feature:

Actually, they are acquisitions in the making, because neither of the two cars concerned has been released in this country yet.

Come March, my wife -a.k.a. The Brunette- is going to be the proud owner of one of the first Abarth (née Fiat) 500s in the country.
When I first saw the new Fiat 500, I dismissed it as the marketing exercise and re-bodied Panda it so clearly was. But then we sat in one at last year's Taste of London gastro-extravaganza in Regents Park and we were both smitten.

The interior was so far ahead, in design terms, of any other supermini out there, it was breathtaking. Certainly it possessed far more flair and brio than the ultra-contrived MINI with its simply ludicrous oversized central speedo and its Fisher Price-designed switchgear.
Word was just circulating back then about the Abarth version and, after a quick test drive of the cooking Fiat 500 -which not so much inspired us, as didn't put us off, as it was painfully gutless- the order was placed. Once we had found an actual Abarth dealer that is, which was a saga all in itself.

For those not following the revival of a relatively obscure former tuning arm of Fiat, Abarth has now been re-positioned as an entirely separate brand and will not be in the business of offering enticing discounts on its products, even in these embattled times, least of all for the sought-after Abarth 500.

Proof of the Abarth's allure is the fact it will be The Brunette's first front wheel drive (or wrong wheel drive as I used to insist on calling it) car since her Renault 5 Campus eighteen years ago and I haven't owned one for twenty years.
Our torque-steering, wheel-scrabbling adventures will, of course, be recounted in detail in a new Auto-Journal when it arrives.

As for our other pending automotive arrival, I am probably still best known, at least in the offline car magazine world, for having been an enthusiastic owner, modder and blower-upper of Nissan Skyline GT-Rs. However, the two year ownership of my last GT-R, the R33 V-spec known as Godzilla, very nearly bankrupted me, with three engine rebuilds needed within a year and I swore never to darken my garage again with another.

However, although initially sceptical about the internet's most-hyped car, the new R35 GT-R, -especially its Martini-cribbed tag line of "Anyone, anytime, anywhere"- I did put a tentative deposit down with Middlehurst Nissan a good while ago and I am now due to get one of the first customer cars in the country in April.

Again, although Porsche and even Ferrari dealers can be heavily bargained with nowadays, the humble Nissan dealer holds sway when it comes to the GT-R.
Still, everyone knows you have to pay top whack to be first kid on the block with the latest toy and we are looking forward to sharing the experiences with you.

(By the way, if you want to make a sensible offer for my lovely Ferrari 456GT, please contact me through the site; I'm running out of garage space...)