The Heap

Cars are for sale everywhere here. The newspapers are loaded with ads and the streets are filled with For Sale signs. We went North. We went South. We went East; we went West. We looked at Mini Coopers, Hondas, Mazdas, Subarus. We were amazed at the prices. The numbers next to the dollar signs were as high as the mileage. If you want to buy a car in New Zealand, be warned that the price for rust is high.

"$1900 for a Honda driven only by a little old lady, low 74K kilometers," one ad said. It sounded perfect. "No, it doesn't have too many rust spots," the man on the other end of the phone line told me. When we got there though, we were sure we were looking at the wrong car. The front fender was rotted out (true there weren't too many 'rust 'spots'), the engine was filthy. If that car's odometer said 74K it was because it had gone around twice to get there. And if it had been driven only by a little old lady, she had been one hell of a roadster. No, we would have to pass on this one. Back to square one.

We looked at nine cars in two days. Nothing was worth the asking price tags. Then, while parked off the side of the road deciding where to go next, something drove by. It was a VW Golf with a 'For Sale' sign taped to the back window."Follow that car," John said. I peeled away from the curb. The VW raced down the pavement; I raced in hot pursuit behind it. It turned. I turned. It swerved. I swerved. Finally, I was directly behind it. I flashed my lights. It kept going. I flashed again. It turned onto the motorway. I gunned the engine and followed. A left, then a right, then we were on the Harbor Bridge. Where was he taking me? Couldn't he see me? I was flashing wildly (mind you this was quite a feat: turning, swerving, flashing, following all while driving on the wrong side of the road).

Finally, 10km later I cornered him at the gas station. John hopped out of the car. "We want that car." he yelled. The boy behind the wheel of the Golf turned. "Huh?"

We checked the car over. It was a '74 lemon (in color only we hoped). We had the gas station perform a compression test; then took her for a test drive. There were some problems, but hell it was practically an antique. For $1100NZ, it was semi-precious. We offered him $900 (what the hell). At that price it was a gem. Sold!

The business of transferring paperwork, shuffling cars around, and finding an auto parts store to get new windshield wiper blades (it was raining) took less than two hours and by 1:00pm we were the proud parents of a 1974 filthy yellow heap. We started her up and with a puff of smoke we were off.