Aiiieee no! I've driven one in Italy, from Rome, across the Apennines. On the long haul up from Rome to L'Aquila the maximum speed with two adults and two overnight bags was 45mph. On the motorway, with a big, sweaty, angry truck driver just 1/8" off the back bumper.
We were caught in a hail storm. The "steel" that the Matiz is made from is as soft was aluminium foil and we took back a car that looked like a golf ball. I was really glad that I paid the "super CDW" fee when I rented it. The only other vehicle that I have driven that was as flimsy and gutless was the Smart for Four. My old 2CV had more oomph and felt safer to drive.
Not as bad as it's made out to be, the "Give Way" goes into an acceleration lane, which is over a hundred yards long. Bad layout of the bit shown, but not that bad to use if you know what you're doing.
What you need is a redox battery. When the charge gets low you pull into the filling station and just pump in fresh electrolyte, could probably be as fast as filling a petrol tank. The used stuff is then recharged for later reuse.
Er it didn't go well. They came out to inspect the damage and the bloke screamed at me hysterically (falsetto!) in Italian, "What have you done to our car?" and I replied "I did nothing, it was God that did it."
It was fun watching him trying to mark the position of every dent on the damage report. He gave up after a bit and just scribbled "all" on the report.
Here's a photo of one of the hailstones:
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here's one of a car similarly damaged - same car park that the hire car was in:
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I didn't photograph the Matiz. As you can see the damage depended on the strength of the car. There were several Astras around that suffered little or no damage to bodywork. The Lancia in this photo and the Matiz looked like they had just come back from the conflict in Bosnia.
The storm was estimated to have cause EUR 36 million of damage in just an hour.
When I got back to the UK I discovered the hire company had charged my card with the entire cost of the vehicle - £5500, despite having the Super CDW. It took a lot of shouting to get the money refunded, I don't know if the cheeky bastards thought that I wouldn't notice the charge.
I now take out annual car hire excess insurance, and I've made a not to never, ever use Europcar again, bastards.
Many years ago when my mother was still alive, I used to fly to Aberdeen for New Year and hire a car. Usually a Montego, since most of the others of that size were RWD and hopeless in snow.
There was a 24 hour garage on the exit to the car park - no more than 100 yards from where the hire cars were parked. You got the car with a full tank and if you returned it full, no surcharge.
Their idea of full for supplying the car full was by the gauge. Being me, I stopped and brimmed it. Took 3 gallons. Brimmed it on return, and still got charged for 3 gallons on my credit card. And never got it back.
Barstewards, all of them. Sleasycar used to have a scam where on returning the car you could not park it yourself. The car was taken out of sight where they did the "vehicle inspection". Virtually every car returned mysteriously acquired damage in the trip from the office to their "secure parking" location.
Perhaps you mean single track roads. I can usually find some overtaking opportunities unless the traffic is very heavy.
And even on a single track road overtaking is possible with understanding slower drivers. Happened to me today in Southern Scotland, second time this year. Local drivers presumably who are used to single track roads.
I shan't mention the company, because they did fix it.
Last time I rented anything it was a van. It wasn't quite ready when I turned up "because the local kids had let the tyres down". So I walked around the corner to the tyre place and waited.
Now I don't know exactly what the tyre place did, but I do know that on the M2 the (fortunately still empty) van lost the whole of the tread on a rear tyre. I was left with two sidewalls and a completely detached tread section. I suspect it had a slow puncture, and the rear tyre is so far from the driver I didn't realise.
I could not find the locking wheel nut key, nor could the van hire people tell me where it was.
The AA took 55 minutes (as is their wont - x% of all calls under an hour) and insisted on a credit card number in advance. He found the locking wheel nut key (apparently most vans keep it in the same place!) and changed the wheel for me. And told me there was a nail in the other back tyre.
So I went into the local office of the national van hire company, was referred to a local tyre dealer, and got a replacement spare. The nail didn't kill the other tyre.
A bit later the tyre dealers call me, and say there's a problem, and can I come back in. OK, back through Canterbury traffic. The problem is that I haven't paid for the tyre.
I called the rental company from the tyre dealer and was quite forthright with them. They agreed not to charge me for the tyre.
It turned out that the only breakdown insurance on the van was the new vehicle warranty that specifically excludes tyres - so the AA charged me. It took a recorded delivery letter before they refunded the AA fee.
So, I was an hour late starting, I lost an hour by the M2, another hour in the tyre dealers and traffic... and no compensation. No, I tell a lie, they didn't charge me for the rental.
You were lucky, jings I'm sounding like a Yorkshireman now, I was given a car with a leak on one tyre by Nationwide. I discovered it within yards of the rental office, as it felt odd when I made a left turn. I called them to ask them how to get it fixed - they told me to wait for "their specialist repairer". I could walk to the office from where I was and asked them for another car, they refused.
I ended up waiting two hours for a man who said he could do nothing, he pumped up the tyre got me to drive to Kwik Fit where I had to pay for a tyre. I drove back to the rental office, where they told me with straight faces that since I had "deliberately punctured" their tyre I would lose the deposit on the car.
Took two years and a lawyer to get the cash back.
Another one crossed off my list of "companies to rent cars from".
There's no way you're going to be overtaking a local on a single track road in Scotland. You'd be lucky to keep up with them at all. At least, that's what experience from many holidays in Kintyre teaches me.
Actually I am quite sure they were both locals. And I was there and you were not.
I don't think I have been to Kintyre so it could be that the locals there are terminally stupid but in other areas in Scotland where single track roads are common the locals I have seen have on the whole driven sensibly.
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