So after the sad loss of our Jimny, we had to accept kind offers from family of any spare car we could borrow.
The favorite is pictured above, an equally rough riding, labouring Toyota ute, where the child was able to see everything up front (giggling with joy, and telling us everything she could see).
The only drawback was squeezing in the three of us, all in the front. And when you're driving around a small town with a baby riding shotgun, well, let's just say that people think you're the banjo players.
We were also fortunate to borrow a Subaru Liberty (below), which was a real treat in terms of acceleration.
However, the low ride and comparative lack of visibility for the child were real drawbacks - especially the low ride.
Stooping to put the baby in her car seat was a killer - our backs, her head.
Once you go 4WD, you just can't go back.
In both cases, I will ungratefully say that filling up either car takes twice as long at the bowser. It was tempting just to keep the tank half full.
And when your jalopy is twice as big as you're used to imagining, we're taking extra care not to bump into things (scraping against hedges and mounting the curb doesn't count).
So to continue the theme of this website, we would like to introduce Nige's brother's own Suzuki mini 4WD, driven here by our darling niece.
Theirs is a Suzuki Jimny Sierra 2009 model, and is used for delivering newspapers (the large door-windows are great for throwing papers out - we've been told "every newsagency has one").
Our niece loves it, calls it 'the silly car' and likes to kick the back of her dad's seat when she's strapped in.
It's definitely a popular car in our family!
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