 Re: modal
I have to disagree. To me, D) implies that she had the chance to buy whatever car she wanted, but that chance has now passed; and so the bit about preferring Hondas is a non-sequiteur (a posh word meaning: "Has nothing to do with what we're talking about").
The sentence means that in former times, she was in a position to buy whatever car she wanted -- but now she's not earning as much, or the price of cars has gone up. The simple past of "can" -- "could" -- makes more sense to me here. |