I Wanna Be Collected

Whilst the weather last week was lovely and Spring-like, we couldn’t go and collect it on a nice, dry and bright Saturday as I was moving house. No, we went to pick up the MX-5 on the Sunday, my birthday, as it happens.

But it was a little soggy when we woke up and grabbed a bus, the London Overground and a train to get to Eden Park and walk down to the dealers, Masters.

As we walked into the showroom, there it was – it’s a ‘she’ apparently… – sitting there in the showroom looking lovely.

Ali in the MX-5 at Masters Ali 4 MX-5

We did the paperwork, handed over some more cash and off I drove into the traffic: Ali isn’t used to London driving yet, so I got to drive the new MX-5 home. Sadly, it wasn’t dry enough to put the hood down: instead, we got to try out the exceptional 5-point heated leather seats which were very efficient indeed!

I plugged the house address into the built-in satnav and off we drove. A lovely car it is to drive too! Once home, we put the hood down and set to work pairing our iPhones with it: the MX-5 has a feature where it stores multiple user profiles so my phonebook and phone are set for one user and Ali’s for another.

But rain stopped play with our intended photoshoot which will have to wait until we’re back from our holiday.

I Wanna Be Collected

Whilst the weather last week was lovely and Spring-like, we couldn’t go and collect it on a nice, dry and bright Saturday as I was moving house. No, we went to pick up the MX-5 on the Sunday, my birthday, as it happens.

But it was a little soggy when we woke up and grabbed a bus, the London Overground and a train to get to Eden Park and walk down to the dealers, Masters.

As we walked into the showroom, there it was – it’s a ‘she’ apparently… – sitting there in the showroom looking lovely.

Ali in the MX-5 at Masters Ali 4 MX-5

We did the paperwork, handed over some more cash and off I drove into the traffic: Ali isn’t used to London driving yet, so I got to drive the new MX-5 home. Sadly, it wasn’t dry enough to put the hood down: instead, we got to try out the exceptional 5-point heated leather seats which were very efficient indeed!

I plugged the house address into the built-in satnav and off we drove. A lovely car it is to drive too! Once home, we put the hood down and set to work pairing our iPhones with it: the MX-5 has a feature where it stores multiple user profiles so my phonebook and phone are set for one user and Ali’s for another.

But rain stopped play with our intended photoshoot which will have to wait until we’re back from our holiday.

So Then, This New Mazda…

When Ali Brooks moves in with me, she’ll need a car to go back and forth to Somerset to see family. She was going to bring hers up to London, but her ex needs transport too, he’s going to keep the car and so Ali will need to get herself sorted.

My RX-8 R3 is hideously expensive to run, so it makes sense on longer trips for me to use less fuel for the same speed/distance as well.

Having already spent a day thrashing an MX-5 around Brands Hatch a couple of years ago, I already had a soft spot for the model.

So that’s what we used as an excuse this weekend when we rode out to Masters Mazda at Beckenham to test drive an MX-5.  It turned out that they had the precise model we were after – a Deep Crystal Blue 2.0 litre MX-5 Sport Venture  in the Roadster model (a retractable hard-top) – ready for us. Ali wasn’t keen on driving an unfamiliar car in front of someone else, so the sales guy drove her for a spin which she loved. I declined the offer of a test drive (knowing what it was like anyway) and as Ali loved the car, we went inside and did a deal for one. After I’d paid the deposit to secure a new one, we were allowed to take the car out ourselves: me first and then Ali brought it back in.

We both loved the immediate response from the 2.0 litre engine as well as how quiet the car is with the roof and windows down, so we were chuffed with our choice.

It’s coming in April and will have a personal ‘plate on it: AL1 4 MXS :)

Demo Sport Venture