02 « February « 2020 « Bull's Roar

Holy handbags, Batman. Here’s the new Batmobile. That shine is genuine. It’s been beautifully looked after, and I must pledge to keep it in this condition.

The owner brought it to my place this morning (and caught me still in bed at 9.30am), so we did the transfer papers and I transferred the balance of his price. I must have an honest face or something, because without any prompting from me, he knocked another $500 off the price, making it $3,500.

He’d advertised it at $5,500 with those snarky black alloy wheels and low profile tyres. I asked him what he would drop the price by if he put the original wheels back on. I would have hoped for $1,000 reduction and not expected to get it, but he just thought for a bit and said $1,500. Yowee. I agreed. That made it $4,000. Then today, as I said, he took another $500 off to make it $3,500. Bargain! It turned out the guy is a mechanic, working on Isuzu trucks for a major dealer, so he knows his stuff.

He also said if I wanted to buy the wheels and tyres he’d taken off, he’d sell them to me for $700. Wow. He’s a mechanic and business dealings are obviously not his strong point. I said I’d think it over. Maybe I should buy them, I have got used to their looks.

So now I have to work hard to get the Honda ready for sale. I hope to get at least what I paid for it. That will pay for the MX-6.

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It drives beautifully, of course. It’s a V6 front wheel drive, with four wheel steering. That makes the steering beautifully sharp. On roundabouts where I usually have to slow right down and kinda pull the car around, in this it just sticks to the road and where I point it, it goes. On the freeway entrance at Reid Highway to go north, it’s a 40Kmh tight 270deg LH turn with a tightening radius. In my other cars, it feels as if I have to slow right down or I’ll tip over. Not this. Turn the wheel and it sticks like glue and just goes. Change lanes? Move the wheel sharply and zow! it changes in a second. I love it.

The only thing is it’s an automatic, which is what I wanted, but that doesn’t encourage gear shifts. I note there’s an S setting on the shift, and when I’ve had a chance to read the manual, I hope that might mean S for Sport. I don’t know yet.

Also, I have a very nice Pioneer Android 7″ double DIN car audio unit with digital radio, but the dash in this isn’t designed for double-DIN. It could probably be cut to make it fit, but I wouldn’t do it myself, and frankly the dash is so original and in such nice condition it would be a travesty to cut it. It has a Sony single height Bluetooth radio/CD at the moment, and I actually have a Kenwood single height radio/CD with DAB+ digital stored away too, so it looks like that will be going back into service. The difficulty with DAB+ car radios is that they need a special antenna which sticks to the inside of the windscreen, and the lead has to be fed down the pillar and behind the dash. That’s hard for me to do, so I might have to take it to a fitter.

Also, if I’m selling the Honda, I’ll remove the Pioneer 7″ A/V radio I went to so much trouble to fit. I’ll put the original radio/CD back. It’s a good unit, it’s just that the antenna doesn’t work, so that’s got to be fixed.

That will give me two double height A/V units spare. I might have to buy another car to use them! 🙂

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Parking will now be a problem – three cars in a two car garage, so the Verada will have to occupy the laneway for a while until the Honda goes. I had the Magna out there for six months last year and it wasn’t a problem.

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Yesterday I talked about how I went into the city, Yagan Square and Northbridge, dressed as a woman for the Burlezque performance. Well, to prove it, here I am.