My first car was a 1964 2CV. It was lobster red with a metal cranking handle to get it going in bad weather and, one day in 1998, it burst into flames on the ring road outside Tunbridge Wells. My second broke in half in Cornwall, and my third collapsed like a soufflé in Stafford three years ago, its characteristically spherical gearstick coming away apologetically in my hand, as though the car, like Cyrano de Bergerac, knew it was in its death throes and wanted to leave me with a memento of its panache.
Despite all this, I love the car. To me, the 2CV represents happiness and freedom and to unlearn its idiosyncrasies — its topsy-turvy gears and air-conditioning that's just a hole in the front — at the wheel of something more sensible is just too depressing to organise and I haven't driven since.
And so there I was on a suddenly boiling hot morning being chauffeured around the Arc de Triomphe in a 2CV, with a tour guide in the front and my boyfriend lounging next to me, while schoolchildren waved from a minibus, and a thousand Parisians pounded the pavements in shorts and raffia skirts, flashing broad smiles and cigarettes: a day like a carnival.
One company in Paris is giving tours of the city in a fleet of reconditioned 1980s 2CVs, with a transparent roof if it's raining, and the roof peeled back when it's not. Designed in the 1930s to transport eggs across country fields, the suspension on the 2CV is beyond compare and, for five hours, we bounced softly up and down narrow back streets and wide cobbled boulevards while our driver and guide Mikael kept up his commentary. 'I love the sound of the engine. It's very easy to use, to repair. Even when it breaks down I find it very exciting. It's only ever a wire that's disconnected and you just put it back and — oh it's the funniest car you can drive, it's magic...'
