We bought the Chevette in 1983 after agreeing that buying a car counted as large spending, so both of us needed to know about it.
It was a used three-door hatchback in faded red. The seller called the colour burgundy. Dad looked at it and said red.
Alan wanted Dad to inspect the car before we agreed to anything. Dad arrived in his work clothes with a torch and an old cloth. The seller watched him check the tyres, the wheel arches and the floor of the boot.
‘Very thorough,’ the seller said.
Dad did not answer. He was underneath the back of the car by then.
The Chevette had some rust, a stiff passenger door and a heater that offered air without making strong promises about temperature. Dad said the engine sounded all right. Alan asked what ‘all right’ meant.
‘It starts. It runs. I can’t see inside it.’
This was as close to approval as we were going to get.
We paid from our savings. The car was registered in both our plans if not in both our names. Alan drove it to work more often, and I used it at weekends. I had passed my test the previous year but still approached busy roundabouts as if they required written permission.
On my first drive after we bought it, I stalled outside a row of shops in Fareham. Alan said there was no hurry. The driver behind us used his horn to give another view.
The car started again. I drove home by a longer route because it avoided the same junction.
We used the Chevette for wedding arrangements, visits to our parents and the honeymoon the following year. It carried shopping, flat-pack furniture and, later, a pram that fitted only after Alan removed one wheel.
The passenger door eventually opened from the inside only. We warned people before they got in. Most forgot and tried the handle anyway.
We kept it until 1988, when Claire and everything that travelled with her required a larger car.