I once took some pictures of the interior of my first car, Angelica, but I've no idea what happened to them. They were probably on that same film that didn't come out, which I keep going on about like a bitter lemon. Here instead are the first pics taken of Nicolexia's insides. You can probably spot straight away that the rear surfaces of the front seats were a little dirty and tatty. Nothing particularly surprising there, but what you can't see so well is that the whole interior was a little tatty, and not up to the standard of Angelica. There were the usual rips on the driver's seat, and the ceiling required a very arduous rubbing down with some whitening cleaner, which took a whole afternoon because the part had been left underneath the car gathering mould and plant life before my purchase. It was also cracked in a few places and fitted in slightly uncomfortably. (This is common where the ceilings have been removed, as they are very difficult to insert back in without breaking).

I think it's high time I had a mini rant about that interior light! How many of you actually have one that works? Not many, I'll bet, since the plastic casing always gets slightly broken and renders the entire thing useless. Finding replacements is almost impossible. In the picture above it is being held on by pure illusion, some undiscovered force - probably a cobweb or a draught - is keeping it in place. In addition, the rear view mirror in Nicole always falls off when it's hot. Grrr.

That was my self-immobilising stereo down below the fan switch. It was just about the crappiest audio-generating box that could ever be fitted inside a car, but it was great because the cassette actually worked (rarity), as did the radio, yet nobody would ever want to nick it. You can just about see the original colour of the car around the small triangular area in the bottom right corner of the windscreen. It was a powder blue similar to others that I have seen. Most of the other areas of blue that you can see, however, had been covered by the second darker coat that was applied some years later with a brush.