But, having just re-read my post it's stirred memories of my first new car in 79. It was a Ford Fiesta 1.1L. I think it cost around £3000! Just enough to fund a couple of options on a new Audi...
Oh, the joy of a car with everything new. It replaced an Austin 1300GT, a firebomb waiting to happen, with its leaky twin carbs directly over the exhaust manifold and the time spent with a rubber tube down the intake throat of each carb balancing them by listening to the hiss... That 1300GT was bought in 1975 with 8000 on the clock and 3years old. I had to take it back to the Leyland dealer I bought it from the same week. Every day it would sometimes make a horrendous gear grinding noise when going into second gear. When they stripped it down they found machining faults in the synchro hubs - there from new of course. One of Leyland's finest from the 70's.
Mind you Fords were no better. My father's new Escort 1.6Ghia had no oil in the gearbox on collection. He didn't find out until 20 miles down the road...
The point here is that while new cars are nice and you feel that because they are new you will have no problems you are the tester of that particular car. Problems can crop up. Myself, I would prefer to drive my new car locally for a week or two rather than collect it, shout Yippee and drive to the other side of the continent.