I'm in Love with My Car... again

[KickIt]

Like geeman 1963, I'm back in the Afla fold.  And it feels so good finally.  I've always loved cars & driving, though never had anything special, until I got an Alfa Giulietta, I think it was a 1980. 
This was the sort of Alfa that gives Alfas a bad name.  The indicator stalk fell off, a problem with the carbies, head gasket went.  That was the first week!!!  And it just kept going from there.  Lost synchro 2-1 so had to double declutch every change, all sorts of things went wrong with it.  After a year or two I changed lifestyle so I traded it on a  Mazda 121  .  Some pretty banal auto cars after that, during my child-rearing-responsible-parent years. 

Was flipping through the car section of the newspaper thinking about what car to get next and suddenly saw the most erotic car porn I'd ever seen - the black & white Brera ad - you know the one I mean.   That was it.  I may have been driving around in a Holden Zafira, but my soul was driving an Alfa. 

I couldn't afford a Brera, I have a 2004 166, the pre-facelift model - at least it's black.  It isn't a manual, but the sports auto mode is pretty close, for those days when I do want to 'kick it'.  Turning circle of a road train is a downer, but I can laugh about it.   It's in pretty good condition and I am in the process of fixing annoying little issues before it can do anything major to my bank balance. 

These days I'm a middle-aged woman who now obeys speed limits (most of the time).  But dear God I love my car and I love driving again.  Every time I see it I smile & think; "Damn that's a beautiful car!" and when I start it up I smile even broader.  People treat you differently too out on the road.  The young men in their pretty utes want to race me, Corollas & Micras get out of my way. 

Ah, life is good!