My beemer makes me beam

My car and I reached something of a milestone this week. She has now cost me more in tax and mechanic's fees than she cost me to buy. No mean feat in 10 months, you'll agree.

Granted, she was acquired - from a very generous friend who "just wanted to see her go to a good home" - for a mere grand. She may be 15-years-old, but she's still got more poke than many cars a fraction her age . . . and oodles more style than all of them.

But style is no guarantee she'll run properly. First off, I had to sort out the stereo, which decided to short and burn out all its electronics the second I tried to run some minimal German techno through it, as is my wont.

Then I had to get her NCTed. Which, much to my surprise, only cost me the €48 fee. "Lovely little car," said the chap as he handed me back my keys. "You can breathe again."

I did have to fit a new exhaust, only because I was getting complaints from Dublin Airport - they couldn't hear their planes landing over the noise. I live 10 miles from the airport.

Next I had to spend another few hundred on having a fist-sized rust hole in the bulkhead patched up before my front passenger-side suspension peeked its head through it for a look.

Finally, I had to replace a piece of moulding that flew off as I was tootling down a dual carriageway and got crushed under the wheels of a truck before I could even think of retrieving it.

"What a pain," I hear you sigh sympathetically. "All that money, and he hasn't even mentioned the petrol and insurance." True, but I wouldn't swop it for anything. (Actually, I lie. I'd swop it for a brand-new Maybach, which I would promptly flog to buy my old beemer back again, pocketing the €499,000 difference. I have my eye on a Citroën DS and a BMW 3.0 CSI I saw on the internet. And a house.)

I reckon classic cars are the future. Well, mine at least.

The main reason I wouldn't trade my old cash-leaking banger for a new car is, ironically, financial. Being a stingy old miser, the idea of my car costing me shedloads of money as it sits in the driveway is abhorrent. Depreciation. It's the thief of time, don't you know.

The idea of buying a new car that loses half its value the second it's driven off the garage forecourt is, to me, bizarre. The wife reckons it's worth it because you know exactly where it's been all its life, there's no nasty surprises awaiting you (This from a woman who married me . . .).

But that's half the fun of a classic car - you have no real idea what manner of adventures it's had before you got your grubby paws on it.

Why spend 20-odd grand on a boring new bog-standard hatchback when you could get a convertible 1960s Ford Mustang? Or why buy a Toyota Corolla when a Citroën DS can be bought for half the price?

Sure, there's a pretty good chance that it'll blow up in the middle of the Donegal mountains some day, leaving you stranded and cursing the fact you didn't buy that Corolla after all. But that's what the AA is for, isn't it?

Think about it - if you buy a 30-year-old car there's no NCT, no VRT, minimal tax, cheap insurance - and, most importantly of all, your car's got soul. And that only comes with age.

Not that I'm saying nobody should buy a new car. Look at the ads in this paper - all from car firms extolling the virtues of their new products.

I know what side my bread is buttered on. But, more importantly, if nobody buys new cars anymore, what are my children going to ferry me around in when I'm old and doddery in 30 years? I reckon the Aston Martin DB9 will have matured nicely by then . . .