First look

Well, I managed to sneak out between meetings yesterday to have a look at a car. It was the first time I'd been in a 406 Coupé, and very nice it was too. There was too much snow and not enough time to take it out for a test drive, but I was mainly concerned with the size of the passenger compartment.

The car was a 2-litre SE version, on a 2001 'Y' plate. 64,000 miles on the clock. All the nice toys inside, including electric seats with position memories, climate control and sat nav. One tiny ding in the rear wing, but otherwise in excellent condition. £5,500.

Notwithstanding the fact that this car was a full £2,000 more than I'm hoping to pay, there were a few bad points:

Firstly, the electric seats are a groovy gadget, but we had to get a battery-booster before we could move them to allow me to get in. I didn't check the arrangement, but it wasn't clear if there is another mechanism for sliding the seats forward to give access to the rear seats. I imaging that there must be, otherwise getting anyone in and out would take forever, and be impossible in the event of an accident. Having to hold a wriggling infant whilst inserting the keys into the car and then waiting for the seat to move would be unacceptable. I should have checked, really.

Secondly, the leather. I'm sure that there are a lot of benefits to leather seats, but I'm not sure that I'm convinced. All things being equal, I think I'd prefer a nice cloth. We shall have to see what SWMBO thinks.

Finally, the all-important issue of headroom. This particular car had a sunroof, which lowered the inside of the roof by quite a bit. With the seat tilted right back, I wasn't banging my head on the roof, but I'm not sure that it left me in a very good driving position. I don't know if the sunroof was a standard fit on the SE model; I'm fairly sure that it wasn't on the earlier 'S'. I shall have to pay more attention to the adverts on Autotrader.

The boot looks cavernous, with a lot of space under the parcel shelf that would be hard to reach and useful for the storage of a sizeable LPG tank. It's quite low, though, and I don't know what would fit.