Beater

Yesterday I was standing at the bus stop waiting to leave for the day, and our service engineer passed by, saw me, stopped and gave me a ride. He moved here from Turkey a few years ago and we started talking about driving in the UK. He told me how strict they were about the driving test (which I have to take, but I can drive around for a year on my US license) and how I should get a cheap car just to get used to driving here, and then when I take the test I can focus on the things they ding you on. Apparently, you get dinged even if you don't check your rear view mirror every 8 seconds. Its also not cheap, somewhere between £50 and £80 each time. He said it took him 3 times. The first time he failed it because there were 2 cars in a roundabout, and while there was a gap between them he didn't feel like it was big enough, so he waited and then went after them. He drove around the anther 40 minutes and then at the end the person monitoring him told him he failed because he didn't go between the cars.

So I started thinking Top Gear challenge style. What could I buy for less than £1000 that would get me around and give me experience on the roads here that I could unload when I was done. The simple answer is a 8-9 year old Ford Mondeo (Ford Contour with a different rear end) but that is a little big. Then I found this thing. 96 Polo 1.4L for £700. With that body kit. I think I'll pass, but the ideas for this kind of experiment are interesting to say the least.