In 2006 or thereabouts Mrs Knott passed her driving test, so to make family logistics easier we decided to buy her a car of her own. Low running costs and cheap to buy/repair/replace were the order of the day. Imported cars from the Far East (Japan, Singapore) are popular here, but most of them come with automatic gearboxes and I was of the firm opinion that experience should be gained on a manual gearbox.
As such choice was limited, but eventually we found a black Nissan March with a 900cc engine, manual gearbox and surprisingly good Sony stereo.
Relatives christened it the “Mascom 10” in honour of the smallest denomination of prepaid cellphone units… I refer to it as either The Cockroach (won’t die) or The Rollerskate (when nipping around town).
In 9 years I think we’ve put about 100,000km on it and it now acts as stand-in when we need to go somewhere that a smart/big car is unsuitable (shopping at informal traders, town at month end, taking pets to the vet, rubbish to the tip).
