I keep teasing Paul that this is his mid-life crisis car – its 2.5L engine purrs in a way that I am totally unaccustomed to!  I’ve certainly never known him brush the leaves off a car before.

On Wednesday evening we took possession of a brand new Rally Blue Subaru Impreza (this is Subaru’s signature color for their rally cars, hence the name).

Having considered both used and new cars, we came to the conclusion that this way we know what we are getting and hopefully reduce maintenance costs for the first few years.

We wanted a car that was not too huge but which did have at least hatchback space for transporting things as we will undoubtedly need to buy things when we find a house. Then there are all the outdoor activities we hope at some stage to try . . .

We also felt that it was important to buy a car that is designed to cope with Canadian winter. All Subarus have AWD (all wheel drive) and traction control. We bought ours with winter tires already fitted, hence ugly wheels for now – we have to wait for the spring for our alloys! (In Canada it is best to have two sets of wheels and tires; our dealer will change these over free of charge and store the set not in use) In addition to the niceties you would expect in the UK, we also have heated seats and heated windscreen wipers. (In taking the photos below, I realized that this car definitely smiles – can’t be a bad thing! Click to see the full version of the photos, which were taken in portrait rather than landscape mode.)

The guy who sold it to us (who juggles car sales with TV production) had an e-mail pinned above his desk from someone who had come back from a vacation to find her car buried under the snow piled at the kerb by the snow-ploughs. Whilst her neighbours looked on open-mouthed, she cleared her windscreen, dug her way into the driver’s door, then drove out of the drift! Whilst I hope we don’t need to do this, it is reassuring to have a car that copes well with snow.