My first car, a wonderful Triumph 2000 saloon, 1967 model, navy with wine-colored velvet upholstery. Drove like a dream, but had this tendency to get up to about 85 mph while I wasn't paying attention. The good thing about that was that the car actually looked like a beat-up old Datsun (if you weren't looking too closely), not like a fast car, so I never got stopped.

How I wish I could find another! But rare in England, impossible to find here in California.

But I was recently able to buy my husband HIS dream car for our tenth anniversary. Fortunately his tastes are humble: It's a 1961 Buick Skylark, two-tone blue and white, and he drives it everywhere! It was Buick's first foray into "muscle cars" and has a high-performance aluminum engine, but because the engine was (and is) pretty high-maintenance, the car was only made for three model years.

It's great fun being able to do that for the one I love, but it's a good thing he's not a Hispano-Suiza fan...

Claire