Citroën 2CV

The thing that has always made a car special to me is its ability to provide a great deal of function with a minimum of sophisticated hardware. I’ve written plenty over the years about expensive and complex cars, but that love of simplicity is why my ownership past is littered with 2CVS, Lotus, Caterhams, motorbikes, microlight aeroplanes, Minis and other cheap stuff.

It’s also why our household 53-plate Citroën Berlingo – worth the same £1500 it has been commanding for the past five years – still sticks enjoyably around. The ride, steering and carrying capacity are simply better than some cars costing 20 times as much. It’s why my eyes lit up today when they fell on a superb 1.3-litre Vauxhall Chevette low-miler in the classifieds.

For me, power, speed and price can be turn-offs, especially if they encourage antisocial behaviour. I like performance, but aggression and roadhoggery are things I long ago learned to hate. Machines that achieve 80% of the function with 30% of the gadgetry get me going more now than ever before, although truth be told they always did.

Beyond all this, I think character is often conferred on a car by some capability that’s simply out of kilter with its surrounding characteristics. For example, the way a 2CV grips, versus its unlikely body roll and its even more unlikely tyre section, spells character. The way the latest smallcapacity three-cylinder engines propel quite bigbodied cars with amazing willingness does plenty for me. Steering, ride, engine response: if they greatly exceed the norm, the car has character. Especially if the looks are pleasantly weird.