During the summer, the neighbors’ car takes time off, but not quite. The series is transformed for five episodes to answer the question you have always asked yourself: what are the personal cars of the Caradisiac journalists. Very recent powerful and gleaming cars? Youngtimers? Old cars? Watch out for surprises. The first to open the ball of this summer series is none other than Manuel Cailliot, the house specialist in used cars.
He spends his time examining the reliability of your cars and those you want to buy. It is therefore very logical that in the context of his personal life, Manuel Cailliot drives every day in Toyota Prius 2a reputedly sturdy model, “I bought it for 5,000 euros from a friend and I knew its history and faults perfectly”. Defects which are above all aesthetic because the bodywork of the Japanese hybrid is somewhat affected by the Parisian automobile syndrome, with its share of scratches and small shocks.
This is how this 2006 Prius and Manu have had happy days and have covered 32,000 km together. At least until the beginning of this month when he discovered that his exhaust had simply disappeared, stolen by rare metal enthusiasts. An adventure he has told on Caradisiac. It is therefore in front of a garage in the Paris region that we find them.
From the outset, the journalist, a little schizophrenic, admits it: he does not like his car, but he finds tons of qualities in it. “Before, I drove Skoda Octavia RS, but thanks to the Prius, I cut my gas bill in half. Winter and summer, it consumes an average of 5 l”. And is content with 6 l on the highway.
Inside, the Prius, in Linea Sol finish, hides another surprise. : a plethoric equipment for the time. Color GPS, air conditioning, leather upholstery, Bose audio with a charger for 6 CDs, it has the essentials as well as the superfluous. For Manuel, it was, in 2006, a way for Toyota to pass the price pill. “New, this Prius was rather expensive to buy”. But these small approvals are not enough for the specialist of the occasion to take pleasure at the wheel.
A second car for fun
So, for his weekend walks and to keep smiling, he bought another car, also deemed reliable, but with a slightly less exaggerated appetite. “It’s a BMW 320i, a E36“. Its treasure is under the hood in the form of the famous Bavarian inline 6-cylinder, here in the 150 hp version. “I bought it for 800 euros. Of course, there are some costs to be expected. I have already changed the wishbones and the suspensions and I still have to take care of the braking”.
After these minor works, this youngtimer will regain its youth despite its 280,000 km exceeded. A car whose former owner Manu also knows, since it is none other than Pierre-Olivier Marie, deputy editor of Caradisiac. What if, after all, the best advice the second-hand king could give his readers was to focus on buying from people you know personally? Doing business as a family, a good idea that is unfortunately not always easy to achieve.