper. You may think (as I did) that buying a second hand runaround would be cheeper than a new 4x4. But when you look at the costs over 5 years, taking into acount that if I got the corolla that I would still have rego and insurance and repairs to pay on The Beast, they work out to be only $10 a week different.

After further consideration, test drives, dealing with both nice and unpleasant sales men. It was decided that I would trade The Beast in and buy the Colorado.

I have two months left before the Colorado arrives so I have a little bit of time left with The Beast. I do wish I did not have to trade it in but there is too great a risk of it breaking down out in the middle of nowhere. I also wish I had a little run around car so I would not feel like a climate criminal everytime I drive a 4x4 to do ordinary things.

On a brighter note the new car is going to be called Pepe (put a little thing over the last E). This is named after a car in a movie called Romancing the Stone where the two main characters are lost in the South American jungle and are being chased by the badies. They find themselves in a drug runner village and have to ask the leader of the drug runners if they can use his car. In this car they race through the village (avoiding the drug runner's favourite chicken and some other lifestock) and also use the car to jump over a raging river. The drug runner refers to his car as his "Little Mule, Pepe".