Don’t ask me how this happened, but it has, and I am now sitting wondering whether I am insane, or that the excitement is overtaking any common sense I ever possessed. Let me tell you, common sense and I have never been close anyway.
It all started so innocently. On Sunday, I caught up with a friend for lunch. Driving home, I was behind a new CLA45 AMG. I had been on the waiting list for one of these for almost nine months, with a further seven to go. I looked at the car, and realised that I simply did not like it. The interior is OK, except for the pop-up screen that looks like an iPad sticky-taped to the dash board. But it has four doors. What on earth would I do with four doors?
Mulling over all this on Sunday afternoon and night left me feeling like a kid who had been looking forward to the school holidays only to find out that his overzealous parents had organised a six-week piano boot camp to fill in the time. On Monday morning, I rang Macintosh, and spoke to Simon the business manager. I casually asked the price of the C63 AMG. I promise it was the most innocent of questions. And this is where things totally spiralled out of control. However, I am a big girl, and this is my responsibility. I will not blame the lunar eclipse or the alignment of the stars.
So on Saturday 26th, I am picking up my C63 AMG. It will be one of the last few delivered to Australia with the old 6.2lt engine, not the new 4lt supercharged and pretend sound recording of engine noise. This is the real thing. The noise of the exhaust is only comparable to a piece of classical music that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up and send shivers down your spine. Think Verdi’s Nabucco, and the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves (which, by the way, sounds out of this world on the Harman Kardon sound system). Having the sound up so high it makes the car vibrate is an optional extra best reserved for long trips on deserted roads. This volume level in city traffic results in people giving you funny looks and gesticulating wildly.
The car was ordered for one of the owners of Macintosh. Manufactured in February, registered in late April. It has almost all of the available options, excluding the upgraded differential. Less than 1,500 km on the clock. The colour is gunmetal grey, the interior is black, and I am in love.
In a last-ditch effort to be sensible, I rang my accountant. This, in hindsight, was not a good idea, as he is a petrol head of the serious nature. However, his weapons of choice are Porsches. In his defence, he did state that the ATO may not accept the full use of the vehicle for deduction purposes, and hence the cost to me would be greater, but this was the last bit of negative feedback he provided, and he very quickly changed to praising the car for resale value, the performance, and everything else every petrol head would think of. Hence, this was never ever going to be an adult conversation.
Now, after a fairly sleepless night I am fluctuating between “What have I done?” to “OMG, I own C63 AMG!” So, I am planning on sacrificing a chicken and pouring a ring of salt around myself whilst praying that I still have my driver’s licence this time next year.