Dealer’s Diary

 Mercifully, Christmas is over for another few months. The decorations are down, the presents packed away, the turkey binned after it looked like a burnt-out Zeppelin and the booze is all consumed. All that’s left is for the credit card bill to drop through the door to add to the New Year misery.

Which leads to the question – what is the worse, or indeed the best, present you’ve bought your significant other half ? One where you’ve had to live daily with the consequences? For me one present memorably straddles both of these categories – The Chrysler Neon. Detroit’s last hurrah…

Yes, I once bought the then-current Mrs Ward one of Bob Lutz’s brainwaves. She was into Eminem at the time, probably. This was no ordinary Chrysler Neon however. It was a Mk2, 2.0-litre with the later 4-speed auto.

Naturally it came fully-equipped to win over any lady who needed a second car for the days her Land Rover had failed to proceed and was polluting the driveway. The Neon looked good; it had alloys (freshly refurbed and fitted with Goodyears by moi, although the Colways on the back had tread cut by a knife and fork), and it was finished in metallic silver with a taupe leather interior.

The aircon ‘just needed a re-gas’ and I’m sure it’d have been very good aircon for those trips to Florida Keys, but it definitely wasn’t needed for driving around Whitley Bay’s one-way system. In all seriousness, I couldn’t fault the quality in any area.

Aside from liking a good slurp of sans-plomb and 5W-30 (possibly too thin for it?), it drove remarkably well and – guess what? It was utterly reliable and rattle-free. Maybe the Honda Civic

‘It was so reliable I sold it to a CM reader...’

seat frames had an intrinsic influence?

It was so reliable I sold it to a CM reader who also found it very reliable for his daily commute through the following winter. The minute we sold it, the Land Rover chucked it again. The effortlessness of the Chrysler’s auto, the ferocious and instant heat from the blower and the sheer convenience of the well-proportioned saloon was missed as soon as it was gone.

Christmas may be over but Valentine’s Day is soon, which I’ll cover next month.