My Mercedes Coupe is almost ready for the scrapheap. Post-Covid, how do I travel around London?

Houston, I’ve got a problem, I don’t know how to get about anymore?

I’ve owned my own car since I passed my test back in the late Eighties and since then I have had many cars, including most gloriously a British racing green Daimler with a tan leather interior.

Apologies for being unfashionable but I do like a nice car. I blame my partner who once owned a champagne gold MK10 Jag, a metallic beast, as wide as a jumbo jet, with picnic tables in the back. It was a total Diana Dors of a car. We both adored it, but it was like keeping a pet footballer, far too expensive to maintain.

What I’ve never owned, not since I leased a rather sensible VW Polo for a few dull years in the Nineties, is a new car, come to think of it, I’ve never spent more than £2,500 on a car in my life.

Consequently, because I buy cars that have been around the block a few times, every couple of years, I’m faced with having to buy a new one. What can I say? Undercarriages corrode, engines seize up, alternators fail and eventually the man in the car surgery (garage) shakes his head and delivers the fatal news. “Cost you more in repairs than it’s worth, lady”, and another one turns to scrap.

I’ve been driving Mercedes Coupes for the last decade or so. I think I’m on my third, all silver – I like silver cars, I could never buy a red one, particularly a red Ferrari, they’re awful.

My most recent car, circa ’92, comes complete with glorious black leather upholstery and butler belts. For those unfamiliar with butler belts, the deal is that the passenger sits in their seat and once the ignition is turned on, the seat belt is mechanically offered over one’s shoulder. It’s incredibly civilised and I resent any car that has me scrabbling around for bits of strap and buckle.

However, despite the fact that it’s like sitting in a fetish cinema and has a walnut dash, it is also nearly 30 years old and has started to go mouldy. Moss rampages along the windows, rust attacks its sills, the undercarriage has all but corroded through and it takes 20 minutes to de-mist. I know that it scrapes through its MOT like a girl who only bothered to revise the night before. I can stomach the fact that it smells quite bad, I but what I can’t cope with is that it doesn’t work any more.

My car conked out in March, a week or so into lockdown. Basically, as soon as I stopped using it, the battery died.

I knew it would be silly to ask the AA to fix it, only for it to happen again. The old girl needs regular long drives to get her juices going and back then we weren’t allowed to make unnecessary trips (insert Cummings gag of your own choice here).

The problem now is that the car has been comatose for so long that I doubt she’ll ever fully recover again. In any case even if she does, she will soon fail the London low-emissions test and have to retire to the country. Meanwhile, she sits outside the house, looking very sorry for herself.

My hand is being forced early. Do I ditch the car and buy something more environmentally friendly or go carless?

Pre-corona, I was a very happy user of public transport. Post-corona, I’m not. This is possibly the biggest impact the virus has had on my everyday life. I’m now scared of buses and tubes, and both practically and financially, it’s a terrible shame, especially as I have an over-60s Oyster card. Oh, the waste.

So my choice now seems to be a “new” old (but low-emissions approved) car or a bike. Personally, I’m very tempted by those new electric scooters that people are driving illegally all over London, but I’m trying to save money, not waste it all on fines.

Sadly, what with my gig money having been decimated, I certainly can’t afford an electric car and because most modern cars leave me cold, that leaves me with the bike option.

As there’s a very steep hill between my house and the shops, any bike I bought would have to be electric – hmm, that’s pricey for transport with no roof, and then there’s the storage space it would take up indoors, the road safety angle, plus the weather to factor in. Suddenly the bike has a lot less appeal, as sadly it won’t be summer forever.

Of course there is one other option. The classic car, any car over 40 years old, is exempt from the low-emissions rule and as long as I stay out of the congestion zone, which would be prohibitively expensive, then I could swan around locally in something really exciting.

Ok, readers check your barns and outhouses, I’m looking for a 1970s Ford Capri. I’ll even take it in red.