BUYING JOURNEY

evo reader Charles Moseley’ s starspangled buying history

HAILING FROM AMERICA, CHARLES started out with cars that couldn’t be more different from the small hatchbacks that most Europeans begin with. Instead he drove cars so huge that their ‘hoods’ were measured in acres. This was mostly thanks to his mother, who would only help him buy a car if it was ‘ big enough to keep him safe’. This meant he owned some true Americana, including a Mercury Eight.

As soon as he could, though, Charles got himself into some smaller performance cars, starting with a Chrysler Laser Turbo (has a car ever sounded so ’80s?) and a Ford Taurus SHO (for ‘Super High Output’). Charles would have kept the SHO, with its revvy, Yamaha-built V6 and manual gearbox, had his wife not crashed it into a wall.

But Charles hasn’t restricted himself to US domestic cars and has owned machinery more familiar to evo. He has a penchant for performance Subarus, something we sympathise with, and now owns two. He’s also counterbalanced the SUVS in his collection with two- seater, rear-wheel- drive coupes in the form of a ‘ breadvan’ BMW M Coupe and a 2015 Aston Martin V8 Vantage.