The Sunday Times Magazine • 51However, there is one part of
the French car culture that’s much
easier to explain: their willingness
to have parking accidents.
In Britain we always have one
eye on the resale value of our cars.
We don’t choose a bright orange
car with green seats because it will
be harder to sell, and if we have a
bump we worry a buyer will be
able to spot the repair.
Now, imagine how much less
stressful life would be if you kept
your car until it was ruined and
then wrecked it and bought
another. If you never had to think
about the second-hand value,
you could use the bumpers to do
bumping, and the alloys as an
audible reminder of when you
were near the kerb.
This is the French way. One of
our researchers — a French
woman — said that her parents
have never sold a car, and none of
her friends have either. They all
just buy something small and
cheap and then literally run it into
the ground. And this seems to be
the case no matter how successful
they become. The French Premier
League star N’Golo Kanté drives
a Mini with a stoved-in wing, last
time I looked. Maybe this is why
the French have never made a
large off-road car. Because what’s
the point? If you don’t care about
the paintwork, you can just use
the family hatchback to go up an
Alp with the kids for a picnic.
Of course, despite all of this,
the French have made some
tremendous cars over the years.
Almost all of their hot hatchbacks
were, and still are, hilariously good
fun to pedal hard. But the best
French car, in my book, is the
Citroën SM. It was powered by a
Maserati V6 engine and this blend
of French and Italian brittleness
made it one of the most unreliable
cars ever made. It was also very
difficult to fix thanks in part to the
fact that all of the wiring in it was
black, so you could never tell what
wire did what or even where it had
come from.
But it was beautiful to look at
and a sumptuously comfortable
and extremely stylish place to sit.
And I’d very much like to use one
on our next Grand Tour adventure,
wherever that may be. I just
wouldn’t want to bring it home
with me afterwards nThe Grand Tour Presents: Carnage
A Trois will launch on Amazon
Prime Video on FridayI have an
abiding
respect for
the French
and their
total
disregard for
the feelings
of others.
But I admit
they are a
bit weird
Japan, Belgium, Sweden, Germany
and Italy. But I’ve never had
anything made in France. Neither
has Hammond. And neither had
May until he recently bought
some kind of Alpine Renault. Why
is that? Why would three guys
who love cars not want to buy
something from the country that
pretty much invented motor
sport? That’s what we set out to
answer in the show.
As soon as the research began,
it quickly became apparent that
the problem is not with French
cars. It’s with the French
themselves and their stubborn
refusal to be like anyone else.
Ketchup, for example, is banned in
school dining rooms. Work emails
may not be sent at weekends.
Pre-Covid, no one was allowed to
eat at their desk. You must, by law,
go out and do it properly, in a
restaurant. They’re watching all
the iron filings that make up the
people of the world being drawn
slowly towards the magnet that is
America, with its burgers and its
Budweiser and its 24/7 way of
thinking, and they’re simply not
playing ball.
Then you have the French
people’s response to new
government laws, which almost
always involves flares, burning
sheep and the occasional murder.
The French are pretty much
ungovernable. As de Gaulle
once said: “How can you govern
a country that has 246 varieties of
cheese?”
I should make it clear that I have
an abiding respect for the French.
I admire their almost total
disregard for the feelings of others
and I much enjoy my time in their
country. I even like eating their
buntings. But I will admit that
they are a bit weird. And you can
see this in the cars they make.
Back in the Fifties, Citroën
looked at what everyone else was
doing with suspension and
decided that, instead of using
springs made from metal, they’d
use spheres full of some kind of
synthetic fluid. A decision that
came after they’d flirted with the
idea of using a propeller to move
the car. And rear-wheel steering.
Renault made a car that was
completely back to front. Matra
made a two-seater sports car
that had three seats. And Citroën
— again — gave us a car with
the stereo mounted vertically
between the front seats so all the
crumbs from your pain au
chocolat would fall into the
cassette slot.
Even today, when car design is
completely global and
homogenised, they’re still at it.
Look in a modern Peugeot, for
example, and you’ll notice that its
steering wheel is mounted below
the dashboard. This means it has
to be the size of a shirt button, and
it does beg the question: why?Hammond, Clarkson
and May train their
sights on French cars
for their new Grand
Tour episode, Carnage
A Trois, while locked
down in Britain