The Cars I have driven over the last 20 years (1996 - 2005)

Side view of the Toyota Harrier 

        In 1994, I started my first business with 2 friends from University. Times were hard, and we worked long hours, and we made do with little then. My eldest boy Noel was born in 1994, and my business was slowly but surely growing. In 1996, I decided that as a small businessman, I could finally afford a Mercedes, do after doing my sums and looking around in the newspapapers, found, a 190E (2 litre) Special which was selling for about S$ 90,000 (if I recall correctly). The car was about 2 years old. 

    It was white, and was the baby of the E class series then.  I had a young child, another kid on the way, and things were looking good. That was in 1996. In June 1997, I remember, I went to Germany for the Worldwide Sales training of my then principal, and they asked something about the 'Asian economic 'flu'. ASEAN was riding on a strong economic wave, and people were making alot of money from the stock market and also property, so we said, "No problem, its only some problem in Thailand". Little did we know that 6 months from June in Jan 2008, was the start of the Asian Financial Crisis.

      After a good 10 - 15 years of solid economic growth (1982 - 1997), S.E. Asia was touted as the 'darling' of investors worldwide, and modernity had come to all the cities. People were flush with cash and took excess credit to buy things that they never had. Countries did the same things too borrowing more than they could afford to finance their infrastructures and coffers. We all know what happened next, Asian currencies went spiralling and bouncing up and down from the Financial Crisis.

     I drove the Merc through all of it, thick and thin. It was fairly reliable, servicing costs were reasonable, and I made several trips with the family and friends to Malacca. In 1997, my second boy Andrew was born. So the Merc was a reliable workhorse for me. After 2000 (4 years after I bought it), it showed signs of age, and servicing became more common. I had an unforgettable battery failure in 1999 at Orchard Link (going on to Orchard Road), where the 2 lanes became only 1 lane, after my car battery died on me. It may have caused me the most unforgettable stress in a long while, as my car breakdown had caused a massive traffic jam, and many drivers drove by and gave me glaring looks !!

      I finally sold the car in 2002, after I realised that the old car (8 years) was costing me a lot in terms of service. Every 2 months there was some problem or other, so it was time for a change. 

      That would be my Nissan Sunny. Ever dependable and really a workhorse.