Can you recommend a car that we can leave in France for use when we're there?

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Can you recommend a car that we can leave in France for use when we're there?

My wife and I intend to make regular trips to Nice, France, in the future, and we are trying to decide which would be the best left-hand drive car to buy for use there. It needs to be small, about 18 months old, economical and reliable. Ideally, it should be an automatic too. It would be left in a garage for up to two months at a time. Would some sort of trickle-charger be safe to use to keep the battery powered up? Would you recommend buying in Britain or France? So far we have come up with a shortlist of the Fiat 500, Toyota Aygo, Peugeot 107 and Citroen C1.

Asked on 12 October 2013 by PM, via email

Answered by Honest John

A Fiat 500C would be good fun (it has a canvas roll back roof). Go for the 1.2 or TwinAir, but avoid the diesel. A Citroen C1, Peugeot 107 or Toyota Aygo would be cheaper. Best to buy there and save yourself all the hassle of re-registering in France. It's more expensive, but probably not when you take all the other costs and your time into consideration. Yes, leave it hooked up to a "battery conditioning" trickle charger.

Tags: automatics storage left-hand drive trickle charging driving abroad

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