Yellow

Thirteen thousand dollars and two weeks.

That was the situation. The GC8 was gone, the family car was borrowed on goodwill and a deadline, and somewhere between grief and practicality a decision had to be made. This wasn't about a dream car. The dream had just driven away with a stranger. This was about being smart. About not spending everything just to feel something.

Budget set. Seven to ten thousand. Non negotiable.

Three conditions. Low kilometres. Manual. JDM. Everything else was flexible.

The searching started immediately. Late nights after work, car sales sites memorised page by page, the same listings cycling through like a loop. High kilometres or badly presented. Badly presented or overpriced. The budget was doing what budgets do — narrowing the field until almost nothing remained. Days passed. Nothing worth calling about.

Friday night. A few new listings had appeared. One caught the eye long enough to stop scrolling.

Eight thousand dollars. Fourteen thousand kilometres. A 2005 Mitsubishi Lancer VRX.

Yellow.

Not a colour ever considered. Not once. But everything else on that listing was exactly right. The spec sheet read like someone had built the car with intent — 2.4 litre four cylinder producing 125 kilowatts and 226 Newton metres, five speed manual, disc brakes at all four corners, factory strut braces. A standard car that came from the factory thinking about performance. The pictures confirmed it. Black interior, white dials, clean factory wheels without a mark on them.

One phone call. One viewing organised for Saturday morning.

He was an older gentleman. Neat, calm, the kind of person who takes care of things. A helicopter pilot, which explained a lot. We walked over to the carport and the car sat there in full yellow. Just there. Certain of itself.

Not a mark on it. Not a scratch, not a chip. Interior pristine, the seats with just enough bolstering to remind you this wasn't a base model. He started the engine and it purred — not demanding attention, just running, content. He handed me the keys.

The drive confirmed everything the listing had suggested. Gearbox changes smooth and deliberate. The factory strut braces doing exactly what they were designed for — cornering felt planted. The chassis doing what it was built to do. Steering connected. No turbo, no drama, no need for either. Sporty enough to be genuinely fun. Honest enough to earn it.

Back at the carport I asked the obvious question. Why sell something this good?

He hated manual, he said. Loved the idea of it, found the reality a chore. Then he opened the garage door. Parked inside was the same car. Same model, same spec. Automatic. He'd bought it to replace this one. He was a car person who knew exactly what he wanted and went and got it. Simple as that.

We spoke for a while. About the car, about the GC8, about why it had gone. He listened. No interruptions. No unsolicited opinions. Just listened. Then he said it.

You seem like a nice guy. Put a deposit down today and I'll take two hundred and fifty off. Full tank on pickup.

An offer from a stranger. Unprompted, uncomplicated, reaching out with a quiet helping hand. Not a sales tactic. Just decency.

Before I answered, I took one last look at the car. A step back. Taking it all in — the yellow, the flat silver wheels, the black interior visible through the glass. It worked. Effortlessly, without trying. This car wasn't reaching for something special. It simply was what it was, held in its own quiet confidence. All of it packaged in a 2.4 litre sedan that cost eight thousand dollars and had fourteen thousand kilometres on the clock.

Yes. Gladly.

The week that followed moved slowly the way anticipation always makes time move. No more borrowed cars. No more coordinating around someone else's schedule. Independence was coming, and it couldn't come fast enough.

Friday evening. As promised — full tank. Keys handed over with a handshake and a simple instruction. Enjoy the car.

That instruction was followed for eight years.

Great Ocean Road, windows down, the 2.4 finding its rhythm through every corner. Camping trips, the car loaded and willing. Saturday mornings with nowhere particular to be. The Lancer asked for nothing extraordinary and gave back everything it had. Serviced on time, washed every week, left entirely original because nothing about it needed improving. It was the right car at exactly the right time — bought for practical reasons and loved for human ones.

It's easy to take for granted what you have, until it's gone. A lesson that kept finding new ways to teach itself.

Then the recall notice arrived.

Standard procedure, they said. An incorrectly fitted brake pedal on affected vehicles during production. Worst case, brake circuit failure could impede full pedal travel. A day at the dealership. Simple enough.

The car was handed over in the morning. Photos taken of the exterior — stone chips noted, condition documented. Standard procedure. Come back at the end of the day.

The drive home that evening started like any other. Keys returned, paperwork signed, settled into the seat.

Then it hit me. One. Two. Five. The more I looked the more I found, and the more I found the worse it got.

The dash. Scratched. Door panels, scratched. The glovebox, deep marks that hadn't been there eight hours ago. The piano black trim around the head unit looked like it had been cleaned with something that had no business touching it.

Back inside. The service technician who'd signed everything in and out listened and then looked at the car. Acknowledged the scratches. Asked what about them.

The rage arrived quietly, the way real rage does.

What about them. They weren't there this morning.

He argued they were. He was shown to be wrong by his own photos — the ones taken that morning, standard procedure, supposedly to protect everyone involved. More people came over. Faces changed as they zoomed in. Managers appeared. Words were used carefully, responsibility avoided just as carefully.

He said there seem to be some issues here that need addressing. He would be in touch.

The drive home that night was long. Not in distance. A car that had been looked after for years, every scratch and chip known and catalogued, handed to people who treated it like it didn't matter.

He called back. Willing to attempt repairs. A date was set.

Five hours later the call came. Parts couldn't be sourced for a car this age. A second-hand supplier had been tried. What arrived was worse. Someone had attempted to polish out the scratches instead. The piano black was now foggy from over-polishing. The scratches had been sanded to low points surrounded by swirl marks.

What do you want for a twelve year old car.

That sentence. Said without flinching.

The keys were handed back. Head office was called. The response was coordinated and final — photographic evidence was inconclusive, the dealership had gone beyond what was required. They offered nothing more. If I was to take it further, it would all be on me. The matter was closed.

The Lancer got driven for weeks and months after that. Still washed. Still serviced. The motions maintained while something underneath them had quietly changed. The love was still there, underneath everything. But it had been complicated by people who saw a twelve year old car and treated it accordingly.

It was around this time the searching started again. Not urgently. Just quietly, the way things begin when a chapter is already ending without having been told yet.