The Cars Soap-opera

Next month it would have been three years; three very short, very fast years with my beautiful Nissan Murano. But this also meant the warranty was about to expire. It was time to look for a new love.

A Nissan Murano makes you wonder why anyone would ever look for another car. Its design is gorgeous. Its engine, award winning and so powerful it makes such a big car fly. It’s the safest car in its category: safer even than Volvos. Who cares about Aston Martins, Maseratis, Ferraris, Porches, when you have a Murano? Yes, love is blind.

Last Wednesday I finally left it behind, parked on the side street of the Ford dealership. It took them only two days to sell it. I wonder who is the lucky bastard who got it... It was the first time in my life that I suffered for leaving something material behind. I even spent the next few days looking at every pearly white Murano on the roads hoping to see it again, like a lost boyfriend from a different time, from my lost youth. It made me feel like a teenager again. Not such a good feeling.

However, after five whole days without a car waiting for HSBC to act as a competent corporation, and almost loosing my license in the process of getting another car registration – if you ever considered driving in the shoulder in Dubai, think again! – I got my new car. My dark grey Ford Flex.

This would sound like a perfect happy ending. However, I had ordered a dark grey Flex with a pearly white ceiling (they look a bit like giant Mini Coopers, if they had an offspring from a marriage with a Range Rover), and they delivered it with the dark grey ceiling instead. I should have killed someone and demanded the car I had booked. However, I liked the one they gave me so much – even though it looks a little less funky – that I decided to keep it. It still looks like a pimp’s car, with its different ambient colours and jazzy design. It absolutely rocks!!

When I set in its sporty black letter seats, connected my iPod (it comes with a special bay for it) and automatically synchronized my Blackberry, I though I had died and gone to heaven. This car made the Ayrton Senna within me meet with my inner super nerd. I’m so happy. It also placated my inner Santos-Dumont, since it feels as big as a plane in its seven-seater glory.

However, when another three years pass by – and I know they will come and go far too fast for our own good (yes, you are getting old too) – I will let this one go more gracefully. No matter how cool it is this new car of mine, the charm and magic of a first love lost won’t be there anymore.