The joy of hiring an old banger

There is always much to look forward to on a holiday with friends in France (the day one supermarket sweep, boules under plane trees, foie gras on demand); but, for me, one of the greatest joys is the hire car. That’s entirely due to my indulging in the niche pastime of driving around in the worst, most clapped out vehicle possible.

You can do this quite easily in France using an Airbnb-style platform called Turo which allows you to go directly to the – usually bemused – owner and, for not very much money, drive off in whatever they have to offer you. And so it was that I found myself this summer burbling down vineyard-flanked routes départementales in a 32-year-old, one-litre Peugeot with paint flaking off and every panel dented.

Not everything worked. It turns out that a working fuel gauge is quite a useful thing. I was fine with no power steering or air conditioning, but I would have quite liked a radio. Yet that simplicity was the entire point: to strip transportation down to its essence, wind the windows down, engage with the landscape and forget you’re living in 2024.

It’s not necessarily seeing the world at a gentler pace but rather unlocking a new level of ‘pretending to be a local’ tourism. No, I’m not some red-trousered prat from London cooing over the cheeses in Carrefour – I am Pierre on the way to get a baguette or maybe some cinq à sept. A fantasy, of course, but a harmless one.

I’m not just a masochist when on holiday. In the UK, I use the same car I bought 19 years ago, and which, with a few memorable exceptions, is still going strong. Even back then, a 20-year-old Saab was an anomaly.