Seeing France’s Wild Mountains Through a Clouded, Classic Windshield

I have a friend that has just left France to drive to Mongolia in a Renault 4L (Lovingly pronounce "Catrelle" in French) - loosely a "sister car" to the 2CV.

We spent a few weeks driving around the French and Spanish Pyrennees in it. I'm not at all a car person, but fell in love with. Its quirks and personality make it a pleasure to drive. The time you spend broken down is balanced with the people you meet who all have a story about this car.

Buzzing around the mountain trails and getting jealous looks from ferrari drivers are all part of the perks.

There's a huge passion behind these cars - they even hold annual rallies for pushing these cars way beyond their intended limits.

https://www.4ltrophy.com/

Writer Edith Wharton (of "The age of innocence" fame) traveled across France by automobile in 1908. She wrote her experiences in "A Motor-Flight Through France" http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57347 which is a good read.

> The motor-car has restored the romance of travel.

> Freeing us from all the compulsions and contacts of the railway, the bondage to fixed hours and the beaten track, the approach to each town through the area of ugliness and desolation created by the railway itself, it has given us back the wonder, the adventure and the novelty which enlivened the way of our posting grand-parents. Above all these recovered pleasures must be ranked the delight of taking a town unawares, stealing on it by back ways and unchronicled paths, and surprising in it some intimate aspect of past time, some silhouette hidden for half a century or more by the ugly mask of railway embankments and the iron bulk of a huge station. Then the villages that we missed and yearned for from the windows of the train—the unseen villages have been given back to us!

Seems like beautiful and great drive. One of things in my bucket list is to drive on Lofoten scenic route [1].

[1] https://www.lifeinnorway.net/lofoten-road-trip/

I think this is all I really want in life.

Brings back memories! We had one quite a few years ago, and the recurring problem we had was that the ignition timing would drift (worn cam), so we always travelled with a packet of cigarette papers for setting the points gap. Of course, the other problem was that the points box was directly behind the engine-cooling fan, which meant removing it before maintenance and running the engine without while tweaking the timing. Great "fun" :)

First car i owned, bought it for 100 gulden in 1979 with over a 100k on the clock. Great fun.

Ironic title considering there's not a single photo through the windshield. :]

Romantic, unforgettable, and a great conversation starter, but from a practical point of view it's very worrying to travel on dangerous roads in an antique car with a long list of mechanical shortcomings.

Great car, the French Honda Civic of its day. Turn a corner a bit too fast and the doors opened.

I'd likely choose the BMW, but sounds like great driving indeed!

this car is the worst to drive... sounds like a hipster bad idea