Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15

> I often hear Americans & rich brits justify buying oversized, polluting vehicles by claiming they need them because they live in the "countryside".

> I call bullshit, Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15

But they aren’t even for sale in the US!

Off topic: That comma in the title really grates on me. It's supposed to be "dramatic pause" or something, but it can also be read as "pause while I check my notes to remember what the name of this thing actually is".

Hat tip to Joel Garreau, from whom I stole this reading of that kind of comma.

The Peugeot XUD engine that powers the Citroën C15 (and a whole bunch of other European cars of similar vintage) is what most of the small Ford diesels were based on, right until they got into the "wet belt" nonsense.

I have "repaired" one that was used to power a small fishing boat (it came out of a Xantia, and the hydraulic pump was used to operate the shooting gear). The boat sank and the engine compartment was flooded with sea water for about a week. It started up and ran quite happily after draining what was approximately a 50/50 mix of sea water and sludgy engine oil and putting fresh in, then removing the injectors and cranking it to blow the water out of the cylinders.

It never quite ran right after that and was hard to start, and five or six years later the boat's owner replaced it with another Xantia engine, this time the turbocharged version.

This is pretty tiresome, however the article is mostly correct. If I could get one of these and own it and drive it in the US, I would. I certainly don't want an over-expensive, over-weight, over-featured monstrosity, but that's all anyone sells in the US.

> CAPACITY: C15: 2.6m³ Ranger: 1.8m³ Discovery: 0.8m³

I mean this is excluding beds. C15 doesn't have one.

I always had BMWs, like I only ever bought reasonably high-end BMWs, but when we bought our place in Ireland, I needed a vehicle on Swiss plates and insurance (for legal reasons) to use there when car rental in Ireland was running crazy money. I had a look on the Swiss classifieds sites for anything "rechtslenker" (right-hand drive) and found two Rolls Royces, a clapped out MG, and about 15 yellow ex-Swiss Post Renault Kangoo 2-seat car-based cargo vans. (I guess they wanted their mailmen to be able to step out onto the curb, hence RHD in a LHD country?) I bought the van. Weird config: right hand drive, but configured for right-hand traffic, meaning I had to replace the headlights and fog light and get it re-aligned to fit in. Automatic transmission, 1.6L petrol engine, no airbag, no wheel lock, no AC, knobs and switches, glass all around like the MPV version, but a cargo floor. It's insanely simple, the parts are practically free from the perspective of a BMW fanatic, and it's actually a hoot to drive. When we moved, I imported it with our stuff, and it's our only car now. Hauls firewood like you wouldn't believe, and tows a large 2.5m x 1.25m x 1.2m single-axle box trailer without complaints, meaning I can (and have done) shift all the sheets of plywood and drywall I need without buying a pickup. We live way out in the countryside, where the roads have grass up the middle and potholes down both sides, but the Kangoo's ground clearance is enough (especially when empty) that it's never been an issue. I hardly miss the BMW. A little French van is all you need.

My parents had 3 kids and a 2CV as our single family car for a while. We managed just fine, something that is supposedly "impossible" these days.

I get the same feelings when i see a suv driven by a single person, and i think of the good old fiat panda…

Similar to Nissan / Datsun 620, 720, and D21 trucks in the US. They ran forever, especially for folks who were mechanics and kept a stash of parts.

This song is not about C15, but is quite appropriate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzDg-1lEaD8

Notice that one of the pictures isn't actually a C15, but a Renault Express, which is equally indestructible though slightly smaller inside.

This person is a living caricature. If Ford wanted to sell more F350s, their best advertisers could do no better than this (man's?) mastodon.

"This Mastodon server is a friendly and respectful discussion space for people working in areas related to EU policy."

"The Ford Ranger (2020). One of the most popular pickups in the US.

A key selling point is that the cabin is so high you can run over toddlers without even noticing."

Lovely people as always. Would you like to live neighbours with this person, or share communal facilities with him?

Now I want one….

Just to be clear: I was a kid at that time and although the Citroen 2CV was a cool looking car the C15 was just as fugly back then as it is today. A fucking fuglier than fugly piece of ugly shit that was, already back then, making the world uglier for everybody.

I don't dispute that it was useful and reliable: I remember the milkman and plumbers and electricians having these. Note that some had a 2CV and would just cut off the roof (don't tell me it wasn't a thing: I've got pictures of me as a kid in a 2CV whose roof was cut).

Only the french have the "taste" to create such uglyness as the C15. It's hard to understand how a country can both produce the Concorde and the C15.

Even the russian and their Lada brand never managed to create something as fugly as the 4L or the C15.

Now you'll excuse me but I've got to take a look at what nature produces:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird-of-paradise

Because that C15 brings back memories from a traumatizing time where uglyness was ruling the world.

P.S: I owned a Citroen VISA: it's hard to tell if it was only the 2nd ugliest Citroen ever after the C15 (indisputably the fugliest of them all) because Citroen produced soooo many turds.

When we lived in a more rural area, and I drove my kids to school each morning (in a normal-sized sedan), I taught them to notice the contents of the SUVs they saw. The common pattern, like 90% of the time in the morning, was a lady driver in a spotless SUV with a kid in the very back row of seats.

And the demographics made sense: you’d expect to see more moms dropping off kids, at least in redder parts of the country, and the back row is supposed safest (as long as you only plan on getting into head-on collisions). Still, the common theme of a ridiculous vehicle with exactly 2 occupants sitting in the farthest possible positions from each other came to be funny to us.

Those ludicrous pavement princess pieces of junk are status symbols of conspicuous consumption, and that’s it.

Now, a pickup with tool racks or lumber in the back, or covered with drywall dust, or bearing a ranch sticker? Fine. Those make perfect sense. Anything short of that is just bragging about how much you love donating to Exxon, like an NRA sticker but dumber.

>"I call bullshit ..."

Does anyone give a fuck? People can and do have plenty of reasons not to stick to a single model of car

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Won't impress friends/chicks as an F150 or a Land Rover Discovery /s

On a more serious note real (which is a minority) owners of bigger trucks need some serious torque for hauling.

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I do get heat for my truck. I call it the truckasourus, it does take up a lot of room, I pulled out the rear seat and installed a three level shelf that fills the whole back of the cab, tools, grocieries, more tools, laundry, more food, and room on the top shelf to sleep if nessesary, then a 8 foot box, that will get replaced with a 9' flat deck, and front, middle and rear racks so I can move 24'steel, 4x8 sheets, welding gas, and whatever else, when I am not moving round bales or fire wood, other large heavy clumsy stuff. funny thing is that I have a car just for more civilised things, that costs me almost as much to sit there, as my truck costs to drive. I flashed the eprom in the truck so it gets significantly better fuel milage, and has forgotten how to go into limp mode, though the messages in the dash are dire. I could build a smaller rig, but it would fail in 1/3 of the tasks required, so it is impossible to come out ahead with running two, or hireing moving services. So the article, while funny, is narrow and snippy. Sometimes I consider a bumper sticker that would say, "Thanks for driving a Prius, I need the fuel!"

What a hideous hunk of sheet metal

the milquetoast attempts at casting poorly-targeted stones at the beginning of this article really bring it down. Plenty of rural brits share exactly the same mentality, this just stinks of lack of cultural experience.

it's a great vehicle, and I applaud the french approach to cars.

He forgets the part where because of emissions requirements the C15 can't be driven in that scourge the people the author defends call "low emissions zones".

Can you fit an 8'x4' sheet of plywood in it? My pickup truck wants to know. But it doesn't have to worry, because my other main use for it is as a large gas powered wheel barrow for carrying yard waste, and the little enclosed C15 can't compete.

In fact it looks like the love child my Ford F350 and a Citroen C2. But it can't be because I had the Ford fixed.