Yes, the time had finally come to retire the old, electrically and mechanically challenged, very ratty old second car. It had given us quite a few years of faithful service, but just too much was failing on it, and it was quickly becoming a boat anchor. As this car is Annie's primary form of conveyance, we needed to replace it with something that had to match her stringent criterion. And that criterion was:

1. » As young as possible,
2. » Preferably European made,
3. » Manual gearbox was a must,
4. » Not too large - hatchback if possible,
5. » Air-conditioned (it is Queensland after all!), and
6. » Must fit within her strict budget (Nope, not saying!)

So after only a few hours trolling the intraweb, she had shortlisted a few candidates. Without going into the list and listing out the good bits and the bad bits for each car, suffice it to say the Audi won hands down. The choice of Audi wasn't influenced by us having had several before, it's just that on paper and in person, the A1 won this battle without even trying. It had everything that was on the list, with the added feature not metioned - quality build. It is a really nice small car that thinks it is a larger sedan - a real pleasure to drive.

Any-hoo, enough talk. Have a look at the following pictures (click to enlarge), and you decide.

(P.S. The White A4 is the family car.)