Enjoying a lovely trip through Normandy when the lower suspension wishbone members sheared this morning (thankfully at pottering speed). So I called Morgan Breakdown, which told me it would get me recovered to the Morgan agent in Dinan and sort me out with a hire car etc. After a lot of dithering, they then told me that their insurers might have a problem with costs because the recovery people, coming from 8km away, were charging them
€1000
to take the vehicle to their depot......
Somewhat astonished reaction at the other end. They said it was a Saturday and therefore 50% more expensive, and that things cost more in France. They certainly do! Their charge for taking the disabled M3W 230km to Dinan on Monday is also €1000, so the insurers are considering my use of a hire car on a daily basis from then on. They are being fleeced. I bet my Gott & Wynn breakdown cover would have been a better call.
On the upside, the incident happened outside a magnificent manoir, the chatelaine of which invited me in to see her husband's Bugattis: a 1926 Type 35 and a 1939 Type 39, both of which he fettles himself. He wasn't about, and I asked her whether he would mind if we swapped, but no dice (in French).
