Translated from the Latin, by Google Translate: “We have a new Car!”

The story of how we came to own a car that once may have graced our dear leader, Ms Gillard’s, plush backside…

Back in February I needed to be in Melbourne for an IBM meeting and some customer catchups, I had also purchased some retro computer equipment and asked the seller if they would mind holding it until I could pickup in person, intending to drive to Melbourne for the IBM events and do the computer pickup in the same trip.

Well that was all fine until it started to rain, a lot. Southern New South Wales and northern Victoria were becoming totally flooded with highway closures and other potential hazards imminent. There was no way I wanted to expose my precious 25 year old classic sports car to these potential risks. So… at the very last minute I made the decision to hire something from the local Hertz shop, a fateful decision too.

They gave me a current model Ford Falcon G6E – I didn’t know what that was, and the guy on the desk, expressing incredulity, said “don’t worry, you’ll love it”. Little did he know how right he was to prove to be.

So to cut a potentially long story short, I drove Fords flagship luxury sedan from Canberra to Melbourne and back, and promptly decided I was buying one – almost a completely spur of the moment decision. A few weeks earlier we had been very close to purchasing an investment property and our finances just could not quite stretch to make it happen – so partly in response the attitude was “If I can’t have a house, then dammit I’ll have a bloody nice car instead.” That sentiment, and a few other more sensible considerations, made it so that we recently purchased the singularly nicest and newest vehicle either Robbi or I have ever owned – the Ford Falcon G6E.

Now, to explain the first premise of this post, about our adorable leaders butt, after buying the said vehicle second hand (2 1/2 years old) from a dealer, we examined the log book to discover that the cars previous life had been as a Government fleet car – and as an executive class vehicle, though it’s a long shot, it is not without the possibility that sometime in our family sedans history it has been used to transport the Prime Minister of Australia… 😉