Which is why that kind of brace work is indeed illegal in Yurp now.

And a totally normal early Honda powered by a motorcycle engine.

But there's a much more Lego-y Fulvia:

As opposed to a Toronado that’s been made to look like a Cadillac?

Nice driving sim, bro, but the physics engine needs work.

OK, chief.

Thing is, it might well be less of a disaster for this guy, than smashing up a $3000 Subaru Impreza is for your average over-confident and under-capitalised 17y old...

Hmm. It’s basically a couple of tubes, some cloth and 100 rubber bands. So... maybe?

And it wasn’t just a Citroën marketing gimmick; those benches really did unbolt in seconds. My folks never needed to bring seats when out camping.

Peugeots have remarkable talent for refusing to die. Ask any West African taxi driver.

And then there’s the whole wildly successful ‘Move’ microvan branch of the Mira platform:

It sure does, but you can make Nissan Versa like miniaturised 'proper cars' (i.e. sedans) to suit them. That's exactly what happens in India and many other emerging economies. But not in Europe.

That’s an interesting hypothesis: that the inequality of a society is correlated with the success of cheery status-free hoopties. The heyday of that Fiat 5/600, 2CV, Beetle and Mini certainly coincided with the most equal phase in the history of Europe, which is more egalitarian than most other places on Earth to…

By ‘old money’ I meant: while temporarily penniless, and in a broken country after the war, many folk in Europe were used to having money, and had the resources -primarily education- to get it back. They always had some status, and didn’t need a car to prove it. That pretty much describes my parents and grandparents,…

Maybe it has to do with a more individualistic, non-conformist contingent in the population.

And something still, erm, bugs me about this.

And Audi is NSU

Fortunately, a DS's panels unbolt pretty quickly and easily.

Like all Virgil Exner designs, it’s an endlessly fascinating object. But I can’t help remember that it was probably instrumental in unleashing a decade or two of truly dreary retro design from Detroit.

No mention of the official composer of driving music?