I’m paroled! Hurray!

Technically, referring to the car you’d use “der” as that is the correct usage for describing a car from a brand (der Opel, der Ford, etc.), even though you say “das Auto”. Mercedes being a female first name, you could argue that in such a case “die Mercedes” would be grammatically correct. But no one uses that in…

Me too, for several years, the other way around. Please enlighten me!

Absolutely. The weird laws of car appreciation.

Now, if everything you mention above is true, these should be a dime a dozen in Europe, whilst the Elise should be super expensive second hand. Well in France at least it turns out to be the opposite. A Turbo Speedster will be 30k€, whilst an Elise with lower mileage will be 25k€. Super weird that an Opel should be…

You’re basically disregarding the fact that at one point in the (probably) not so far future, range will be extended to a point where an electric car will be able to run an entire day, whatever the mileage. Then, unless you park in the desert, you’ll be able to charge it while you sleep, since the charging network…

Well, now that you mention it, the XM is probably up there with the young-timers classics. I tend to forget about it as it had a weird style for the era, but wasn’t conventional. And I think it aged better than the BX, AX or the horrible ZX (French police had plenty to crash). I’m sure they’re already rising in value,…

They’re really nice cars, and since Citroen didn’t produce anything of interest afterwards except for the CX, and some very rare rotary-engined cars, the DS is the big icon of the brand. Even the sort of iconic, and much older Traction can be had for cheaper. Generally speaking, classics in Europe become very…

It’ll depend on the brand. My comparison certainly was an exaggeration, but any brand new diesel I encounter here still sounds awful (I mean for the outside, in the cabin it’s certainly more quiet), but the smell of diesel is the worst. I have headaches each time I’m exposed to street traffic for too long here (far…

You mean because the suspension fails? Bada-bush! I’ll see myself out.

Considered classics everywhere, they fetch a dear price even in their country of origin. It’s possible to get a basic car for less than 10.000€, but most clean examples are pricier...

I wish you guys knew how terrible it is to be surrounded by diesel crapcans. That way you’d stop lusting after every single one you see whilst this side of the pond. They stink, sound like tractors and make their drivers forget how to shift or brake correctly. I fucking hate diesel.

That’s excellent! Well as I said, you’re free to roam around Paris anyway since it’s not on French plates. There are two places I’d recommend for a night shot. The line 6 metro is mostly overground, and crosses the river on each side of the city. Both bridges are also for cars and pedestrians, whilst the metro is…

What plates do you have? Foreign vehicles are exempt anyway :)

Absolutely! Though the mayor of our wonderful city has decided it’s too good to be left to cars alone and institues all kinds of annoyances to make us give up our wonderful habbit. No-car day prior to the Paris Motorshow, blocking access to roads that were built next to the river for fast city crossing (and “giving…

And I mean fair enough if they could just force them to pass something to drive these like they recently did here with 125cc scooters for people who have a car licence. Before, you didn’t need anything else than the car licence to ride one of those (which also tells you how riders of those scooters behave on the road…

Yes, absolutely, I meant to underline your statement by the fact that in some irresponsible countries like France, you don’t need a license at all, which is crazy.

It’s a 1977 base model, in, you guessed it, beige! It has the old dashboard (no rev counter) but with the 4-speed lever on the floor. The engine is the tiny 900cc, but since the car weighs next to nothing, I’m faster off the traffic light than any SUV who doesn’t pay attention :) Also, it only has 58.000 km on it as…

30+ year old cars registered as classics. It’s dead easy to do, my Renault 5 is like that.

Funny but most people forget you can register your 30+ year old car as a classic, and drive through Paris whenever you like, since the ban doesn’t apply to classic cars.