Christi, you just ruined my day! That hurt. That Citroen wagon is beautiful! It hurts realize that these beautiful French cars, as well as many models of German cars, are unavailable in the US.
America has more automobiles than anywhere else in the world. America has more automobiles per capita than anywhere else in the world. Americans have more money to spend on cars than anywhere else in the world. Americans are more dependent on the automobile than anywhere else in the world.
You would think that you could buy anything you want here. But even smaller countries have more variety in cars than America.
I live in a huge suburb, and I can drive past dozens of dealers in less than ten minutes, with probably over a hundred thousand vehicles on their lots. But... no variety. If you want a huge pickup truck or a huge SUV, you are in luck. If you want a tadpole shaped compact sedan with a 2 liter engine, you are in luck.
Even Volkswagen, with its rich variety of models and engines and options... what do they give us? The Jetta! Nothing wrong with the Jetta, but it is just one more compact, 2 liter sedan with a claustrophobic back seat and a sorry choice of engines. (Ostensibly, the TDI and the VR6 are available, but after reading this forum, and Vortex, for several months, those engines are apparently very hard to find and almost impossible to order.)
There was a time when you could buy a Citroen, or a Renault, or a Peugeot in the United States. I owned two Renaults. While VW is credited with "introducing" the front wheel drive hatchback in the US in 1975, the Renault 16 went on sale here in 1968. After laughing at it, I went for a ride in one, and then bought a brand new Renault 16 in 1971. I loved that car. It had a soul. Everyone at work ridiculed it, at first, but one guy went out and bought one for himself, after driving mine. Later I bought a Renault 5, and before it was broken in, three other people in my office went out and bought one.
I eventually wanted to get a Peugeot diesel, but they were discontinued.
How reliable were my Renaults? You really don't want to know, and I really don't want to talk about it. Same with dealer service. All I can say is, those rattling, noisy, underpowered Renaults were built to be driven and built to be loved.
Sometimes I think that the "economy of scale" is killing the American auto market. Because of the staggering numbers of cars sold here, and the billions of dollars in profits to be made, and because of the absolute necessity of owning a car here, that manufactures squeeze every last dollar out of each vehicle sold, and they do this by limiting our choices.
Now that this is off my chest, I think I need to go for a drive in my nice little Golf TDI.
