On a quick check, my old BMW had travelled the equivalent of nearly 11-and-a-half round trips between London and Bangkok, only about 45,000 miles short of the distance from Earth to the Moon.
It has churned up autoroute kilometres in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. It may have popped over the Italian and Spanish borders. It almost died once on the road to Honfleur after a certain individual checked the oil at the start of the journey but neglected to put the oil cap back on.
And with the new (or was it reconditioned?) engine inspired by that close encounter, it has lived happily enough in London, Paris and the south of France. Leaving aside the oil mishap, it has clocked up 193,000 miles without needing much by way of major repair, sailing through MoT tests in Britain and the contrôle technique in France.
Without air conditioning, unless you count opening the window, it was not really cut out for Mediterranean summers. But nor did it have much quality of life when shut away in the garage in London, uninsured and (legally) untaxed to save money, while its owner nipped between France and the UK in a smart little Clio.
And now it has gone. The first week on eBay was hardly a roaring success, the bidding starting at an outrageous 99p and struggling to get much higher. The man who placed the highest bid, at £255 way below my reserve, wrote to ask if I'd therefore "give" it to him for that price. No I wouldn't give it to him.
Instead I tried again, even lowering the reserve by a fiver from £500. I've always sneered at the "special price: £99.99" family of sales devices, but £495 does appear to have a friendlier ring to it than £500. Bidding was brisker and quickly rose above £200. And then came a no-nonsense offer at my bottom line figure.
It seems a desultory amount for a car that still runs so well and looks quite handsome. But I realise its age - 15 - makes it virtually worthless.
So DKN138N has a new home, but its meaningful travelling days seem to be over. The buyer, another Colin, runs the Skid Control centre at the Goodwood race track in Sussex and it is there that the old fraulein will see out her days.
Where does Molière come into this?
He doesn't really, except that Malcolm, the chap who arrived with a low-loader to take the car away, plans to move 18 months from now to Pézenas, where the French bard lived and worked when he, too, was on the skids (things had gone amiss in Paris).
Pézenas was to breathe new life into Molière; Goodwood is about to the same for the BMW.
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