Life’s a beach: on the Méhari safari

You don’t drive a Citroën Méhari. You pootle in one. Driving gets you from A to B, but a Méhari gets you from sea to sea – from one side of the island to the other, perhaps; from beach to beach; from wife to wife. In a Citroën Méhari, the world is not your oyster; the oyster is your oyster. Who wants the world anyway? Have you seen the world lately? In Cap Ferret, the tiny French resort town where the Méhari has really found its spiritual home, the regulars are quite content with the seafood alone, thanks. I once saw a man driving his beach buggy down a dusty lane towards his cabin, a platter of open, iced oysters balancing on his upturned hand, a 400-year-old sighthound lolling in the flatbed.