Le Twingo Anglais

 The last blog finished on the question, how did it go? Well, considering I’d never met the car, the car dealer or the exporter it went much smoother than I expected. The CMR note issued by Transporting Wheels satisfied the relevant customs checks; and the car arrived in Essex on the Saturday morning. Unfortunately the CRO Port operation closes at 6pm on a Saturday and the delayed UK transporter missed the collection window resulting in a wasted trip. A 2 nd attempt on Monday was success and the car arrived with me in Bristol at 1pm. Collecting the car was very simple; each car has a unique reference and PIN like shipping containers do and this number was supplied by Gerdo well in advance of the car arriving. I’m very lucky that my work has a large private site; and so the car is stored off the public highway. It left Holland without export plates and its original number plates had to be removed. So, do I regret it?    Not so far, the Twingo looks very much lik...

Finding a Twingo should have been an easy process; the internet and a variety of car sales websites from auction sites to free-ads means that adverts can be found quite easily. I’ve watched a few cars come along on eBay, Car & Classic and even on forums; but it never seemed to be the right time; or in some cases the right specification of car. The joy of the Twingo is the vivid selection of colours, interiors and even options such as the fold back roof. I also prefer the phase one cars with rubber bumpers and the original flat disc wheel trims and that was the specification I wanted; as close to original as possible. I found a website called “ The Parking ” which searches out classified car adverts from a huge number of European selling sites. It has a very specific search function which allowed me to hone in on the 1993-1998 era Renault Twingo and also to search by Nation so I could fine tune. There was no point looking at cars in Scandinavia or Eastern Europe where a journey ...