I will call him Claude, and he shall be mine.

Ahh the thrill of driving someone else's car. Especially a new car, and especially one that you're seriously considering buying. I think there is something distinctly grown-up about test-driving cars. It's as if you've been given a magic ticket to drive anything you want, even if there's absolutely no chance in hell of you buying it! To be fair, i didn't test drive anything I'm not actually thinking about buying, but it's just thrilling that I COULD have! I've never bought a car before, my Grandpa used to deal in small used cars, and found my current car for me, so I've never gone through the process of deciding what I want, hunting all over melbourne for it, test driving it, and having someone selling it to me all the way.

It's interesting to note the difference in approach from the big name brand dealers to the smaller used car lots.

At the big name one, the guy showed me round all the cars, drove the ones I was test driving out onto the road for me (just to "make sure everything is ok"), was with me the whole time, and while he was very nice, was constantly trying to sell me the car.

At the smaller one, I arrived, i found the car, i went and asked if I could drive it, the guy handed me the keys and said, "Take your time. Oh, and here's 20 bucks. Can you please put some petrol in it?" I must have looked a little incredulous at this, because he actually felt he needed to explain to me that it was empty! I went to the petrol station, i drove around and picked up my parentals and took them for a drive, i was driving around an area I knew, with absolutely no pressure from the sales guy, because he wasn't in the car! The whole approach was much more conducive to be buying that car, and consequently, it's the one I've decided on.

Now he just needs to get the price right! That's when I pull out the Daddy card.