How young drivers are distanced from cars, and how I got my first car in UK (!)
Now let’s wind the clock back to 2013. I was halfway through my degree in Newcastle, and after so many agonising years of waiting and yearning to go behind the wheel, I could wait no more. So off I went searching for the (realistic) dream machine.
Choices were actually pretty limited — being a student, a young (under 25) driver, and a foreigner (what do you mean, not born in the UK, well actually I was! But let’s not get there now…) meant that I landed firmly within the high risk category, and the insurance quotes I got for most compact runabouts with the slightest hint of sportiness were horrifyingly high, to the point that they were prohibitive. A reasonably smart, un-hooned Peugeot 306 GTi could be had for under £2000, and I could put that together in savings, but the cheapest insurance quote was around £10000/year! Even the student’s first car regulars such as a 2004 Ford Fiesta 1.25 still racked up a handsome £1800 on insurance alone.
Yeah, you bet I did try to lower my expectations, to the point of going rock-bottom with car choices. I certainly didn’t find the idea of a 10-year-old, 1-liter Daewoo Matiz anywhere near appealing, especially when the insurance still came to £1200/year for the £400 car, even with all the right premium-lowering boxes ticked; going for something older didn’t help either, as the maintenance costs were obviously a major factor in the mysterious risk assessment formulae of the insurance brokers, and to qualify for classic car insurance you must first have a daily driver in place.
You could see where this was going — driving in the UK as a foreign student was Mission Impossible — which was exactly why I took some “extreme” measures to ensure that Impossible is Nothing.
I came across this peculiar idea of putting a temporary insurance on the car. You see, every minute cars change hands somewhere in the country, and the elaborate car insurance system in UK means that the cover is, strictly speaking, on the driver when operating a certain vehicle, but not on the car itself, which also means it gets a bit messy when ownership is transferred. Common practice was, and still is, to insure the car on a day-by-day policy to get the sale going, and I see it as a stopgap solution to circumnavigate my issues — after all, Uni life meant I didn’t need a car as a primary mode of transport, just that I’m prepared to partially tolerate these ripoff deals as long as I got to drive something that I felt sufficiently enthused about.
All this opened up the possibility of driving, as long as I could find a private, secure place to stow the vehicle away and avoid paying road tax and insurance on it. Fortunately enough, I had probably the best landlord that one could find, and he happened to be into cars as well! A few cups of tea later, and he offered me to use his back yard as a lock-up garage, just perfect for the impatient young petrolhead I suppose. Thank you so much again for the help, Imran.
Mind you, the short-term insurance was still ridiculously expensive — in fact more so than the annual on a pro-rata basis at around £50–100 per day for the cars I looked at — but I figured out as long as I didn’t use the car that often it would perhaps, yeah perhaps, be worth it. How self-delusional!
That opened up to a more realistic bunch of cars that could be bought and driven, as long as I schedule carefully and drive occasionally — hurrah! Again, I tried old-school Hondas but tidy JDM cars with all the key goodies were scarce and mostly overpriced, while parts and technical support were not always readily available; I tried hot Peugeots and Renaults but the ones on the market were either hooned to death or had a murky ownership and service history; I then turned to a brand often regarded as the holy grail to becoming a true petrolhead — Alfa Romeo.
Surely I’ve always liked Alfas, and obvious choices such as the 156 or 147 were cheap as chips, ranging from a few hundred quid for reasonable runners, rarely going beyond three grand even for pristine examples; but the plan then was to find something not readily available in Hong Kong, modern enough to be run as a daily driver without any major issues, and also to have some cash left over for any maintenance and upgrades if required. It wasn’t long before I settled on the 145/146 pair, or perhaps a nice 155 if I could find one in reasonable nick and price.
The 145/146 pair were developed as successors to the Alfa 33, which itself was descended from the Alfasud of the 70s. The basic structure was shared with the Fiat Tipo, a rational 80s boxy design penned by Ercole Spada. Initial versions carried over the boxer 4 engine as found on the 33, but due to the extra weight they were not as peppy as their predecessors; this was fortunately remedied some three years later by a series of inline-4, Fiat-derived “twin spark” powerplants. Unless you’re boxer crazy but somehow not a fan of Subarus (or Porsches), it’s best to stick with these later engines. I briefly looked at the top-of-the-range 2.0L Qv (145) or ti (146), and read comprehensively about them, but it seemed that these were little better than the 1.8L next down the list, only about 10hp more on paper (140 vs 150), with the added complexity of balancer shafts, and also a longer stroke which made them less revvy.
The car I went to see was in Stockport, near Manchester, an early 1997 145 presented in Blu Francia, with the new 1.8 16v Fiat mill and the quick steering rack, but retained the pre-facelift styling and interior fittings. It had barely 60k miles on the clock, if the history as listed was to be believed, but was really a bit basic inside with cloth seats and swathes of black plastic everywhere you could see or touch; the bodywork appeared straight enough, save the odd ding and scratch, and some touch-up paint here and there; the engine fired up readily, and according to the seller sounded “a bit throaty” — well, I certainly didn’t mind that, how fitting was that for a sporty little Alfa? Flipping through the paperwork, I found an issue of Auto Express, where the exact car featured as a media test car on the cover, going head to head against the Honda Civic EK hatch. “Yeah, this car’s a bit of a celebrity,” the seller added; not that it mattered so much, but it’s always a pleasure to know the stories behind the cars.
The breadvan looks might not be to everyone’s liking, but it surely was distinctive in a 90s way — quite unlike Chris Bangle’s work towards the new millennium with BMW — striking just the right balance between boldness and elegance. I was convinced that the blacked-out D-pillars with the wraparound glass found its way onto the New Mini, the thick body-coloured B-pillar together with the long doors inspired that on the Citroen DS3, while the lower window line took a slight dip towards the A-pillar for great measure. True, Alfa thoroughbred it wasn’t (it was basically a Fiat), but that didn’t detract much from the fun element with the free-revving 1.8L Italian engine and the quick and direct steering. As a first car, what more could you ask for?
So £500 later, log books properly filled out, and, hurrah, it’s mine! There was only one final hurdle — it was, believe it or not, my first car, and also my first time driving in the UK. I took the time to adjust the mirrors and the seat while finding all the essential knobs and switches. Gingerly, I inched out of the train station car park, and tried to find the nearest petrol station for the drive back to Newcastle. That didn’t prevent me from circling the town twice, doing several three-point turns, and awkwardly asking passers-by for directions.
Once I found the right junction and went onto the motorway, the 145 cruised happily at 75–80mph at around 3500–4000 revs, purring gently and devouring mile after mile; in no time, I found myself pulling up right to the house, still trying to reflect on my purchase; but no, friends and family knew nothing about my little endeavour, and I saw it wise to keep it that way, at least for the time being…
