The Surf has gone

[CaptainBeaky]

Why not get a late, low mileage 3rd Gen and put a non-year plate on it - doesn't have to be a TW@T1 style plate, just an ABC123 or 123ABC. Hey presto, clean Surf, decent image without the red-braces stigma of a BM

Edit: and it'll cost you a stack less than an 840...

[MattF]

I agree with you Matt, and for the environment I work in I really don't conform. I have very long red hair and I am certainly not what people expect when I turn up at meetings. Ironically I think that over the years this has actually helped in a world that has so many conformists. I have made very good long term business relationships simply because people have seen some thing different in me and like you say, feel they can maybe trust me more as clearly I am not making my life easy by becoming a business stereotype.
More recently I have been using a new BMW 525i to goto meetings and that has helped and even a few clients have commented that I have finally bought a decent car. I know they are joking but theres always an element of truth behind there somewhere.
Another reason for not wanting to use the surf for work is that we are country folk..haha and its normally pretty dirty, and full of logs or tools, and you don't feel very business like when traveling a meeting.
I have pretty much made my choice, that because I love it so much I am going to keep the surf, and buy a BMW 840i, I have always wanted one and I get the best of both worlds.
The surf is so cheap to run as a daily vehicle, I use mine a lot and it hardly ever needs attention. Just got it MOTed and all it needed was the front part of the exhaust which cost under 50 squid. Not bad for a 15 year old vehicle.

Well done. Glad to see the independent rationality has won.
It would have been gutting to let the Surf go.

Must admit though, I know what you mean about customers
or clients hidden truths. They do tend to make jokes of things
in a roundabout way to bring a subject up.

p.s: BTW, I'm also a long ginger haired git, with a beard to boot.