Just back from a couple of idyllic weeks in Corsica, staying in a gorgeous fishing village about an hour’s electrifying drive across the mountains from the capital Ajaccio. Well, I say fishing village, but today the millionaires’ megayachts and oligarchs’ frigate-sized cruisers far outnumber the fishing boats in the picturesque harbour (perhaps 'marina' would be a more appropriate term nowadays).
I love Corsica, not just for its rich history, scenic beauty and mesmerising driving roads – often nullified by terror-inducing Corsican driving, see last year’s post-holiday blog – and feel very privileged to go every year with my family, thanks to my wife’s French Corsican origins.
There is always a good number of classics to be spotted, too, ranging from a regular-use Citroën Traction Avant, an original Fiat Topolino and a first-generation Renault 4CV to a host of Renault 4s – including a few crude chop-jobs – many of the latter clearly still viewed just as cars rather than classics by their owners.
One of the delights, though, is the squadron of Citroën Méharis dotted around Propriano. I have always been a sucker for this entire genre of car. The very concept of taking something cheap and mass-produced and making it into something more leftfield appeals, whether it be a Moke, Jolly, The Thing, lesser-spotted Renault Rodeo, Beach Buggy or a wealth of others.
My problem with them, however, has become the stupidly disproportionate prices that they have been accruing in recent years, catapulting cars that were conceived as a bit of occasional, frugal fun for the masses into the 'strictly a plaything for playboys' league. That’s especially true of the little Fiat 500 or 600-based models, for which recent astronomical auction results have been rather less Jolly than they have been laugh-out-loud.
I guess the Méhari still tugged at the heart-strings because it has been immune from this rapid price escalation. Or so I thought.