Recomendation for a car.

Hi!
I am presently looking for a new car, and of course, my requirements for a car does not fit any car I've seen :-)

There are basically two "problems":

- My family is growing. I will be needing room for (at least) on child and (at least) one dog + perambulator and cage.

- Myself and my wife have been addicted to convertible cars, and could never have a car with a roof...

So... what car should we get? Right now, we have a Citroen 2CV, and it is allmost large enough. But it is not really a "proper car".
We have.. in fact... discovered a car that suits most of the requirements, and that is the Citroen Berlingo Open-air. Not a very "cool" car, but not very expensive either... and there seems to exist kits to add an aftermarket stereo to it :-) (Price i Norway about 200.000NOK=25.000Euro)

There also seems to be some Land Rover variants available?

Any suggestions?

Marius

Myself and my wife have been addicted to convertible cars, and could never have a car with a roof...

If you have a little guy or gal on the way then you may want to reconsider this. Consider that for the first 18months they will be unable to tell you that they have earache, or that the wind noise is bothering them, or that they are cold. Aside from screaming uncontrollably at you that is...
Figure that every time you take the little person in the car that you are going to have to put the roof up anyway. And that (unless you have a ready supply of nearby relatives to babysit a lot) you will be taking the little person in the car a lot.
Now work out whether a convertible car is really that necessary if you only actually get to put the roof down for 10% of your trips. Especially if having that convertible means having a non-optimal vehicle for your purposes.
I personally think that you be far better off with something like a small station wagon with a sunroof. At a push a hatchback would suffice, but this would leave luggage space tight. Probably ok for everyday usage, but you'd hit problems with vacation type trips (assuming you want to take the dog and child on vacation).

Maybe you should keep your old 'car' to satisfy your convertible cravings. I guess it depends on how much you think that you'd get for it, or what the insurance delta is going to be to keep it as a second car. I'm guessing that it's definately an option worth considering.

A saab/bmw/audi convertable with a towhitch with small trailer attached.

a Jeep?

Thanks for your input:-) We'll keep that in mind.
Although...
- We'll probably keep both the other convertibles :-) and want a third :-)
- In Norway, we can only have the roof down for 10% of the trips anyway
- A hatchback will probably be too small for a dog-cage plus everything else
- The Citroen Berlingo is "good enough" right now.

We'll have a look at what jeeps exist...

Marius

Most of these convertibles cannot have a trailer, beacause if you crash with a trailer, the car will collapse.

The 2CV, on the other hand, can tow a trailer, but with a max-weight of 250kg unless it has a separate breaking system, in which case it can tow 400 kg.

Marius

What about the Citroen C3 Pluriel?

Or peugeot 307 sw with the freaking huge glass panal in the roof

...or the 307CC - due out soon I think.

We have.. in fact... discovered a car that suits most of the requirements, and that is the Citroen Berlingo Open-air. Not a very "cool" car

I think you are spot on with the Berlingo, or its Renault or Fiat equivalent. In fact, the Daily Telegraph here, had an article saying that it was the new cool.
I had one in Majorca last year and, apart from being everything you want for children, dogs and paraphanalia (you can sling everything in, without too much careful packing), it's ace for a 6' 3" driver.
I think it's much more the new 2CV than the Pluriel, which is, however, a very clever car.

Much as I like C3 Pluriel, in your situation your first choice (or something with opening glass roof, as someone already said, like Fiat Stilo Station Wagon) would be more practical.

There is no replacemant for original 2CV, though . I went through three of them, but now they are virtually impossible to maintain (except through skillful improvisation, at which I am not good at all).

but now they are virtually impossible to maintain

In this part of the world, you can replace any 2CV part, right down to having a new improved galvanised chassis fitted - plus, you can make many improvements over the original design and adaptions to make parts fit.

Not here..

In neighboring Slovenia one can find custom-made chasis parts, but the nearest place with decent supply of engine and other original components is Austria or Italy. Too complicated for my taste (and rather expensive)...

Anyway, Twingo is now my official acting 2CV