France Jura August 1970

My 1964 Minivan AVE308B in the Jura Mountains, France. Three of us spent 3 weeks doing an anti-clockwise circular tour of France & this was on the way back north.

The nearside wing is a bit crumpled after a slight accident in Sete on the Mediterranean coast. We were in a line of slow moving traffic & I had taken my eye of the road for a second to look at a train passing on the adjacent railway line. This will come as no surprise to anyone that knows me! Hard braking wasn't going to do it so I had to make a split-second decision - swerve right either into the canal or the line of trees by the canal, swerve left into the oncoming traffic or continue straight on into the car in front. The collision of choice was into the car in front. Fortunately I could pull the wing away from the wheel & drive away although we only had one headlamp.

When we tried to cross into West Germany the border guards (no open-borders EU in those days) turned us back & wouldn't allow such a heap of junk onto the pristine roads of the Federal Republic. Two years later I had a similar push-back in the same vehicle from East German border guards who wouldn't let us onto the not-so-pristine roads of the Democratic Republic without replacing a partially worn tyre.