After years of driving wacky novelties in GTA Online, I finally bought a good car and realised I've been a huge fool

This week in GTA Online, the shiny Dewbauchee Vagner supercar has a tidy 35% discount. I've heard it's a good car and, being flush with cash from the recent giveaways, I thought I'd treat myself to one. Oh! Yes, that's a good car. That's a really good car. That's great. I've never driven a good car before. If I'd known GTA Online's expensive cars were actually great, not just flashy, I wouldn't have spent literal years of ill-gotten gains on novelty cars and wacky trash. I have amassed sensible family cars, crapmobiles, and racing hearses when I could have been travelling with style, speed, and luxury. And yet, I am still proud of my garage of garbage and wish to show you what I've been suffering through.

I'm only an occasional player and tend to potter about, so it's rare for me to have a load of cash. Most of my big money has gone into properties to access new types of crime plus a few solid workhorse vehicles (an armoured Kuruma, a Buzzard chopper, and a Gargoyle bike). I didn't have the patience to save up for a supercar across yonks of casual play. Instead, I go for instant gratification and keep blowing my crimecash on whims, fancies, and follies.

I have a huge soft spot for the Regina, a four-door sedan with woodie panelling. I had to get the stuffed roofrack too. What a lovely vintage family car. What a terrible crimecar.

I think I'll go for anything with a luggage rack, really, and I adore the stack on top of the Panto smartcar. It's quite fun for zipping around and spinning out of control, like a playground ride you need a license to use. Is it good for crime? It is not.

The Faggio Mod brings a continental flair to my collection. This putt-putting scooter is surprisingly good at wheelies and predictably bad at crime. I trust you've already noticed I sprung for the suitcase rack on the back.

Unlike this crud, the Sanctus is something of a prestige vehicle. This skeletal chopper is only sold during certain annual events - and it's not cheap. (I'm not entirely sure how I ever managed to afford it. Perhaps one of Rockstar's cash giveaways?) It can indeed burn rubber, and then I clip a car and go spreading all of my blood along fifty metres of tarmac. It's impractical for anything serious. To be honest, I only bought it because it's a skeleton-shaped motorbike with red headlamps in its eyesockets and I couldn't resist something so tacky.

On a similarly morbid note, I had to have a murdered out hearse, complete with casket and floral display. This passing tank commander seemed so puzzled by my vehicle that he halted a crime spree to gawk.

At these point, regular GTA Online players might be thinking "Alice, aren't these cheap vehicles?" And they are mostly, yeah, unless you start upgrading them. All of these stupid cars have souped-up engines, transmissions, armour, brakes, mods, custom bodywork, the lot. This isn't a hearse, it's a racing hearse. With enough bad cars, the cost of all those upgrades really adds up.

Is a turbocharged racing hearse good for crime? It is not.

The Rune Cheburek is a beautiful little Lada knock-off, complete with optional cardboard spoiler, intake, and trims for 'gopnik' memes. Terrible drive though.

The Rat-Truck is another vehicle that isn't bad, it's just a bit of a novelty and impractical for a lot of GTA activities. It would have been a lot more fun to buy as a runaround vehicle if I already had an actual good car to drive.

Though I still would have bought my Surfe- oh for, is this tank going to stop to laugh at all my cars?

This isn't my full garage of garbage, only some of the vehicles I bought for no practical reason. While I am glad to have my daft cars and don't want to trade them in, I do wish I had saved up a little cash for something good years ago.

The Dewbauchee Vagner is a cracking ride. It accelerates quickly, it has a high top speed, it's got lovely handling to weave around obstacles, and if I do crash it doesn't send my flailing body rocketing over handlebars. I could have bought several Vagners by now if I hadn't been collecting luggage-laden family cars. My crimelife would have been so much better for so long! Reader, please, learn from my mistakes.

The Vagner has a 35% discount week, bringing it down to $997,750. Rockstar's blog post details bonus payouts on several heists and events this week, if you need a little help. You deserve it.

Disclosure: Like anyone who lives in Edinburgh, I can't help but have some pals at Rockstar. Those people are everywhere.