End of an EA11R(a)?

I drove the Capp home last night to garage it indefinitely. Its MOT (due today) was shaping up to be costing n * window, where n is an uncomfortably large number. So, to put off the decision as to whether to sell it or fix it, I convinced a family friend to let me use his garage for a few weeks.

Anyway, this gives me the opportunty to wax lyrical and nostalgic about it.

I bought the Capp about 3 and a half years ago. I had never bought a car before and was walking through Marchmont one day when I saw it sitting there with a 'For Sale' sign in the back window. I marvelled at it: I knew what it was, but I'd never seen one in the metal before. It was tiny, red, 2-seater and convertible. A sort of MGB for the 90s. I had a garage check it out ("bit of an oil leak, but not a serious one. Some rust around the rear wheel arches you'd need to have looked at sooner or later") and the AA do a history check, and before I knew it I was gleefully handing £4500 over to its owner.

Oh, and somewhere over £1000 to an insurance company. Import + convertible + first car + driver under 25 = buckets o' cash. I argued with them: "It's only 657cc, for Christ's sake. It's electronically limited to 86 mph!", but nothing doing. If I wanted to drive it as opposed to stand on the pavement and look at it, that was that. By this point, my credit card was near-melted from the exertion.

I drove up to Dundee a couple of days later to show Finlay my new toy. It was raining cats and dogs, and not being entirely used to the feel of the car yet, I was taking it pretty easy. I picked him up. First roundabout; second gear; 15-20 mph. We came to the exit. I gently accelerated. There was a curiously slurping, humming noise from the back of the car. The rev counter leapt upwards, the turbo indicator lit up and suddenly we're pointing directly at the bollard on the exit's traffic island.

"So, rear-wheel drive does make a difference," I mused as I opposite locked our way out of the impending crash.

Once I got used to the tail-happy handling, I started to enjoy myself. It had plenty of grunt to help really hoof it along B-roads and loads of grip from the (relatively speaking) wide tires. On a sunny day, you could take the roof down and the worried exclamations of your passenger were sucked away into the wind. I drove all the way to Liverpool one November with the roof down, and despite suffering near-frostbitten lips and ice-encrusted eyes, loved the whole journey. I discovered that even in the pouring rain, hit 60 mph and the slipstream sucked most of the water over your head. Until it collected at the corners of the windscreen and began to drip directly into your face, but tcha! A small price to pay for the glory of hooning along with nothing to protect you in the event of rolling the car.

One notable journey up north for a camping trip (all of my kit was in someone else's car) saw me giving a lift to a chap from work that I rather selfishly didn't much want to talk to. When we set off, I handed him the map and told him: "Look for B-roads. If you can't find B-roads, those little white lines will do."

"The ones without numbers?"

"Yup. Them."

Incidents along the way included a near-death experience with a Volvo on a single track road; getting the Capp airborne for the first time and pulling over in a passing place to investigate a burning smell, only find the front left brake actually smoking.

So, Suzuki Cappuccino EA11R 1157, farewell. It was fun while it lasted, but you were a rather too expensive toy.

<sniff>