Scylla, “Le Car” was the American name for the Renault 5, IIRC. Not the best example. 
Exgineer, while it’s not a pick-up truck (which would be hideously expensive over here, not to mention unaffordable to drive at our gas prices), but with the back seat down, it has a respectable 1412 liters of trunk space. That’s plenty for my usual needs, and then some.
'Kay.
You still can’t get 4x8 sheets of plywood or drywall in there, nor can you drag the dryrotted barn you just tore down to the landfill in just three trips. We used my other friend’s truck too, so five trips total.
I still don’t believe that you have a prayer of impressing Heloise with that car. Of course, you’ve already impressed her in other ways, so this point is moot.
You will note, please, that I have publicly admitted, in this very thread, to owning two exceptionally lame vehicles. Well, one is lame, and the other is really cool when I’m banging down a fire road with a dead deer in the bed, but you know what I mean.
So you’re getting a goofy car, so what? You already have Heloise, so you hit the lottery already.
I’m sitting here not making any progress at all with Veb, so you’re kicking my ass in that department.
Plus, I own a pretty cool motorbike, which covers the “impress the chicks” department nicely.
Well, certainly a marked contrast from what I drive…
My '67 Chrysler gets something like, 10GPM, 40 Litres per mile for you foreign folk 
Actually, My '96 Olds Aurora has the smallest engine, which weighs in at 4.0 Liters.
Needless to say, I exemplify the stereotype of Americans and gas guzzling cars (but no SUV’s, thankfully)
I like the dash layout of that Citroen, it has that sort of airplane cockpit-style dash that I like. My Aurora is laid out similar, which is really the main reason I bought the car. I love how driver-oriented they are.
Pretty neat little car, even if only because we don’t have anything like that over here. Reminds me in a way of a poor man’s Saab
Coldfire,
I now officially envy you. Browsing the autoweek.nl website (no small feat for english speaking me), I noticed that you can get the old-style Mini’s over there dirt cheap.
Over here, One has a hard time finding a decent one for less than 10,000.
I absolutely love those things 
Yeah, but it’s hard finding a GOOD Mini, though. Our climate means that cars RUST! And old Minis don’t handle rust very well…
Anyways. Good news! I bought the car.
I picked up my father to go along (they live near the dealership), and we headed on over. We soon found out why the car was priced so sharply! It has been used by a construction firm specialising in kit products, and it looked like it just came back from Gulf War II, at least on the inside. Most notably, there’s a small hole in the driver’s seat. May have been a cigarette burn. Other than that, some nicks and tears here and there, but nothing a little TLC won’t fix. The engine was an absolute dream: very solid, quick enough in this relatively light car, and very quiet. We were doing 160 km/h down the motorway, and the engine could not be heard in the interior at all, just the wind and the tires. Excellent!
I looked at the maintenance history, and it was very well maintained by the kit company. Turns out that firm has all their cars from that dealership, and they maintain them well. It’s just that not everybody treats them in the same way: mine was actually one of the neater ones, the rest they just sell off to car traders straightaway.
So, I got a reasonable trade-in for my current car (actually about EUR 300 less than I would have wanted, but I guess when the car you buy is priced EUR 1500 below market value, and all you’ll see of it is a small tear in the seat upholstery, you can’t complain). They’ll deliver it with 2 new front tires, a full service, a new luggage net in the back, all the small blemishes repaired, they’ll transplant the CD-player from my old car (it’s still OK, 4 years old), and it gets the mandatory yearly check-up required for cars older than 3 years (it’s a January 2000 one).
Here are some pictures I took:
Photo page of the car.
All in all, I’ll end up paying EUR 7700 for it in addition to the trade-in. They didn’t even drive my old car, just started it, concluded it sounded good, asked me if the clutch and gear box were OK, and that was it. They said they’d sell it to a trader anyway, since it was too old to put on the lot, let alone the showroom.
So, in two weeks, I pick it up. Couldn’t make it sooner, as I don’t wanna take a day off for it, so delivery has to take place on Saturday morning. 9 AM. :eek:
So, now all I need to do is keep my old Peugeot out of harms way for another 2 weeks, and then I’ll be zipping along in my new Citroen.
edited to put in new link to photo page
Oh, those hideous green plates are dealer plates. The hideous yellow plates (standard in Holland) are underneath, as the car currently isn’t in anyones name. Just so you know.
I’m thinking of getting the decals on the back removed, leaving a clean grey rear. What do you guys think, would it look better?
Your links didn’t work directly - I had to type in the address manually, just FYI.
It looks like a pretty nice car. I actualy like the colour - but then, I like simple-looking cars. No weird lines or added “features” that try (and often fail) to make a car look “cool”.
The decals look ok to me, but then, I’d probably have to see them up close to determine how bad they look. If you remove them, though, wouldn’t the colour underneath have faded or be different than the rest of the car? I’d rather keep the decals than have a different-coloured splotch.
Congrats - and drive safe!
Links didn’t work for me either.
I’m glad you got it and are happy with it, but I still want to know what you think you’re going to do when you have to tackle some big plumbing project*. How are you going to get all the pipe, fittings and drywall in to that thing? New tile? What about your lawn?
Seriously, you need a truck. I find mine to be invaluable.
*I realize that your current conveyance isn’t particularly well suited to this sort of thing, either.
Hehe, that’s funny. Coldfire liked to a page in some funny gibberish language where you can have 18 consonants in a row. Like anyone would be able to speak that!
Oh wait…
(BTW, that’s a neat looking car)
Exgineer, most people outside of North America rarely drive trucks unless they’re in the construction business. Trust me.
If I need to haul big stuff, I’d rent a van or something. A lot cheaper than driving around in a 3 metric ton gas guzzler all the time! Plus, this is Amsterdam. A truck wouldn’t fit in the parking spots over here. Plus, they’re ugly. And I don’t need one. 
mmemo, the paint under the decals ought to be fine. It’s 3 years old, and it’s got metallic paint. Also, silver won’t fade that easily, especially considering we only get 4 days of sunshine per year. 
The question is whether they’re glued on or pinned on. I don’t want any holes, of course, but glued decals can be taken off with a hair dryer.
13 more days.
The truck comment was facetious, but I disagree with your description of them as ugly. I’ve got an XLT in a deep maroon, and it’s beautiful.
Go ahead and yank the labels if you can, but they don’t look too bad as is.
I retract all my previous comments, by the way. Really, nothing says “stud muffin” like a Dutchman in a station wagon.
To each his own, Exgineer. If you like that truck, more power to ya. Same with my boring station wagon. And it was never meant to convey sex appeal, remember?
All right, photoshop to the rescue! Decals or no decals? I definitely think it looks better without them, so if they can be removed, I’ll ask them to.
Hey that is sharp! I like it better without the decals. But either way you still have a sharp looking vehicle. Congratulations.
I like how it looks better without the decals. Congrats on your new car!
All right, I put all the pics on an HTML page, so linking isn’t a problem anymore.
Would there be any legal ramifications in removing the name badges?
No, that’s quite all right over here. The car is required by law to carry EU-compliant license plates (like this one), and an “NL”-sticker, indicating the Netherlands as its residency. Since I find NL-stickers ugly, I never put them on my cars. I got a remark about it once, but never a fine. You can remove all the decals, there’s no rules about that.
That looks like a great car (especially for the price you paid)!
And as for impressing the chicks, just point out to them how many shopping bags they can fit into your trunk as opposed to that ugly Porsche Boxster (which I really consider ugly by the way).
I actually like the car with decals, but then I am strange. Btw, I thought you don’t need the “NL”- sticker anymore… (link in German, couldn’t find any English sites)
Like some of the other posters, I can’t access http://coldfire.50megs.com. It doesn’t even work when I type the URL in manually, or when I try just the main domain www.50megs.com. Is access restricted in some way or another?
