On French Automobiles

During my time in europe, I have had the chance to drive to drive a variety cars: Audi, BMW, Volvo, Land Rover, Seat, Fiat, VW, Mercedes, Opel, Alfa Romeo, just to name a few. But there is one group of cars that fill me with dread when I pick their keys up at the rental counter: french cars. Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, I've driven them all. Of them, Peugeot tends to be the most normal, but in general they are all weird cars. Weird in a variety of ways, including being weird looking or having oddly and asymmetrically positioned side mirrors. One car had pedals that seemed a bit to the left of center relative to the seat and a steering wheel a bit to the right of center, giving you the feeling of being slightly twisted. Others have had the radio controls on the turn signal stalk, so you can't change stations without accidentally signalling. Increasingly common on french cars seem to be complicated cruise controls that can stop you from speeding up, no matter how hard you try (until you figure out how to switch it off). But, my all time favorite is putting the instrument panel in the middle of the dashboard. That way you have to turn your head away from the road to check your speed or rpm. If you want to check your fuel or see the turn signal blink, you practically have to look out the passenger window. Who thinks of these things and then thinks they sound like good ideas? Only french car designers apparently. Worse than all of that, they have typically been pretty poor handling cars too.

From experience, I can say cars do tend to reflect the places they come from:
-British cars come from the midlands and embody the sense of "that'll do" with their rattles and gaps and ancient technology.
-Scandinavian cars all have sleek, stylish interiors, but little personality.
-German cars are all solid, precise, technically accomplished, and lacking cupholders.
-Spanish cars seem fairly ordinary, except they do it at a higher rpm.
-Italian cars are nice to look at and are mad to drive, when they are working.
-French cars are just weird.