Project Petrolhead

If you read this on the day it’s published, then Mother’s Day is tomorrow (yes, that means there’s still six hours to run to the petrol station to grab a bunch of flowers and a card). My Mum’s had an eclectic mix of cars over the years. As Dad spent the majority of my childhood tooling about in work vans, Mum had to drive the family car. That’s meant everything from the smallest Rover 100 Kensington to the most enormous land-barge that is the Volvo S60 (5-cylinder diesel as well!).

When Dad stopped needing a van, he inherited the big saloon/estate and Mum was free to go for something more practical that fit her life better, ebbing and flowing from a Peugeot 207 SW Outdoor (a sort of jacked-up French crossover with a gutless little engine), briefly stopping off at a Honda Jazz (not briefly enough if you ask me), and then plumping for a brilliant Fiat 500-come-dog van that spent the majority of it’s time with it’s rear seats folded down so her Cocker Spaniel could live in the back.

With the arrival of the dog, a turn was taken toward larger offerings. The Fiat was traded up for a Ford Kuga (a surprisingly rare sight in its dark-green paint), which dutifully hauled both dog and caravan all across the country. Once the need for a tow-car passed, Mum opted for another small car, harking back to her Fiat 500 while keeping the ability to transport the dog. A Fiat Tipo Estate fit the bill perfectly, ticking the boxes for practicality and economy. I’ve only driven it a very short distance, but squeezing the most from the 1.4 litre petrol did put a smile on my face, with the skinny tyres and roly-poly handling making it genuinely fun to hustle down a road.

She’ll never admit to it, but Mum absolutely likes to rag the little Tipo, treating the road between her house and the dog park as a tarmac rally stage. Lifting off the throttle to rotate the car and send the front end into a corner and then powering out of it in style, pinging off the redline. For legal reasons, some of that is embellishment, but I won’t say which bits!

Who knows what she’ll go for next. It could be a Mercedes E63 AMG wagon or an electric Renault 5 hatchback, all I can tell you is that it won’t be ‘normal’, because life’s too short to drive boring cars.

Happy Mother’s Day Mum!