Friday Fun Thread: Other Euro Cars...

I was about to wrap up my tour of Europe when I ran headfirst into an Italian conundrum. With the plethora of beautiful cars from Ferarri, Lamborghini, and Maserati, winnowing down the list to just 10 cars is going to take a little doing. With that in mind, here's a Top Ten list of Other European cars from countries with limited manufacturing.

1. Bugatti Type 57. Bugatti itself was somewhat of a rarity, an Italian-designed car made in France. The Type 57 represented a novel, post-war model that broke with Bugatti tradition in veering away from the old chain-drive moves.

2. Volvo 1800. Here's something you don't see every day: A Volvo sports car. Volvo, whose name has been synonymous with safety since the 1940s, has been known for producing staid but safe cars. "They're boxy, but they're safe" was a facetious ad tagline from a movie, but it's pretty much spot on. The 1800 was produced in response to the Karmann Ghia and MGB.

3. Saab 96. The first Saab to be exported, the 96 saw tepid response in the US. It was a two-stroke engine design, common only to chainsaws and mopeds at the time, which was a significant strike against it. This is also a personal choice, as the 96 was the first car I ever rode in - my mom owned one when I was born (and traded it in on a 1978 Buick Regal - talk about a change!)

4. Citroën 2CV. 12 horsepower - less than half of my lawn tractor - and the 2CV was in production from 1948 until 1990. It's got "styling" only a mother could love; severely underpowered; and (as Dave Barry opined) is so small that it routinely stolen by squirrels. So why is it on the list? Well, it is an icon, to be sure...

5. Koenigsegg CCX. o-62 MPH in 3.2 seconds. That's motorcycle fast. Hell, that's racing motorcycle fast. With a twin-supercharger V8 based on the modular Ford V8 and a carbon fiber body, the CCX has been approved for importation into the US, so get those orders in quickly.

6. Trabant. If there was any one thing that was emblematic of everything that was wrong with the Soviet-bloc, the Trabant was it. Produced from 1957 until the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Trabant remained essentially unchanged while the rest of the world enjoyed some of the most beautiful cars ever produced.

7. Citroën DS. With a body designed by legendary Italian designer Flaminio Bertone, the D-Special, or DS for short, was Citroën's "executive" offering. Saying it was a major step up from the 2CV is damning with faint praise, but the DS was quite ahead of its time with advances in braking and suspension.

8. Bugatti Veyron. No self-respecting top ten list of automobiles from Europe would be complete without at least a passing mention of the Veyron. 987 horsepower puts the Veyron in an extremely elite cadre of supercars. 0-60 MPH times of under three seconds and a top speed of over 250 MPH put the Veyron in a class pretty much by itself.

9. Volvo 780. A true rarity in its time, the 780 was a Volvo coupe at a time when the 700 series did not have a coupe available. With styling by Bertone and a 200 HP, turbocharged 16 valve inline four cylinder engine, the 780GT even offered a smidgen of what, for Volvo, could be called performance.

10. Saab Sonett III. Oh, sure, it only had a Ford 1500cc motor under the hood. Sure, the pop-up headlights were operated manually even though the Corvette's had been power for decades. Sure, it offered a whopping 55 horsepower, barely more than the Geo Metro some 20 years later. But, uh, it was red! And sporty... looking. Anyways, it's the last car on the list...

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Okay, I managed to get through the Top Ten "Other" European cars. Trying to decide which French cars to offer for a "Top Ten" list is a lot like trying to trying to decide which Japanese firearm should make a "Top Ten" list of best guns...

If you can think of better models for the list, let me know - I'm all out of ideas...

That is all.

UPDATE: car rentals in France