Matt Prior: I've picked my dream car garage. Now it's your turn
This week our man has been choosing which three motors he'd buy with £100,000 - and wants to know which ones you'd have
Ahoy. The annual Autocar Awards are incoming, and we would like your help. As ever, one of the gongs is for the Readers’ Champion, and this year an idea of mine has apparently been the inspiration.
A few weeks ago, I imagined my dream 10-car garage and posted it on social media, and around 1000 people gave me theirs in response (the Porsche 911 was the top-named model, by the way). So we’re asking a similar but slightly more relevant question for this year’s Readers’ Champion at the Autocar Awards.
We would like to know your dream three-car garage, although there are caveats, because the cars have to fit into three categories. These are Daily Driver (a new car for everyday use, costing around £30,000); Just For Fun (a new car to enjoy driving, costing around £50,000); and Wildcard (a new or used car for any use, costing around £20,000).
As with the top 10, my choices are likely to vary by the day. Today, it’s a Toyota GR Yaris without the Circuit Pack for the daily. Then there’s a Lotus Exige Sport 350 for fun. (I found a 500-mile demonstrator at £60,000, which is, I accept, cheating, but soon you won’t be able to buy a new one at all, so I don’t care. And if the rule-makers care so much that it’s cheating, I’ll make it a Lotus Elise for the same reasons.) And then there’s the Wildcard, which is the most fun and the most difficult one of the lot.
I opened the classifieds at classicandsportscar.com, set a limit of £20,000 and hit search. Everything from a Citroën CX Pallas to a Jeep CJ5, a Renault 4CV and a Volvo PV544 to a Volkswagen Karmann Ghia feature heavily on my shortlist, and I’m only four pages deep into the search. I also found a Ford Cortina Estate for £15,000, which is, um, not really my thing.
Anyway, *you can submit your trio right here*. The awards will be held in June.
Last week, Autocar photographer Olgun Kordal was in Wales shooting a car that had 22in wheels when one of its tyres was punctured. It was mid-afternoon and he was planning to shortly head home to London.
As is increasingly typical, though, the car had no spare wheel; and the repair gunk in the boot didn’t fix the flat.
After several calls, he discovered that nobody could get an appropriate tyre to him, and before long everywhere would close for the night anyway. The AA rescued him and began the schlep back to London, car up; the length of journey and lateness in the day necessitating three transporters. He got home at 4am, all because the car didn’t have a spare wheel – not even a spacesaver.
I get the reasons: not having a spare wheel saves weight and cost and is better for fuel economy, and you might not need it very often. It’s estimated that cars pick up a puncture every 100,000 miles, but I’ve experienced more than that.
Yes, punctures are usually no worse than a bit inconvenient, but emergency repair kits are frequently no help and there are times when it’s a massive pain in the neck.
Regardless of the counterarguments, I will die on this hill: all cars should have the option of a spare wheel, even a spacesaver. Like a hard shoulder on a motorway, you never know when you will need one.
*READ MORE*
*Autocar Awards 2021: vote for your dream £100,000 three-car garage*