Vive Brigitte!

Thanks for sharing, and I can totally understand the 504 preference. I wish I could indulge the same sentiments, but I’m in a place now where a car is more a utility device than a source of pleasure, and I just want one that isn’t needy. I mean, I don’t go too far with that, because the driving experience is still important, which is why I drive a new Alfa Romeo Giulia! It’s a great car, but is the worst example of being just a bunch of software codes that I’ve ever seen! Working on the car means sitting at the computer, literally.

For sixteen years, my fun car was the Porsche 928 S4, but I sold them a couple of months ago because I really couldn’t afford to maintain them properly anymore and my passion had waned. I still have a ‘76 Fiat Spider 1600 which I need to refurbish, so maybe that will rekindle my automotive enthusiasm. Like the 504, it is all hands-on and very Italianate. I’d gotten addicted to the Porsche’s V8 power, but the slender, giving-its-all style of motoring in the Fiat is a much more rustic sensation.

You are right that I did mean the Renault R9, the problem with which here is that it was fairly neutered through the USA collaboration with AMC, then makers of Jeep, and many of the USA R9 bits were bin scavenged from Jeep and just not of appropriate quality or style. It was a cheap car in almost every way, and insanely underpowered and poor-handling, too. Maybe I was too you g to understand it, I don’t know.