Citroen Ami / Fiat Topolino

born_again

Ami, has been on UK roads since June 22.

MouldyOldDough

born_again said:

Ami, has been on UK roads since June 22.

Wrong - Amis have been available in UK since 1961

born_again

Nothing like the one you are talking about 🤦‍♀️

Goudy

I live in an urban area and there are a couple of Ami's near me I see rather regularly.

As far as I can see they are a liability on the road. 
Not because it's limited to 28 mph, most local roads are 20 mph anyway, or lacking all the usual safety kit.

Unlike the original Ami, these just can't handle speed bumps.

Most of big across the width of the street ones seem to require them to angle over them.
Those same ones with flat tops require them to perform a big S up and over them, often meaning they take a chunk of the opposite carriageway.

The humps with square three or four lumps spread evenly across the street require the driver to wear brown trousers and everyone else on the road to slam their brakes on.

I've never seen something move so slowly over them appear so frightening.
Mainly because they are on half it's wheels if the hit them head on.
But usually they try and squeeze through the gaps between the squares which are too narrow. This ends up with them bouncing uncontrollably down the middle of the road towards oncoming traffic. 

I've seen plenty of Twizy's on the road and they seem to handle the speed bumps ok, but the Ami's seem to struggle, badly.

If you have a smooth route to the train station and back, by all means.
Try driving one around a city full of traffic calming measures, dust your life insurance policy off.

sevenhills

Goudy said:

Unlike the original Ami, these just can't handle speed bumps.

Perhaps different tyres/wheels could be used if there is a problem?

facade

Goudy said:

<snip>

Unlike the original Ami, these just can't handle speed bumps.

<snip>

Thanks for this, if a car can't drive over a speedhump, preferably like it isn't there, then it would be useless round here.

Goudy

Speed bumps are designed to slow normal traffic.
They are generally at a pitch, angle and spread to slow your average car. scooter. motorbike, van or lorry.

Some of the designs do allow buses etc to pass over them without too much hassle, but not cars and vans. (the square ones)

Trouble is, the Ami isn't average anything.
It really hasn't been designed to progress over these humps safely (or the humps haven't been designed to allow something like an Ami to progress over them safely).
Most of the UK's urban areas seem to be full of these humps and bumps so buying a car that can't really cope with them is probably a waste of money.

There are a few cars that don't really cope with speed humps, but at least your fragile supercar maker has thought about this and often fitted a raiseable nose, no such luck in your Ami. 

There are quite a few videos around the internet of owners suffering over speed humps in an Ami and I see a couple 3 or 4 times a week on a particular road blighted by some brick flat top bumps have a certain amount of trouble and often have less than 4 wheels on the ground even when inching over them.

Crashing suspension, bouncing around and getting thrown about inside even over the smallest of humps doesn't look funny even from the outside.

And as is normal with certain driving practises, drivers do try it on and I notice owners trying to scoot through the middle of these square humps which still causes them to bounce and crash about but this time puts them in the middle of the road facing oncoming buses and lorries that don't really need to slow down for these humps, in what looks like and probably has the same crash protection as, a Tiny Tots car.

I guess if all the roads got redesigned traffic calming measures or better still everyone stuck to the speed limits so there's be no need for them, they'd be a lot better, but I can see neither happening so any owner is going to be feeling it around any town with speed humps and from what I've seen already, accident rates in Ami's around these humps is going to climb.

saker75

Barrie Crampton, the car dealer on YouTube, has a Ami and loved everything about it but the build quality. He finally rejected it .
https://youtu.be/uwTCBr7mHVg?si=vtdP__hxC4KRkiE_