An Easter holiday trip led your correspondent back to the Spain and to one of Europe’s quieter corners, the capital city of Catalonia.
The chief automotive surprise revolves around the remarkable frequency of deep lower, right-side scrapes on car bodysides. I put this down to the narrow streets and prevalence of rather constricted underground parking. Unusually I found myself in the back seat, experiencing the retrograde developments in seat design, which more later. But first, I suppose it’s important to note what I didn’t photograph. Unlike Valencia, there seemed not to be a distinctive automotive culture in Barcelona. Unlike Valencia, I could not discern any clear patterns. Yes, white cars. Yes, some more small saloons.
It was not until heading north to Girona did I see anything regionally characteristic: the slightly greater prevalence of off-road vehicles. These were not new and shiny, plastic raised hatchbacks but Jimnys, old Land Rovers such as the battered Discovery, and dented Land Cruisers. Near Castellfollit I even spotted a Renault 4 in motion.
Barcelona itself is a sprawling city with distinctive habitats. The Medieval city centre is composed of narrow streets unsuited to vehicles. The grid-iron district has a motley collection of older vehicles. And nearer the coast are rather anonymous areas redeveloped in the wake of the Olympic games. Here you see only absent new-generation Astras (that, empty space) and the odd youngtimer/banger parked up.
You’ll notice I’ve included a T250 Toyota Avensis — this seems to be the most common older saloon; the odd Peugeot 406 and Mk 2 Mondeo could be seen. The Peugeots were all 4 doors and the Mondeos were all estates. The Vectras of the period were absent. Renault will be happy to learn the Mk2 Laguna is another common denizen of Barcelona’s side streets and, in my view, seems to benefit a lot from the lighting conditions. In comparison, the same car in Ireland and the UK looks ill-at-ease.
To conclude, I discovered in a four hour back-seat trip that the rear bench h-point has to be at or close to the length of the knee-to-foot. And if you are going to bother with a rear-centre arm-rest then don’t put a plastic cup holder panel into the upper surface in place of soft padding and cloth. The cup holder should be a pull-out type or else be built in to the back of the centre-console, between the front seats. And make sure the arm-rest on the doors is at the same height as the rear-centre armrest.
Hi Richard
The mystery car is a current model Ssangyong Tivoli XLV. When first marketed here in NZ, a little joke was made of Tivoli being ‘I love it’ backwards.
David – it wasn’t just a joke amongst flightless birds – it was official coinage, as spotted at the 2015 Frankfurt IAA:
Looking through the pictures to find it, I was reminded that the 2015 IAA was absolutely epochal, and not always for good reasons. Dieselgate erupted – I sat up well past midnight in a hotel room with a huge television, watching Wolfsburg staked out by northern European media, waiting to see if Winterkorn would throw in the towel. He didn’t, not just yet.
BMW’s CEO Harald Krüger, must have breathed a sigh of relief, having keeled over at his first IAA media presentation. All he’s remembered for now, but at Frankfurt in September 2015, it was old news compared with the VAG drama. He seems to be a far more decent person than Winterkorn, though that’s setting a very low bar.
Re: SsangYong Tivoli XLV
It’s quite astounding to me that a relatively well resolved design that the ‘regular’ Tivoli was (from SsangYoung, no less!) completely transformed into an ungainly mess in extended wheelbase form. Shorty gave the impression of a cross between contemporary Kia Soul and Suzuki Swift in the most complementary sense, and it works. Then this… It’s quite possible the extended variant deliberately came with the brief ”Needs more Rodius”, and yikes. It looks unnecessarily hefty, and part of me wonders if a rear spoiler delete would significantly improve things and help to alleviate the large backpack on small person effect?
“Needs more Rodius”
Hold that thought for 48 hours…😁
“Needs more Rodius”. Three words that should never appear together in the same sentence.
I did not notice the Toyota. I did notice the Renault Koleos parked behind the Suzuki.
So, it’s going to be SsangYong week at DTW, is it? 😁️
That might be a stretch…
Warning: pedantry alert!
The Discovery is actually a Mk1.5 with its flush headlamps and shallower indicators. I took delivery one as a company car on 1st August 1996. It was in Epsom Green with a beige interior. We had it for three years and it was faultless (contrary to its reputation). Even more amazingly, it’s still going after almost 28 years and 167k miles, according to its UK MOT history. It’s been repainted black (probably with a brush) and has been “modified for off-road use”.
Nice to see a C15 and I am finding more sympathy for the R21 these days than when it was new. Probably best to say nothing about the Smart #1.
In the light of that, I had another look at the R21. ItalDesign did the drawings and if you squint you can see something of the Audi 80 in it (squinting imaginatively). I quite like the front and sides. The way the bootlide was done is not so good though. In the case of the R18 there was a clam-shell bonnet. For the R21 the clamshell went to the boot and the bonnet reverted to industry standard. The clamshell returned on the Laguna 1. The R21 rear wheel arch is handled very similarly to the 1986 Opel Omega, I notice. Coincidence. Both cars are very much in the rationalist mould. If the R21 is specced in not-white it looks dramatically better.
I had a go at re-doing the boot in a conventional way. Sure enough, it looks a lot nicer. The solution affects the way the roof is handled. There´s a little weld under the C-pillar badge as per the Jag XJ-S and Opel Omega A.
Oh dear, a Nissan Serena – made in Spain, but without much love. Did a 1000 mile trip in a brand new van version once, but only after I’d tightened all ( I hope ) the bolts that the factory had forgotten. We then had a Serena on the company fleet for a couple of years, and that wasn’t pleasant either.
The picture of the Trafic caught my eye the most. It’s a 30-year old, working van in basically sound condition. It must be pretty rare, even given Spain’s kinder climate.
Hi Richard. We could’ve had a beer in Barcelona! Oh well, another time.
As for the car landscape, yes, scrapes are common as the older parking garages are extrememly tight (I guess they were designed with the Seat 600 in mind!). Also, many streets have bollards, which are invisible until you hear the horrific “crunch”. Oh, and don’t get me started on those wheel scraping pavement curbs which I so despise! I mean those sharp-cornered pavement curbs so fashionable these days. Misjudge your parking maneuver ever so slightly and your pretty, low-profile wheel gets instantly scratched. I’m happy my car doesn’t use low-profile tyres!
These are some nice finds, thanks Richard! Spain still seems to be a good place for spotting older French vehicles.
The lack of a distinct car culture in a country or region is a common observation in Europe today – at least compared to some decades ago. I remember trips to Southern France, Sardinia and Barcelona in the late 80s / early 90s. Everyday vehicles from the 60s and 70s still on every street corner, in all imaginable states of decay. This was the time before MOTs and scrapping schemes…
I visited the area between Barcelona and Girona in 1990 and 91 and spotted many cars I didn’t know of before, or only from car magazine or book photos. Renault Siete, Seat 850 saloons (a real novelty for me!), Ebro lorries, boxy old Mercedes vans… and PX Vespas without turn signals.
From France I remember the various Berliet and Saviem commercial vehicles which were completely absent in Switzerland. Plus a 2CV with two doors and about the same amount of lights that was still driven regularly around Draguignan.