Maybe I could have kept it on the drive, sorn'd it and worked on it, but at the time I lacked time, tools and competence. In fact, I still lack those things when it comes to working on cars

Just a combo of things. 5 speed made motorway driving quite loud. AC no longer worked. 3 door made getting a kid in and out of a child seat a pain in the back. It had made it to over 100k miles, so I had plenty of fun with it.

I do sometimes think back and wonder if I should have just taken the hit and got someone to rebuild the gearbox on my old 2001 Polo GTI

That soup base looks amazing

I never threw mine away from the days of landline and have since picked up a couple more off either fleabay or fb marketplace for a few quid each for wife and kid

They had to unbrick their first phone?