Citroen AX 1.0 Jazz: Guilty Pleasures
Proof less is more - although John Mahoney didn't want to believe it at the time
That's why I'm on my second convertible in a row despite being neither a fan of wind-in-the-hair motoring or skin cancer - but I bought both because, at my laughable budget, the way they drove far outweighed their looks.
954cc, 45hp and quite wonderful
But as I piously preach to you from my PH pulpit that driving dynamics conquer all, I have to come clean. I haven't always been able to park my ego when car buying.
Ignoring the automotive atrocities I had to endure when I was a pup (as my no claims bonus slowly racked up) I most foolishly once bought a 1977 Land Rover Safari SWB over something far, far better to drive.
Instead of the rusty tractor I should have bought a 1991 Citroen AX. However, before you get excited, it wasn't the ultra-rare Sport, GT, nor even the GTI that came later.
Pah, who needs a GT when you have...
I'm serious - I relished every illicit moment behind the wheel of the AX. I say 'illicit' because the car was owned by my Dad's friend, Simon, who never knew how far (or fast) I was driving his London car.
Instead of driving the two or three miles to the MOT station or the tyre fitter, the little AX and I would embark on epic B-road cross country adventures.
It was the lightness that overwhelmed. Weighing just 640kg it was agile in a way I'd never experienced before. It was just so responsive to my clumsy inputs. Too fast meant huge understeer but get it right, be patient, and you could get the rear arcing-round like an old Carlton GSi 3000 - or that's what I thought anyway.
... a 1.0-litre special edition?
Of course it wasn't perfect. Turning the steering wheel made the dashboard physically move and the seat trim dissolved before your eyes leaving just yellow sponge. One of its more entertaining/annoying quirks was the AX's laissez-faire attitude to retaining its wheel trims - which forever meant retracing your journey to retrieve the plastic discusses from the hedgerows.
The four-speed was also nothing to boast about, but that little 954cc single carb engine was a hero. Unrestricted by any cat, it provided just enough go in the real-world to give an impression of a junior hot hatch. OK, that's not true - highlighted by its terrible 13.5-second 0-60mph time - but there was more than enough power to get me into trouble as well as that wonderful feeling of being able to drive a car near flat-out at the tender age of 17 without breaking speed limits or being anti-social.
So why didn't I buy the AX that was still low-mileage, rust-free and cost practically nothing when I was given the chance?
Diesel AX you say? Which way to the 'ring?
On my last ever drive (that needed a cool-down lap of the neighbourhood to cure the smoking brakes) I seriously considered life with the Citroen, I really did, but then I thought of the look on my smoking hot (imaginary) girlfriend's face when I picked her up for a date, or the ridicule of my (sadly, real) mates down the pub when I showed up in the Jazzmobile.
Why I didn't just peel the stickers off, throw the interior away and spend the rest of my life aiming for a sub-ten minute Nurburgring time, I'll never know - but instead a perfectly good car sorrowfully drove off to the scrapyard.
Mercifully, I learned from that feeling of regret and from that day on I can honestly say that a car's drive, not looks, has influenced every car buying decision I've made.
I tried to make it look like a rally car, and drove the nuts off it without ever actually going very fast! Taught me everything I know about lift-off oversteer and throttle balance, so much fun!
Years ago I briefly owned a Pug 106 1.1. Basic little 8v engine, skinny tyres and poverty spec interior. It was such a laugh to drive and it cost pennies to keep on the road.
The Ax is in a different league of tinniness though!
I bought one of these 1.0 AX base models last month just for fun (no reason other than it was in amazing original condition and was local). 50k mies and FSH (no idea what I am going to do with it but it might make a good sleeper with a 16v fitted).
So what its like to drive one of these in todays world?
Its got 4 gears, 50 bhp, no PAS, no electrics, wind up windows, 145 series tyres and is as basic as you can imagine in police car white.
Weighing well under 700 kg it can be great fun, it goes round corners very well, its all about keeping momentum and driving the wheels of it whilst still not going very fast (it will just about reach 99 mph much to the bemusement of a 911 turbo I was enjoying following).
My other cars make the 1.0i Ax look silly, but I really enjoyed driving back to basics no frills motoring (and it drinks hardly any petrol which is a nice change being used to 25 mpg).
I tried to make it look like a rally car, and drove the nuts off it without ever actually going very fast! Taught me everything I know about lift-off oversteer and throttle balance, so much fun!
When I was at college, aged about 19 in 1990 I had a circle of friends I met through a lad at college, even a girlfriend ! her mate had a boyfriend who had the very same car, brand new, a gift for his 18th.
I had a Mk1 Golf GTI, a lot older but obviously, way way faster as it had double the power, er, actually, yes it was faster but that little Citroen could stick to my back bumper a lot longer than I would have expected and corner way better than the tiny tyres would suggest.
I had to pretend I wasn't really trying, I was.
I had a brand new L reg 1.4 D "Jive" in 1993 when I was a student. Being one of the later models, it had a smoothed out dash, integrated cassette player and soft touch plastics on the bits that weren't bare metal. It was very posh.
It didn't get serviced once in 3 years, was thrashed mercilessly pretty much every day, was absolutely brilliant fun to drive and was always the chariot of choice when we decided to go on a student house day trip (to be fair, one flatmate had a 2CV and the other had an Allegro so the choice wasn't difficult).
Sadly, it got written off when a lady in a Scirocco forgot to stop in time and squashed my back bumper up to the back of the front seats
It was given to me free by my dad's mate and was the best thing in the world when I was 17! The single spoke steering wheel was hilarious - if you grabbed the top you could easily get a couple of inches' lateral movement. I managed to achieve such enhancements as a CD player (read: discman gaffer-taped to the dash with a casette-player adapter) and some cracking ICE (some 6x9s attached to the (fabric) rear parcel shelf by virtue of a plank of my dad's decking).
The floor of the boot rotted out, and one day the boot-lid came off in my hands. Yep, the whole thing!
My best mate at the time had a Peugeot 205 of similar vintage, with the same 954cc engine. The pride I felt in my little s
troen when I beat him in a traffic-light GP was immense 
It ferried my mates to and from college every day (5-up) and performed admirable when the Surrey hills were hit with deep snow. I also got it stuck in a field at Reading festival, snapped a spring, wore through the brake pads, and knackered both drive-shafts. I wiped off the passenger wingmirror on three separate occasions. One day, pulling onto my driveway, the cambelt snapped. Dad and I scratched our heads for a bit, bunged another one on and fired it up hoping for the best. It ran perfectly
Safe to say it taught me a lot about cars, driving, and preventative maintenance! Sadly, H726 HLL was scrapped shortly after I sold it to a mate, who couldn't afford the insurance and let it rot on his driveway for a year or so
A few years later, I got given this monstrosity:
954cc of throbbing performance. In many ways it was crap, but it was great fun to drive.
Years ago I briefly owned a Pug 106 1.1. Basic little 8v engine, skinny tyres and poverty spec interior. It was such a laugh to drive and it cost pennies to keep on the road.
The Ax is in a different league of tinniness though!
I ragged the hell out of that little car and loved every minute. The tyres were ridiculously skinny and induced lethal understeer on fresh rain soaked roads and it was really slow (even a friends 1.3 Fiesta mk2 just disappeared), but you could carry enormous amounts of speed on the deserted country roads I grew up on thanks to high ground clearance, soft suspension and the tiny footprint.
My parents swapped it for a new AX 'Debut' after 12-months with the insurance thrown in again, keeping this car for 120k miles before trading it in.
I progressed on to an AX Gti K883GWT which was great fun but didn't appear to have a rev limiter as I once hit 7,200 on a missed change from 1st to 2nd - the K&N 75i I fitted really allowed it to breath and transformed the car.
I loved it. Did a Bradford to Newquay to Cardiff to Bradford road trip back in the day. Great car.
They're surprisingly good off-road as well. Lots of great memories with that beast.
Missed it when I screwed it into the ground and replaced it with a Clio 1.4 RT.
It had no street cred whatsoever and as above was in many ways crap but in a few, very important ways, it was absolutely fantastic and as such became the car of choice for a shotgun ride by my mates...it eventually earned its place as a playground legend.
They were a part of the inspiration for the 205 GTI I now own as one of my cars but I still look longingly at the little AXs.
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