When is a car not a car? When it’s the Citroen Ami
In the eyes of the law, it is more like a four-wheeled scooter, writes Sean O’Grady. It’s ridiculous, of course – but this eight-horsepowered ‘quadricycle’ can do things cars can only dream of...
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Your support makes all the difference.First, a confession. I have a very small drive. I mean the seven foot or so between the garage door and the pavement. No sweeping majestic approach to the ancestral home I’m afraid; just some paving slabs that are neither one thing – front garden – nor another, ie space for parking a car in front of the garage.
I’ll have to leave hanging in the air the question of actually putting the car in the garage, because, like smoking indoors or voting Tory, that seems to be a deeply unfashionable thing to do these days.
Not even an original Austin Mini, that unsurpassed miracle of automative packaging, would fit on this modest frontage. But... the Citroen Ami will, and managing to squeeze it into this humble piece of real estate I feel like I’ve actually achieved something. It’s ridiculous, but, then again, so is the 100 per cent Ami.
Now technically, the Ami is officially classified not as a motor car but as a “quadricycle”, which is like being a car but not really being a car because although it bears a superficial resemblance to a very small car, it’s not one, as it’s very light, and with only eight horsepower, it’s speed is limited (to 28mph).
That means that the vehicle is exempt from all the usual crash safety and other rules that apply to things that are legally cars. The Ami is, in the eyes of the law, more like a four-wheeled scooter.
So you feel, and are, quite a bit more vulnerable than you would be in, say, the Smart Fortwo, which had a much more grown-up car feel (and a price tag to match). In taxonomic terms you should think of the Citroen Ami as a “car” in the same colloquial, but technically incorrect, way that some people call fast food places “restaurants”.
That said, driving the Ami, while frill-free and basic, is at least an interesting experience. The Ami is slow, the seats are barely cushioned and hard, it’s noisy and the minute wheelbase makes our pot-holed roads feel like you’re on safari.
There’s no boot as such, just a big space inside the surprisingly roomy (for two) cabin, plus a big round peg on the dash upon which one hangs one’s shopping.
You sit quite upright in there, and the steering is somewhat imprecise, but you soon get used to it, and, naturally, all the attention.
For reasons of economy, and not mere eccentricity, the back looks like the front because the panels are interchangeable, and the doors open in different ways – rear hinged for the driver (it’s left-hand drive only, by the way), and front hinged for the passenger.
Instead of conventional interior door-pulls and switches there are two loops of material for ingress and egress.
It’s also worth mentioning that there’s no touchscreen, no satnav, no cruise control and no infotainment, just a mount for your smartphone, ventilation is via a window hinged horizontally (a la 2CV), and not much in the way of heating.
A little more worrying for those of us of a nervous disposition: the simple automatic gearbox lacks a “park” mode, so you’re quite reliant on the conventional handbrake to stop the thing rolling away when you park.
Charging it at home is fine as all you need is an adapter that will allow you to put the Ami’s European two-pin plug into your UK three-pin socket. Or, if you can find an “untethered” commercial charger, ie one that doesn’t have its own cable attached as is usual, you can get a faster (and a little more costly) charge when you’re out and about.
Legally, you cannot take it on the motorway, but you can drive it on certain types of motorbike licences.
So what do you get for the seven grand it’ll set you back? Well, lols for a start. You’ll become famous locally; however, for full-on ridicule, however, you need to opt for the Ami Buggy version, which does way with doors, thus exposing you to the taunts of schoolchildren and the barking of dogs as you pass by.
And, if you’re assessing your quadricycle options, Fiat will bring a cuter but mechanically identical version into the UK badged “Topolino”, harking back to another historical model (Citroen and Fiat being now part of the sprawling Peugeot-led Stellantis group).
Once habituated to the noise and the lack of pace you start to relax, and enjoy the plastic tub-on-wheels feel, with the panoramic glass roof as padding to the unlikely feeling of spaciousness.
The vibe indoors, all hard, bright plastics, is very Fisher Price, and thus entirely fitting for something that looks like a five-year old’s idea of what a car is like.
Obviously, you can park it more easily, the tight turning circle is very handy for quick U-turns (no predictable political gags here), find the gaps in the traffic, and the acceleration isn’t that bad from rest, though it does get out of puff.
The general lack of urgency is anyway irrelevant in most congested urban environments when the car in front is a Toyota and at exactly the same disadvantage as you are in the jam. There’s really no cause for range anxiety either, because you’d never even try to take it on a longer trip that might challenge its probable 46-mile range.
Confined to pottering round town, as I was, you find that you won’t come near to exhausting that range in a week or even a fortnight. And, with home charging taking four hours to “fuel” the dinky battery pack, your 47 miles of urban adventuring will cost you less than two quid. Another smile on your face, then.
As an only car, you’d need to be quite a committed environmentalist to rely on an Ami, good friend though it is, even assuming you don’t find all personal transportation an anathema. But it is an ideal vehicle if you commit to making all longer treks on the bus or train; or if you use it as a second car, essentially a long-distance shopping trolley.
Either way, it is extremely well-suited to today’s city driving conditions; less so for country folk. The paradox is of course that such tiny transport is less practical for urban dwellers in flats and terraced houses, who will find charging it a bit of a chore.
But, especially if you have a driveway, even a minuscule one, the Ami will change your life. Better than walking anyhow.
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