please

Nowt wrong with a 2CV – greener, quirkier and sexier than the normal beetle/mini/Fiat 500 options.

Tell her that you'd love her to get one so that you can go dogging together in it. I'd imagine that once you get the suspension rocking, it will keep going for hours. bound to put her off!

Great fun little cars. Surprisingly practical as well. The rear seats come out leaving plenty of room to carry bikes

You have three options;
1 – Kill her
2 – Kill yourself
3 – Kill EVERYBODY

its french rest my case 😳

One of the most fun cars we've ever owned 🙂

great cars. Citroen power!

you know you want to, for all the reasons I came up with in the alps.

Please don't kill me

Poor crash safety.
They are rust buckets.
Lack any sort of equipment that even a basic newer car provides.
They are French.
Apart from that they have a sort of character that appeals to some who know **** all about cars and usually give them names.

I'm an accident investigator and as much as I love cars like 2cv's and other 'classics', unless you are just buying it for a weekend runabout i'd steer clear. If you gonna crash in something, which would you rather it be – a modern car with airbags and passenger safety in mind or something designed to carry two chickens and a basket of eggs across a field by a frenchman.

Dull answer but there you go

Polluting, badly made, dreadful to drive and everyone will laugh at you.

If you have to get something that fits that description, at least make if British. You could get an Austin Maxi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUIxMIyExqE

if this doesn't do it i dunno what will.

Flashy – you driven one? They are fun to drive.

Vadar – very true – they are outrageously flimsy

make sure she gets you one of these 2cv – vans 😆

TJ, yes I have. I would prefer to repeatedly slam my nuts in a door than ever do so again. A dreadful car.

Hmmm – I found it great fun to drive and the roadholding ( but not the handling) surprisingly good. It was a new one I drove tho ( many years ago) so it was not worn out

tell her it will take money out of the wedding fund?
Also that it will be a major ball ache to get anywhere in

Flashy – you driven one? They are fun to drive.

I've driven one – for whatever reason my otherwise-intelligent parents decided to get one – and god it was awful, any kind of junction was a dicing-with-death situation, the complete and utter lack of power… The stupid windows, the noise, that gear stick… No no NO.

she has previously owned one of these

(not the trials bike)

Ahh a Fiat Panda 4×4! Im inheriting ours in a couple of months!

did save my bacon once driving out of hellish icy rollercoaster roads in darkest cornwall

motorway journeys were a long drawn out terrifying process

Panda 4×4. The other car on the Falklands. A great piece of kit.

2CV = a steaming pile of something that rhymes with kit.

For modern traffic conditions, dual carrigeways and motorways they are both too slow to be truely safe, along withtheir antique brake sysytems and levels of crash protection.

They are also not green. The engines may provide a reasonable economy, but the pollutants kicked out from a 60 year old engine design over a modern engine which burns the petrol more efficiently, means its frankly a non green option.

So if she wants a dangerous car that pollutes the planet, then fine. If she's prepared to let her partner and kids travel like that, well, thats just negligent and thoughtless…

Fun to drive on rough country roads where you need the high clearance. Also fun to drive crouched down in the seat, peeping through the ventilation flap, so it looks like the car is driver-less.

My parents had loads of them when I was younger and I had a couple too, though we all preferred the Dyane as it was better built, had a nice hatchback (although you can convert the 2cv into a hatch as well) and was generally prettier. I looked at the prices the other week and was shocked at how much people want for them these days!!

If you get one, buy one with a replacement galvanised chassis or you'll only end up having to get it done after you've bought it anyway.

Buy the cheapest one you can find with tax and mot, let her drive it for a month and if shes still taken with them then sell it and get a decent one. If shes not then sell it anyway.

(Oh for extra fun sabotage it when shes not looking and your not going to be around to help her out.)

Just say no!

Chop it up and build an africar.

Citroen power

now there's two words i never expected to see on the same line

They're slow, crude and you have very little protection in traffic. Bicycles, I mean. Get a 2CV and you'll remember how fun life can be.

She's a grown up, let her do what she wants.
She'll either love it for being everything a modern car isn't or she'll hate it for the same reason.
If your worried about the safety side then get an ex racing one or send it off to be sorted with uprated brakes/ suspension and a roll cage. Convert to unleaded, a bit of port work and fuel injection and you'll have a bit more poke to carry the cage around. You'll probably have lower emissions and possibly even better mpg too!
And a smile on your face! 🙂
And it'll still be cheaper than a recent vintage shopping box.
And yes, it will probably end up with a name!

I'd have thought just letting her drive one would be enough to change her mind. Try it somewhere busy and make sure she's got to find reverse! 😀

My first car was a Dyane6. Would love another- awful, slow, wierd and bloody wonderful.

By any quantifyable modern standard a 2CV is certainly rubbish. Slow, noisy, flimsy.

But that's utterly missing the point. Virtually all moden cars are so utterly devoid of any character you might as well drive a washing machine (And don't mistake 'power' and 'badge' for character either) If you want a classic, go buy one. Don't let others tell you what to buy. Ignore them.
Sure, it's gonna break down and give you grief. You'll need to find a freindly specialist to look after it, but parts will be silly cheap and you'll never loose any money on it if you look after it.
And one sunny day you'll be ambling along watching the world fly past and it'll make you happy and it'll make you smile. You either understand this, or you don't.
🙂

Fun to drive on rough country roads where you need the high clearance.

Christ what roads are you on?! Ive driven all over the country in a car with 6" of clearance and never come unstuck!

Orrible to look at, dangerous to crash in, rust buckets. Id not want my loved one in one.

coffeeking how many crashes do you normally have? Yes there is the 'it'll save me in an eventuality volvo-box' bollocks but seriously dont leave your house without your tinhat and whatever you do dont ride trails as they are slippy/uneven.

get one – think about the insurance, after all, it isn't going to get stolen

Having owned more 2Cv's and van derivatives than I care to remember, to be honest only any good as a summer second vehicle. Very few good ones around these days. Oh and you'll need a garage to keep it in. Great fun though and still makes me smile when I see one.

Loved my Dyane, it was rubbish, scarey and down right dangerous on the motorway, try driving up Milnrow Hill on the M62 in 2nd and then double declutching into 1st and you'll know what I mean. Trips to the Lakes and Scotland for climb/camping it was bloody fantastic, especially when really skint. I used to live in thing for a week at a time going from crag to crag. I'd love one again for the memory value but reckon that I'd be to soft now to drive it for miles. Remember the brakes failed/faded once (actually several times) dropping into Hebden Bridge, when it finally managed to stop with help of a well placed drystone wall I discovered one brake was working and there was a mile(ish) long skid mark down the hill and a tyre with flat and no tread. There was the time I drove round the RAF mountain rescue Landrover that was stuck on boulders, we just bounced our way through, they laugh when I offered they a tow. Oh happy days and I mean it. Sorry to go on but the amount of laughs, tears and down right fun that car was. Cried when it died, floor fell out and the thing split almost in two.