Way too low, though you're right, a R5 with or without the pointless boot can be fitted with automatic as it was an option on the cars but that would mean finding a suitable engine & box from a LHD model to suit and then I'd be left with an automatic paperweight instead of a manual one as I've never been able to fit into the old 5s, now I'd need the fire bobbies to come and cut the roof off to get me into the thing. Old taxis appeal and have a low enough floor with a seat that can be raised by a further four inches to provide access to the pedals, but strong though the Nissan Diesel is, it's still a Diesel and one that's too old to be allowed onto the car parks at my work, though even this needn't be enough to put me off as long as I have the current van-like thing and can avoid travelling for work in anything with a 20th century Diesel.
Fiats of that age are about as much use as, erm,
breasts on a haddock, the height thing again and I could reach the steering wheel but would still be far too low to get onto its pedals. The Barkas and a converted Javelin are the only things so far that would (Javelin) or may, subject to how low the floor is (Barkas) be physically suited to my proportions. Transits have a seat height that's perfect, but only relative to the ground outside, even if I could devise a means of transferring to the driver's seat without major structural work, the floor is too close to that seat once I'm in, thanks to the "car like" driving position that was one of the Transit's USPs among its rival vans back in the day.
Then it came to me in a
nightmare dream.. The original Fiat Multipla has a very low floor which, because they're short and tall, means that the seats must be high. Economical to run on petrol, bed can be made as it can in a Panda but better, great to take to the shows, plenty of space for a chair, a stationary engine, a small generator and a couple of people who'd be chosen for their suitability as ballast on the windy days. Unless of course I get a spare set of panels for a bB and nail them to the Fiat seeing as they work to keep the tall, narrow Japanese modern running straight in even the very worst of the crosswinds that come across the spine road from the mouthes of the Wansbeck and the Blyth on my typical run down to one of the southernmost work campuses.
...Then I looked up the prices of the four Multiplas currently available to buy in the whole of western Europe. F*** ME BACKWARDS!!!
(They're very not cheap).
I'm buying the neighbour's automatic Beetle in the mean time, it's a solid car that's only done 117,000 miles from new, has decent tyres, belts in the back in case I have to use it for work and is tested to next January, but even that isn't ideal as I'm bound to forget that its "automatic" transmission requires the driver to change between the two available ratios manually, well it is a few decades since I last had one
. I may have to learn all over again! Still, it'll be something to fill a space and at £<400 isn't as ridiculously overpriced as many of these are. OK, so it's slow, noisy and smells weird but there is a theory that owners end up resembling their dogs..
eBay currently has dozens of them, all automatics as they're the default transmission option in Japan. They don't seem to represent the best ever VFM either, if the prices being asked for the best examples are any guide.
no trouble with wearing your hat etc..
