I’M getting a new car soon - and it’s breaking my heart.

While I’m looking forward to finally, for the first time in my life, being at the wheel of a brand new vehicle, I’m bereft at having to say goodbye to my 14-year-old Peugeot.

I’ve had that little car since 2012 and it has never let me down. Year after year it passed its MOT, and I’ve driven it all over the country, in all weathers. It has got me safely to work and home again through snow and ice. It was loaded up with my belongings when I moved house three times in two years. It was the car that I took on road trips and mini breaks, and the car I drove my dad in to hospital appointments, and later to the hospice.

TOJ (I didn’t set out to give my car a name, but TOJ is its registration and it quickly became known as such to my family and friends) has been my trusty car through some of the most significant times - good and bad - in my life.

Now I have finally faced facts: I need a new car. They don’t last forever and I don’t want to reach the stage of constantly forking out to keep an old vehicle on the road. So I’ve bitten the bullet and am leasing a new one. A proper grown-up car that doesn’t feel like sitting in a tin can. A car with a de-mister that doesn’t take half an hour to kick in. A car with windscreen wipers that don’t sound like nails on a blackboard. A car with a door handle that isn’t held together with gaffer tape. A car with high tech mod cons like sat nav and that beeping thing that guides you into a parking spot.

While I’m sure this will all make driving a more pleasant experience, it’s a bit lost on me because I have zero interest in cars. My nephews, who seem to have been petrolheads since they were toddlers, are incredulous that I can’t tell the different makes and brands of cars. I know the obvious ones, like Mini and Land Rover (just don’t ask me to name the various models) and I think I know what a Rolls Royce looks like, but apart from that I haven’t a clue. I wasn’t even sure what my car is. Apparently it’s a Polo - not that I’d recognise one if I saw one.

It must be some kind of mental block. As far as I’m concerned a car is purely functional - something to get from A to B in. I have no idea how they work (I once went to car maintenance evening classes and didn’t understand any of it. As soon as a bonnet was opened up to reveal the engine I totally lost interest) and whenever people start waxing lyrical about the gizmos and gadgets in their cars I zone out.

I had no sentimental attachment to my first car, in fact I hated it. It was an unreliable Fiat Uno, with an engine that decided to cut out whenever I stopped at traffic lights. My halcyon driving days were when I was a reporter on a rural patch, a job that came with a company car. I used to love tootling round the countryside for work and I never had to pay for petrol, something my friends took full advantage of when I became their regular taxi driver.

I’ve had several cars but TOJ is the one I’ve had longest. I know it’s just a lump of metal but it’s like an old pal, and in recent years it has been part of the family. When my sister’s car lease came to an end we decided to share TOJ. It was during the pandemic and, with me working from home and not needing a car so much, it made sense. Car-sharing has worked well, not least in splitting the running costs. My youngest nephew learned to drive in it too.

Now the day is coming when I will have to let TOJ go. It feels like a bereavement, which I know sounds melodramatic, but it seems I’m not alone. “I sobbed all the way there. I felt like the executioner,” said a friend, recalling the day she drove her beloved car to the scrapyard. “I couldn’t bear to sell it - it would be like losing a family member,” said another friend, who clung on to her 16-year-old Polo, which her daughter now drives.

Farewell, TOJ. It’s time to trade you in for a younger model - but I will never forget you.

* Have you found it hard to let your car go? What was your first or your favourite car? Email emma.clayton@nqyne.co.uk