0-100km/h in 24.5 Years

Some of you would know, some would not, the 22nd of September 2007 marks the end of an era. My dad has sold our 1983 Blue Toyota Cressida. This car holds a lot of history not only with me but with friends. I had done many things with and in that car - 3am treks to licenced pancake houses which were decorated with suits of armor, driving to other states on a moments whim, taking many a girlfriend to the drive-in but never seeing a movie. For a large part of my driving life this car was my identity, it got me from A to B which usually was from Anywhere to a Bar.

Your Modus Transit says a lot about you, its an extension of your personality. If your a green tea sipping, organic fabric wearing, sandal and sock wearing, $100 a year Greenpeace donating fancy pants. Then you might find your chariot is most likely a bicycle to and from work on a daily basis with a fully environmentally friendly hybrid for those longer weekend trips with a roof rack so your pushy doesn't get left behind. If your a little scruffy, little impatient for the slow and or stupid with a fairly low care level when it comes to where to sit, what to do, and where to park - then perhaps 2 wheel mode of transport like a Motorcycle is more to your persona.

If doesn't matter how much it cost, nor what review it got in Wheels magazine before you acquired it, once its yours it becomes a defining attribute. You could be that friend with the mini cooper that didn't have a radio for 3 months so would sing loud and bad in their car on every trip. The panel van with the plush carpet and mini disco ball dubbed the shaggin` wagon. The diesel Gemini which could get 800km to a single tank, which you know as you tested it and remember pushing it once after running out of gas. The little Colt with the Pretenders 500 Miles stuck in the deck and always on play.

Any transport right down to the BMX you rode when you were twelve has a certain yin and yang relation with your being, there is something you have done or something it does that just makes it yours. Some cars have reputations such as 4x4s being used as Urban APCs around school zones at 3:30 but never for 4x4'ing, V8's being owned by rev heads, Celicas and hairdressers - but what makes something yours is that certain j'est est qua. That old car was mine not for what it looked like, not the CD player and speakers that I had to cut the back shelf for to make fit when I replaced them, not for the sunroof you could jump through in a Dukes of Hazzard moment, but for what we did with it.

So to the Cressida we charge our glasses and I quote a friend - "To missions accomplished, to goals fulfilled, to limits broken; you are remembered."

Andy. Man who promised himself he wouldn't cry.