Full holiday mode has now been selected. For many people this means the rigmarole of preparations and organisation, for people like us it means persuading the family to drive to wherever it is you chose to stay, and then quickly establishing stuff you need on arrival.
Tight squeeze on train for broad-hipped Italian
Somehow I managed to persuade Mrs H to let me drive
the 512
to France, in convoy with an ML63 AMG. One day I will recover from the fuel bill, but can now announce that over a 260-mile run on Autoroute and N-roads, the Fandango used 73 litres of fuel compared with the Merc's 77 litres. I don't do mpg calculations when I'm on holiday, but the 512 is currently known as the economical car.
Now, establishing stuff you need. First, find the patisserie boulangerie, next locate the supermarket, then skulk off with a child or two in search of the local secondhand car lots. When all three are completed you can settle in with a glass of rose (price ceiling 8 euros) and begin searching the wonderful leboncoin.fr, repository of all things French and lovable. If you love old Froggy tat as much as I do, this will be some kind of nirvana.
Too much rose can lead to odd desires...
Right now, I'm desperate to buy a proper 205 Rallye but there isn't one very local to me, and heading off for a 500km round-trip would probably lead to divorce, so I've been indulging other fantasies. Like the Peugeot 505 Dangel.
What a machine this is. Established in 1980, Automobile Dangel still makes 4WD conversions for PSA products, but its first experiments used the 504 and 505, both of which were rear-wheel drive as standard. Responding to demand for an off-road Peugeot that could act as a kind of spacious Land Rover Defender, it added a transfer case and a front differential, raised the ride-height and created something that cannot fail to raise a smile.
I would love a Dangel. Stop sniggering at the back.
It's a beach holiday, Harris style
This one
is just down the road from us. . Have a set of photographs ever made you want a car as much? Like all Dangels it's well used and looks tragically over-priced. But I think my Rangie will fail its MOT this year because it was de-catted at some point in the past and now needs plenty of cash spent on it to meet the new regulations. I'm tempted to sell it and move into a Dangel. I just can't think of a cooler, more useful vehicle for one of these harsh British winters we seem to have nowadays.
Would make a cheekily incongruous convoy traveling back to the UK in convoy with an ML63 and a 512 too.
Dangel action here. Well, kind of inaction.