My car, a 1999 Audi A4 Avant break, or station wagon, had been slow starting up on the cold mornings we’ve been having in the last week. So I decided to go get the battery replaced. I started at a generic garage that I’ve used before. But they didn’t have the right size replacement. Ergo – Latin for "exhale" – I ended up going to the Audi dealership, Sterling Automobiles in the SE suburb of Toulouse called Labege.
Our car has over 244,000 klicks, or more than 151,000 miles, on it. So while the battery and the pollen filter are getting replaced, I decide to stroll around the showroom floor. You know, just browsing.
Now as I said, our car is a station wagon. I remember pointing to M once, "You just don’t see many station wagons in the US. Everyone has a minivan or an SUV." But over here, you see plenty of breaks. And most of the non-breaks are hatchbacks.
Anyhoo, the showroom floor has several breaks on display. A couple are smaller than our car and some are the same size or a little bigger. All of them were the same color as ours: gray.
Blog interruption: Today, one euro is worth approx. $1.50.
I see one break that even has an automatic transmission, or TipTronique. You don’t see many automatic transmissions here. And then I looked at the pricing sheet on a stand next to the car. The price for this family station wagon was a touch over 70,000 euros, or about $105,000. Uh-hum-uh-nuh-hum-uh-nuh.
I note that this wasn’t even the most expensive model on the floor. Over in the front corner, roped off like some sort of art exhibition, was a new Audi R8. This little sports car had a sticker of 105,000 euros, or more than $150,000. Wonder if they’d take our break in on trade.
Newmans of Leguevin 