It has eventually happened... we joined the bigger car brigade recently, with this second hand Hyundai Tucson that is classed as a compact-SUV. It is something that we had been putting off for as long as possible, and even now, it wasn't really completely necessary... but as we were shopping around for a new second hand car after the Cerato sedan got written off, we had kept it open as an option if certain conditions were met.

In the Netherlands, we had a tiny little car... one of those nearly half cars, smaller than a hatchback, and mostly we used bikes or a bakfiets.

... but when we got back to Australia, we found that the combination of distances and poor biking infrastructure meant that we had to start using cars more often... and that was when we moved to a Kia Cerato sedan and a little Kia Rio hatchback. Both of which were still comparatively small cars... but our kids thought that they were awesome and huge... until they went to school and saw everyone with their gigantic cars!

... and they kept asking if we would move up to a big car, but we couldn't ever justify it, seeing as we never really needed that much space.

However, in the last year, we picked up a camper trailer from my brother and we started to need to move more harpischords and fortepianos around.... and neither the Cerato or the Rio was good for doing either. Well, the Rio could move small harpsichords, but the trailer was more weight than either car could manage... and that meant that we were constantly borrowing cars from family.

So, when the Cerato died... and we started looking for a replacement, we thought that if we could find a small wagon/SUV that could take the trailer AND have space for harpsichords/fortepianos... then we would really heavily consider it and move up a size class. However, if there wasn't anything available in our price range during the time that we were looking.. then we would opt for a small hatchback replacement... as the hatchback seemed to be a better cargo carrier than the sedan shape of the boot.

... and as luck would have it, we did see a Mazda CX-5... a nice red one, and we went in to check it out, only to find that it had been just sold!

We did try out a large Toyota Kluger... but that was massive! Too big for us, and it would be too expensive to run anyway.

... but we were told that a Hyundai Tucson was coming in, and that was a similar size, milage, and price... and so we ended up checking it out. It fit the instrument transport requirements (we had measuring tapes out...), and it had enough towing capacity to take the camper trailer...

... and here we are... joining the big car brigade, with a small SUV... sigh, it has come to this... at least we are seeing that the fuel efficiency is not hideously above what we were doing with the sedan, but we are not people who will floor the accelerator to be first out of the lights!

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