According to Top Gear a car owner can only really be called a Petrolhead if they have owned an Alfa Romeo. Well I have never owned an Alfa, but I do have a Maserati and Maserati is (after their Ferrari ownership years) once again owned by FIAT. And Alfa is part of FIAT so surely, owning a Maserati is like owning an Alfa, only more so. So I figure that owning a Maserati should qualify me as a Petrolhead.
Which is kind of ironic because I have never been a speed demon and never really interested in cars: A car needs to get me from A to B. Anything more is a bonus. Of course, with a Maserati the bonus is getting from A to B really fast. The downside to owning a Maserati is that the reputation of italian engineering appears to be well founded; in the last 6 weeks my car has spent 5 weeks in various mechanical departments, electrical workshops and on the back of trucks from recovery services.
Needless to say I was not overly happy with owning a Maserati and was tending towards just selling the car, cutting my losses and running from a bad deal…. And then my car was delivered back to me today. And I took it for a test drive.
After about 5 minutes I started to realise that there is something special about driving a high performance car. After another 5 minutes I was actually smiling as I turned it into sweeping corners. And 10 minutes after that I had completely forgotten just how much I had spent getting it fixed.
I have never owned a car that makes you smile when you drive it (mind you I have never owned a car that prompts people to stop me in car parks and ask “Is that really a Maserati?”). I like my car: Yes it is ridiculously over powered, yes it drinks fuel like there is no tomorrow (filling it up cost me £89 today and it will take me ~350 miles) and yes it will probably break down again soon. But until it does… I am going to enjoy driving my car. And my kids are going to enjoy it too.
And I don’t know how to put a price on bringing pleasure to your children.