Real Drivers in Europe

Upon his return from Europe, D. and I were discussing driving and cars in Europe. Anyone who knows us knows we are both car-obsessed. D. once spent a five hours drive to Cape Cod describing to me every car he ever owned, sequentially, but that was about 11 years ago. We've since been buying and selling and adding to his list. D. is particularly interested in style and performance. He's owned everything from Mercedes and Cadillac, to Porsche and TVR, Jaguars, Buicks, you name it. Most automatics, but not all.

For me, I am more about driving the cars, performance and efficiency. My first car was a Chevrolet Citation, a four speed with a four cylinder engine that got 36 mpg back in 1979. It was pretty groundbreaking. Didn't drive well, not enough power, but for local driving it was fine. It was front-wheel drive which was relatively new then, and had problems in slick weather with breaking and wheels locking, causing spin-outs. My next car, a Mitsubishi, was more powerful, with a four cylinder engine, but a five-speed turbo. But it still got 26-30 mpg. Since then cars got bigger (more like the 1960s and 1970s) with lower mileage. I had a Ford Probe which got about 25 mpg but had a 6 cylinder 2.3 liter engine, with a five-speed. Unfortunately, after a car accident in that car, I switched back to automatics (Volvos) particularly for safety reasons while driving my son. Good to drive but not good on gas.

But in Europe, it is always easier to rent a manual and I am always happy to drive one again, better performance, better mileage. So in buying our Alfa, we got to discussing how in Europe, living like a European means driving a stick with diesel a TDI. Bit by bit they are being made cleaner and re-imported to the US, and with pretty high mpg.

In reality, Europeans, if they are fortunate enough to own a car, are real drivers, with manual transmissions, who keep them for long periods of time, generally take care of them, are aggressive on the road, but not dangerous. It is not uncommon to see a 20 year old car still on the road. It may not have AC, but it will still be running on the autoroute with the windows rolled down. Now it does take some driving skill to drive a stick, talk on the cell phone and smoke all at the same time, but we've seen many doing it.

For me, I'll just focus on driving the Alfa with the manual five-speed on the back roads of Provence (with AC when needed), dog in the back, like a European but without the smoke and cell phone use at the same time.