THE DAY THE MAZDA LEFT

Words by Nathaniel Peutherer.

I am not a car guy. I don't refer to my car as “she”. Growing up in a rural area, a car was simply what got you to school, work, the supermarket.

Mine was a metallic grey Mazda 2, just north of 114,000 miles and recently inclined to produce noises that could only be described as “expensive”.

I was sitting in the driver’s seat outside Kwik Fit holding the MOT papers in both hands. “Nearside front brake disc worn and seriously weakened, offside front shock absorber has a serious fluid leak,” and in block capitals, “FAIL”.

I rang my friend Jordan, a car guy, and the proud owner of what he calls a “modern classic” Japanese hatchback, which he posts on Instagram flanked by golden sunsets. He believes engines built in Japan in the late 1990s will outlive us all.

“It failed,” I said.

“On what?”

I read down the list. There was a low whistle from Jordan.

“Still,” he said. “It’s Japanese. That engine can run forever if you sort it.”

“It’s on 114,000 miles.”

“That’s nothing,” he replied. “It could do another century easy.”

He launched into a tale about his Honda, now approaching 200,000 miles and, apparently, immortality. I did not mention that whenever we go anywhere, we take my car because his always needs “a small thing sorting”.

There was something comforting in his certainty: a belief that if you performed the right mechanical séance, the car would reward you with another decade of loyalty. And the Mazda had been loyal. It had made countless runs up to Preston to see my girlfriend, and it had never complained as it trundled across to the Yorkshire coast, boot wedged with surfboards and damp wetsuits.

The problem, however, was bureaucratic. The MOT had expired. The insurance would expire at the end of the month and I was due back in London. The Mazda, therefore, was due for either dignified retirement or a prolonged sulk on my mum’s driveway, a driveway she had already announced would not be hosting “that banger” for another term.

I began with optimism. I would sell it properly. Vacuum the seats, photograph it at flattering angles, low and heroic, taking inspiration from Jordan’s feed. Maybe write something like: “Reliable runaround in honest condition". Which was not entirely untrue.

But after a week of no enquiries, and short on time, it was time to face garages. There is a tone garage receptionists adopt when confronted with urgency. It is the tone of someone explaining that Christmas falls on the same day every year.

“Any chance of an MOT this week?” I began, breezily.

Pause. Keyboard tapping.

“Earliest is three weeks.”

“I need it before the end of the month.”

“So does everyone.”

By the fourth call I found myself pleading. By the sixth, I was pitching it as if it were a humanitarian appeal. By the eighth, I had accepted that my Mazda and I were alone in this world.

At that point I thought of my dad, another car guy, and the sort of man who knew how to speak to mechanics. He would lean on the counter, ask them to “have a quick look,” and through some subtle exchange of eyebrow language, secure an appointment when the rest of us would be told to get lost.

When I bought the Mazda years ago, he came along. He listened to the engine idle with the grave expression of a cardiologist and drove it once round the block. “Not bad,” he concluded, which meant we had struck gold.

Standing in the car park of a garage that could not fit me in, I realised this was exactly the kind of small life admin he used to make evaporate. In his absence, adulthood felt more immediate. Repair, hold on, let go, and knowing the call is yours.

And so, refusing to spend the last days of my holiday on this “banger”, I came up with a plan B: scrap it.

Scrapping a car sounds decisive. In reality, it involves entering your registration into several websites and receiving offers that fluctuate constantly at the whim of a smooth-talking salesperson.

The first quote was not terrible. I permitted myself a flicker of optimism. Perhaps the Mazda, even at 114,000 miles and no MOT, retained a certain market allure.

The scrap man arrived the next day in a flatbed lorry and chewing gum of extraordinary stamina. He conducted the ritual inspection: slow walk, crouch by the rear wheel arch, sit in the front seat with an iPad.

“Over 100k?” he said.

“Yes.”

“No MOT?”

“No.”

He frowned at the screen.

“Offer’s gonna be half what we said online.”

There is something uniquely chastening about negotiating on behalf of something that is clearly on its last legs. I briefly considered defending its honour, citing the steady drives up north along the M6, but suspected this wouldn’t do much to thaw the heart of the stony mechanic.

I signed the paperwork, and as the flatbed turned the corner, I remained in a newly empty space.

Although not a car guy, I remember sitting in the Mazda in the Sainsbury’s car park after my dad passed, engine off, hands resting on the wheel. It will go on to become, as the scrap man put it, “metal”, but for a time it had been a lot more.

Before walking back inside, I looked down at a small puddle of oil on the driveway that I had hidden from the mechanic, and feeling a little smug, I called Jordan to tell him a version of the good news.

It would be better to let him believe the Mazda is out there somewhere, I thought, quietly ticking toward its second century.