Tuesday, June 08, 2004
There’s a little black spot on the sun today
Which is something to do with Venus, and nothing to do with this post, but I couldn’t pass that up as a title.
I need a new car. The old Triumph is doing well, but is deteriorating, and to fix it properly means giving it a rest for a while, which means driving something else. Given the state of my finances, the something else has to be something cheap, which probably means a Citi Golf. This is a South African-ism. When a friend of mine was out here from the US, he noticed that there seemed to be a lot of well-preserved mark 1 VW Golfs on the road. The reason for this is simple: they are still making them, for much the same reasons, presumably, that they were still making the Beetle in Brazil until quite recently.
Most new Golfs for Europe are, as far as I know, manufactured in Port Elizabeth, at the bottom right hand corner of South Africa. VW South Africa are also still making the original style Golf as an affordable first car option. The fact that South Africa car prices are much higher than economics and the exchange rate dictates means that there is a large market for anything that may be described as “affordable”, hence the popularity of the “Citi Golf”. I think that they have upgraded things a bit since 1980-whatever it was, but the car is pretty much the same, and still doing very well.
They seem to last quite well too, so old ones which are affordable enough for me are available. Unless I can find something more interesting first. For “interesting”, read “classic or fast”. Anyone out there in Cape Town with something good going cheap?
Listening to: Counting Crows, Hard Candy: not bad, and they even come to Cape Town every 5 years or so…
I need a new car. The old Triumph is doing well, but is deteriorating, and to fix it properly means giving it a rest for a while, which means driving something else. Given the state of my finances, the something else has to be something cheap, which probably means a Citi Golf. This is a South African-ism. When a friend of mine was out here from the US, he noticed that there seemed to be a lot of well-preserved mark 1 VW Golfs on the road. The reason for this is simple: they are still making them, for much the same reasons, presumably, that they were still making the Beetle in Brazil until quite recently.
Most new Golfs for Europe are, as far as I know, manufactured in Port Elizabeth, at the bottom right hand corner of South Africa. VW South Africa are also still making the original style Golf as an affordable first car option. The fact that South Africa car prices are much higher than economics and the exchange rate dictates means that there is a large market for anything that may be described as “affordable”, hence the popularity of the “Citi Golf”. I think that they have upgraded things a bit since 1980-whatever it was, but the car is pretty much the same, and still doing very well.
They seem to last quite well too, so old ones which are affordable enough for me are available. Unless I can find something more interesting first. For “interesting”, read “classic or fast”. Anyone out there in Cape Town with something good going cheap?
Listening to: Counting Crows, Hard Candy: not bad, and they even come to Cape Town every 5 years or so…
