Today, I said goodbye to a car of which I really was quite fond of. Yes, today was the day of goodbye Honda.

Preparing for my last drive of the Prelude.

In an ideal world, I would be keeping it. Firm suspension aside, I’m a huge fan of how this car drives. The only problem was that it was hard to justify when the XM is capable of much more – including towing. Then there’s the 2CV Project, and the Dyane (which is still here) and really, this was a classic case of ‘too many cars.’ A feeling very familiar to many of us.

It wasn’t a particularly easy car to sell. Even at just £500, it really struggled to to fire up the imagination of the car buying public. Which is silly. They’re denying themselves a great car. Like the Volvo, I ended up resorting to a private raffle on a certain car forum. Even then, selling enough tickets to get my money back was a challenge, and the first winner decided he didn’t want it anyway! Is this the least desirable car I’ve ever owned?! Given some of the dreadful heaps I’ve had on my fleet, that really is quite bad.

The second winner came to collect today, and seemed very happy with it. Especially the boot full of bonus items, that included two model cars, lots of magazines and a cuddly toy. Not that the collection was entirely without drama…

You see, I’d left the Prelude with not very much fuel in it. I’ve not been using it much as I thought I’d sold it, only to find I in fact hadn’t. That’s ok. There’s a petrol station four miles away. Only when I got there, the pumps were broken. Bother. I now either had to drive ten miles in the wrong direction, or 18 miles in the correct direction. The fuel level was low enough for me to have real range anxiety at this point.

Bank Holiday traffic came to the rescue to a certain extent, as the miserable 40mph we ended up doing along the main road was a major boost to economy. I was tickling the throttle pedal like someone testing a sheet of ice for strength. Nervously, and with as little pressure as possible.

Thankfully, I made it. With superb timing too, as when I left this petrol station, cars were queuing down the road! My timing paid off, as I managed to arrive at the train station to collect the winner very soon after he got off the train.

I couldn’t resist one last drive home, so I hope the winner didn’t mind that. Paperwork was signed, tax was paid for and before I could summon up too much regret, the car was away.

And now, we must say goodbye…

Rob, the new owner, seems very pleased with it, and is currently driving it to London. I hope the traffic gods have been kind. It must go down as one of the better cars I’ve ever bought. Very typical that I should have sold it then!

We’re now in the unusual position of having space on the driveway. Very novel! Though, of course, it won’t last…