Too tough to die
The annual AutoWeek Barrel Brigade is a definitive, yet glorious end for most participating cars. Considering the budget, they are usually no longer in the best condition and the harsh tests to which we subject them do not exactly extend their lifespan. But sometimes a barrel is ‘too tough to die’
The AutoWeek Barrel Brigade usually ends in demolition, but fortunately things sometimes turn out very differently. Who still remembers the Renault Mégane Cabrio with which Frank did not even reach the finish in the 2022 edition? The car that fell off somewhere halfway through the Paris-Roubaix course and was left hanging miserably from a local forklift with a provisional spit-and-tape exhaust fix, so that it could at least get back to the Netherlands under its own power? After the competition we gave the car as a gift to reader Hugo Kwant, hoping that he could enjoy it for a while.
Just a little longer? What’s called… we received an email from Hugo, in which he says that he and his girlfriend Elin are still enjoying their convertible very much. Since the Mégane left our editorial office, it has received new rear shock absorbers, new front tires, fresh windshield wipers and a major service. Hugo also purchased a roadbox, a kind of extra loading space that fits on the back seat. The electric roof control that Frank repaired himself at the time has broken down again (sorry Hugo, warranty up to the corner on Jacobs’ work), but Hugo can only open and close it easily by hand.
Elin and Hugo spent sunny car holidays in the Belgian Ardennes and Austria and our ‘barrel’ has now exceeded 240,000 km. “We are still having so much fun with the car that we don’t want to get rid of it any time soon,” Hugo concludes his message. Which once again proves that for those who really look carefully, a nice car for little money is still quite possible. It’s okay to look some given horses in the mouth.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl