YOU’VE GOT A CAR? THAT DON’T IMPRESS ME MUCH.

AUDIO QUACK

I have an idea for a Citroen Picasso TV Ad. It goes like this:

We start with a close-up of a mid-30s man driving. He is not an attractive man; he has a bad haircut and wearing an equally bad suit. An engine roars, and he looks up at his rear-view mirror as an Aston Martin overtakes him. He tuts. It cuts to a wide to reveal our man is driving a Citroen Picasso. He drives it steadily along the bendy mountain road, all while getting overtaken by sports cars. He doesn’t care, he’s quite happy having an easy drive and listening to the radio. Next the man is pulling into the driveway of a modest house. A seductive voice of a woman greets him enthusiastically. He gets out of the car and walks past the frame, revealing a colossal bulge in his suit trousers.

The tagline:

Citroen Piscasso, for people who don’t have to make up for the small things.

I doubt it will be approved by the ASA, but it’s an idea.

Anyway, this blog is about cars and how I don’t appreciate them.

When a date starts bragging about the car he drives, my brain quite literally stalls with boredom. I care as much about his vehicle as he does about my handbag. At the end of the day cars are just lumps of steel bent in different ways.

That’s not to say I don’t appreciate a cool-looking vehicle, but what really matters is the journey. And before you vomit in your mouth here is what I mean; if the bloke picks me up in a Lamborghini but makes me listen to BBC Five Live for the duration of the journey, then as far as I’m concerned, it’s an unimpressive drive.

Cars also sound very unpleasant. It’s like a giant bumble bee has got stuck in a microphone. If I die a sinner, my hell would be to stuck for infinity on a Formula 1 racetrack. But it has come to my attention that there is a portion of our species that can’t get enough of the sound of a car engine. There is even, sadly, a 20-minute video on YouTube of a montage of engines. It has over 700k views and some of the comments are as follows:

Some people find driving ‘relaxing’, I am not one of these people. If a car comes too close to my boot, I end up muttering something like, “alright champ, I’m going the speed limit.” I also change lanes over a mile before I have to. And I get stage fright if I hold up a queue when parking.

In the 14 years of having a licence I have found myself in a few pickles.

The main one was when I was 17….

I somehow got stuck on a cement pillar when trying to reverse my Fiat 500 into the bay. If I went forward, it would scratch, if I went back it would scratch. I cried as I heard the noise of the baby blue paint being ripped away from Bubbles. There was a lot of fear at that moment mostly driven by the thought of my parent’s reaction if I drove home with a gigantic graze along the new car.

But then I had idea!

I had a picnic blanket in my boot, (in case of a spontaneous lunch in the country), and I got my friend to hold it between the car and the pillar whilst I manoeuvred my way out to freedom.

I reckon this would make an excellent FIAT 500 commercial, and the tagline would be:

Fiat 500, for smart people who can’t park.