The Mehari seems an ideal car for sunny days in Europe: as open like an hors d’oeuvre tray, great vivid color, and yet still frugal on expensive Euro gas with its tiny flat-twin air-cooled engine. That pic (taken by my drive partner Ezra Dyer) is also great because the contrast of that bright orange bathtub next to that huge tanker truck is just kind of perfect. There were other great cars just around Copenhagen, too. I told you about that Saab 96 already, but here’s a couple more:
This fantastic chlorophyll-drunk-green Fiat rear-engine van! And, one of these:
A first-gen Ford Ka! Still one of my favorite rubber-fendered cheap modern-ish city cars. I have a few more, but I don’t want to cram so many at you all at once! Pace yourself! When Martin Whitmarsh was head of McLaren F1 I got to have breakfast with him and Lewis Hamilton was one table over being moody and weird and we were supposed to talk about racing but I made a Mehari joke and he goes “Oh, I bought one!” We spent most of the rest of the time talking about Meharis and at one point Lewis Hamilton looks up from his eggs and gives us a look like “Are you guys still really talking about Citroen Meharis?” What costs a lot in a Mehari is the underlying 2CV chassis and mechanic… Since it’s not produced anymore and the part quantities are limited… The body is semi-mass produced by the Mehari Club out of the original molds Citroën gave them decades ago. Now you can get in touch with these people : https://www.mehariclub.com/en/pre-owned-vehicles/ They are the reference in France when it comes to Meharis as they have the Citroën factory tools and especially the Mehari molds ( original ones, nicely given by Citroën years ago ) A lot longer ago than that, I saw a number of Meharis running around the weird town of Jerome, Arizona. Why? Don’t know. Hate to think what the heat and sun did to their plastic bodies…. /s
