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Avid readers of the “What’s taken your fancy in the classifieds today?” thread will have seen what a melt I’ve been when it’s come to choosing a new car. It’s not even close to the truth. As the months went by and with the return date of the Focus approaching, thoughts turned to finding a replacement. Then the trouble began. With my hard earned (shut up!) on the line, where do I spend it? What do I want? What will work for my family?

Post the “I’m going to change the car” thought, I wanted a Golf GTI with leather, auto and 5 doors. I researched, read about Performance Packs, and Revo upgrades, picked a colour and settled on what I was going for when the time came to hand the Focus back. Oh how simple that would have been. Since then I’ve had some further thoughts.

Golf R – Strong contender, always been a big fan. Apparently they’re quite hard to insure?
Audi S3 – As above, lovely but just not what I was after.
Audi Q5 – The TFSI one, remapped.
Jaguar XF – What? Behave.
BMW 335D Touring – A strong contender. Great all rounder.
Audi A5 – Or an S5? Had one, loved it.
Range Rover Sport – The fear got me. I’m told they’re easy to work on, but I’m a cack-handed idiot so would be paying someone £500 to change a bulb.
BMW 435D GC – Looks a bit weird.
Mercedes CLS – Looks a bit long.
Audi Q7 – Fear got me again.
Ford Focus – New Focus is lovely looking, but the ST isn’t out until late 2019.
LR Discovery – Fear. Again. Father in law has one, love it.
Mercedes C63 – Fuel would bankrupt me, but that noise!
VW Touareg – Strong contender. Great spec to be had though, and would be perfect for my failing old man limbs.
Audi A6 – The BiTdi version. Not particularly exciting to look at, but that engine!
Audi A8 (Old and New) – Always, always wanted one.
Porsche 911 – Fear/Fuel/Convenience.
Ford Edge – Saw one of these a few years ago, loved it ever since. New one is out now, but prices are still high.
Audi A7 – Strong contender. My boss used to have one and I loved it.
Porsche Cayenne – Fear again. Look fantastic, feel special, but quite high miles for my budget. Drove one, loved it.
BMW 640d GC – Beautiful car. But bloody huge, and parts bills can be horrendous. The headlights are £2000 each!
Audi S4 – Was given a demo one back in 2010 and I still remember it. Fantastic.
Porsche Cayman – Having 4 seats across two cars is a bit of a push.
BMW M235i – I absolutely love these, but I think I’d crash it and it’s pretty small.
BMW M3 – Fuel/fear.
Audi SQ5 – Immense in every way, including being over budget on all but 100k+ mile versions.

And a few others I genuinely can’t remember. Told you, I’m a melt. Each one of the above was considered, researched and either fell by the wayside or advanced to the next round. With a budget in mind, some were ruled out on the availability of fresh-ish options. Others were hooked due to fuel costs, still doing 16k+ a year so can’t go too mad. Some didn’t make the “special” grade, some by the “I’m too old/too young for that” distinction. I also had to factor in my constantly aching back and embarrassingly enough, sometimes my knee hurts when it’s cold.

So here we are, I collected my new car on Tuesday. A car that I’ve put hours of research into, watched hours of review videos, spoken to car journalists about, read owners clubs articles, checked parts prices. You know, the usual!

After 6 months of decision making, decision changing, consideration, deliberation, and generally being an annoyance to my wife and friends, the winner is…

 

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