Lanzarote – Spanish with a touch of Italian!

I have just returned from a family holiday in Lanzarote and as a fervent car lover I am always keen to see what are the popular vehicles on the roads, whether I can catch a glimpse of something old or rare and of course anything Italian.

Following 11 days during which we hired a car ( a brand new Opel Astra rather than my requested Alfa Romeo Giulietta) and covered most of the island from South to North and from East to West, I have made a number of observations;

1. they don’t look after their cars as well as we do and the paintwork on some cars display an interesting patina (probably due to the fact that the island is often bathed in sunshine and on average the island only gets 10 days of rainfall per year).
2. there are very few German cars in Lanzarote – premium brands like Audi, BMW and Mercedes were scarce and although there were some Volkswagen Polos, Golfs, T-Cross etc even they weren’t plentiful.
3. I saw more Cupra Formentors in 11 days than I have ever seen in Northern Ireland.
4. there was definitely an Italian car presence on the island with many Fiat 500s, Pandas, 124s and also a reasonable number of Alfa Romeos – mainly Giuliettas, Tonales and Stelvios which are part of the fleet offered by some of the hire car companies.
5. supercars are like unicorns – the only really flashy car that I saw was a Maserati Gran Turismo (my head instantly spun round as I heard the unmistakable noise of it roaring up the road behind me).
6. there was real mix of cars on the roads with plenty of models from Toyota, Hyundai, Kia, Skoda, Citroen, Peugeot and Renault as well as Ford and Opel.

As ever on holiday there were some interesting, if not standout cars, that you don’t see too many of nowadays. A few noteable examples were a Sebastian Loeb Citroen c4 Coupe, Opel Astra GTE (Mark II), Renault 19 Cabrio, Toyota Camry from the late 80s, a Rover 600 series and smart Renault 5 GT Turbo lookalike. In terms of Italian offerings I spied a Fiat Stilo, Bravo and a Lancia Ypsilon but not many older examples.

In overall terms my Lanzarote car experience was a bit like a trip to a car show for the unexceptional when compared to previous holidays in Italy but nevertheless there was definitely an eclectic mix of cars for me to admire.  At least the Lanzarote police travel in style!!

 

Tim Logan

Club Chairman