Oh, the Triumph of a real French find

HELPDESK:Answering all your motoring queries, with PADDY COMYN

From ML: I’m looking for a bit of advice. Years ago I bought a rundown Triumph Spitfire that needs a bit of work. It’s a 1965 model, with a soft top and has a bit of rust that needs fixing and it also needs a new paint job and the interior re-done. I don’t know where to start looking to find someone who restores vintage and classic cars, but who won’t rip me off.

I noticed during the Celtic Tiger years that companies in this area were charging an arm and a leg for such work. Have things changed at all? My budget for the restoration is flexible, around the €3,000 mark.

Liam Darcy has a classic car dealership, Weston Classics on the Naul Road in Balbriggan, Co Dublin and he says €3,000 probably won’t go too far with the car as a really good paint job could cost around €2,000. Some modern paint shops are a bit hesitant to carry out body work and paint.

Darcy recommends Clandillon Classic Cars, tel: 01-627 5842. For parts for the Spitfire, Darcy says Rimmer Brothers in the UK is the place to go. See rimmerbros.co.uk.

From DP: I hear that some cars actually have the same engine – it’s just used with different bodies and car brands. Can you give some examples of this and the different prices?

I’ve heard the Fiat 500 and the new Ford Ka are practically the same car!

The term is “badge engineering” and it describes the rebadging of one product as another. In the case of the Ford Ka and the Fiat 500 you are right, with the Ford costing less than the fashionable Fiat. Before Ford started selling off its brands, it owned Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin and Mazda, for example, so it is common for different brands to share many components and in some cases to share even more than that.

A few years back the VW Sharan, Ford Galaxy and Seat Alhambra were identical, aside from some differences in engines and cosmetics. The VW Lupo and Seat Arosa were also virtually identical. Some examples from today include the new Seat Exeo, which is a previous model Audi A4, aside from a few styling changes. It costs less than that Audi would have at the time, which would have been around €35,000.

Carmakers Kia and Hyundai are owned by the same company, so you will find big similarities between the Kia C’eed and Hyundai i30, and between the Kia Picanto and Hyundai i10 – although there is little difference in price. The Cadillac BLS, which didn’t sell well here, is a Saab 9-3 under the skin.

Many of the Volkswagen group products, while not identical, share many platforms, components and engines and this can work well for their lower brands. A Skoda, for example, might have the same engine and gearbox as you would find in a VW or Audi, but is significantly cheaper. An example is the Skoda Octavia RS, which has a similar 2.0-litre 200bhp engine to the Golf GTi, sits on the same platform, but will cost you €4,360 less than the VW.

From AL: I hope you can answer my dilemma! I’m looking to buy a small French car but I have heard they can be unreliable. Personally, I think they’re good value and seem popular. I have €10,000 to spend and wouldn’t mind something up to four years old. I’d like a three- or five-door that looks stylish but is cheap enough to run too. What would you recommend?

Unfortunately, some of the French brands do perform poorly in reliability surveys such as the JD Power in the UK. Citroën, Renault and Peugeot all scored below the industry average in these ownership satisfaction studies, while brands such as Honda, Skoda, Toyota and Volkswagen were at the other end of the scale.

However, if you are buying on a budget and you are after a good diesel engine, they can sometimes make sense. If you must buy French, you could easily get into a ‘06/‘07 Peugeot 307 diesel or a Citroën C4 for your budget and these cars look good and are cheap to run. As long as you find models that have been serviced properly, then these are capable of incredible longevity. The difficulty is that some silly things can go wrong that simply don’t with Japanese cars. However, if you are prepared to take a chance French cars can provide some real bargains.