My old car was also a Cooper convertible so there was I thinking I'd be a dab hand - after all how much could a car have changed in only six years. A lot, it turns out. Blimey, how many buttons and switches can one little car need?
My outgoing Cooper was a doddle - a button to open and close the roof, a couple for the windows, stick the key in and away you go. Easy peasy. This new one has a dashboard that looks like mission control.
Now I'm all for progress but honestly why would anyone need inside lights that change colour? Apparently I can choose whether I'd like mine to be anything from an off white through to blue. Unfortunately they're currently a bilious green and I haven't worked out yet how to change them so I drove along tonight looking decidedly alien like.
This car even tells you what gear you should be in. This new technology is all very sensible I'm sure but I'm sad that eventually it'll mean there'll no longer be drivers like a friend of mine who seems to change gear with the tides. We'll be whizzing along nicely in fifth and she'll suddenly shift into third for some bizarre reason - it's probably a miracle the engine has actually stayed in the car at all.
Perhaps I'm just a dinosaur and I'm sure I'll soon be wondering how on earth I ever managed without interior lights that change colour, but it does seem a long way from the simple days of my 2CV, which felt like driving something held together by rubber bands. It was the only car I've ever owned where you could take the front seats out and use them as picnic chairs!
My new blue Mini is very pretty and I'm sure we'll get along fine once I've worked my way through the instruction manual and found out what all those dials and switches actually do. Now I just need to find out how to turn off those blessed green lights.....
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