WE bought our Magna TS sedan at Christmas time, 1994, when our daughters were just seven and four years old. 

By the time the Magna took its final journey a few months ago it had done nearly 200,000 kilometres, carrying us to work, shopping and holidays and the girls to primary school, high school and university. They had grown from back-seat passengers to front-seat drivers.

Meanwhile, the Magna had gone from carrying lunchboxes and sports uniforms to coping with whatever it is that young women pile on to and under the seats of the vehicles they drive. It still had the dents and scrapes of dozens of encounters with letterboxes and shopping trolleys in car parks. The driver’s door, a rear-view mirror, and the rear bumper were not original; many other bits should have been replaced long ago.

We had tried to sell the car about eight years ago, but found there was no demand for the four-cylinder TS. A few years after that, a wrecker said he would give me $100 for it, but he was none too keen. (“There’s already 20 white Magnas in the yard, mate!”)

So the Magna soldiered on for another 30,000 kilometres. By this year, it was being registered in three-month blocks, its services were down to the minimum required to preserve life and limb and it needed two new tyres. Black mould was growing on its roof. It had become a constant concern, like the legendary elderly relative.

Then our younger daughter solved our problem by running the Magna gently (“I was only going 30 kilometres an hour, dad”) up the back of another car in the queue turning right to a Saturday night Brumbies game. Even in the dark, it was clear that the damage to the Magna’s front end was worth many times more than the car itself. The other car suffered barely a scratch. Our daughter and her boyfriend were talkative but unhurt.

The accident had been caused by a taxi cutting into the line and the cars behind it braking sharply. Our Magna wasn’t quite up for the sudden stop. I would like to find that taxi driver and buy him a drink. For a mere $900 dollars insurance excess, the Magna, good and faithful servant, almost a member of the family, was off our hands.

The Magna sat forlornly on the Belconnen Way median strip for 44 hours while phone calls were made to the RTA (“bring in the plates and the rego sticker and some ID and you can get some money back”), the AFP and NRMA Insurance (“bomb insurance” only, fortunately, so no dickering about inspections). “Maaaate,” said Trevor at the AFP, “leave the rego plates on as long as possible so we can identify the car when people ring up to complain about it – and please move it asap. Try Ezi-Scrap!”

So Ezi-Scrap arrived, $50 changed hands, the rego plates were ripped off and the Magna was driven up the ramp on to the back of the truck for its final lap of honour to the crusher.

In funeral processions in days gone by, the cars kept their lights on. This time, the Magna’s hazard lights blinked and blinked and blinked as it sidled off into history.

I believe that scrap metal is recycled and often ends up as part of something new and shiny. Perhaps our Magna will be born again as a boot lid on a Lamborghini.