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SEE: Need a ride for a romantic getaway? Here are some fun Valentines Day cars

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<i>Image: Newspress</i>
<i>Image: Newspress</i>

Valentine’s Day date night. It’s happens once a year and is an occasion laden with expectation. The last thing you want to go wrong, is your logistics to fail.

Here are five cars that make the best Valentine’s Day rides, for reasons not always apparent – but reasons which are inarguably valuable.

1. BMW i3

If you are a strong conversationalist or somebody who believes that the correct playlist can make all the difference, there is no finer an automotive environment than BMW’s i3.

Being battery powered the i3 cruises in near silence, which means that every word you utter can never be drowned out by engine noise and cause possible misunderstanding.

                                                                             Image: Wheels24 / Charlen Raymond

It’s the same logic if you have a playlist going, to set the mood commuting to a restaurant or venue: the acoustics are pure and undiluted by engine or transmission noise, so each lyric will find its chord with your passenger.

By the same token, if you suffer from bouts of uncomfortable silence whilst travelling per car, the i3 is the worst environment possible, as any protracted silence in it has the potential to become absolutely deathly. 

2. Mini Autohome

Perhaps too suggestive but if you don’t want to spend some money on an Airbnb after a seemingly successful Valentine’s Day first date, this is a great solution.

Not the camping or roof tent nightmare of your youth, Mini’s Italian sourced Autohome kit is a tent, with built-in mattress, pillows and even its own room light.

Mini Countryman

                                                                     Image: Net Car Show

And best of all, it 'builds' itself courtesy of pre-loaded dampers, which make it effortless to put up, and take down.

Distressingly, this Mini might also be popular with Valentine’s Day stalkers too, who camp outside the addresses of those who stop responding to them on Tinder...

3. Smart ForTwo

The urban regeneration – or gentrification – of South African cities is an issue, but if you want to impress a date by going to the most fashionable Valentine’s Day venue, the CBD is your destiny.

And anyone who works in the Cape Town CBD or Joburg’s affluent north will know that parking is problematic.

                                                                       Image: Wheels24 / Charlen Raymond

If the anxiety of having to parallel park into the most impossible of parking bays on a date is keeping you awake all week, why not get a car which is easier to park than anything else.

Get a Smart ForTwo, which measures a dinky 2.69m bumper-to-bumper and will make you look slickly confident navigating into that prime – and probably undersized – parking right in front of the venue.

4. Ford Ranger Raptor

"Bakkies are terrible Valentine’s Day date cars, they are way too macho." Wrong.

The Ranger Raptor is exactly what you need if a Valentine’s date goes way past its curfew and you return somebody’s precious offspring home, many hours past the agreed scheduling.

The 2-litre turbodiesel engine might not sound that impressive for somebody who needs to make a hasty getaway, but with ten gears and 500Nm, it gathers speed impressively.

The moment you see an escape route into the veld or up a koppie, that’s your cue to get away from an irate pursuing family member.

Featuring custom Fox off-road racing suspension, the Ranger Raptor can go where other bakkies and SUVs simply can’t, and at a speed, they’d never survive.

5. Rolls Royce Phantom

It remains the incomparable luxury limousine, but beyond seating which is comfier than any chaise lounger, the Valentine’s Day party piece of a Phantom is its roof.

Starry nights are romantic, but in an urban environment, we can’t really see the stars for what they really are as artificial lighting around us contaminates and overwhelms the illumination effect.

Gentleman's Tourer Phantom

                                                                           Image: Newspress

Rolls-Royce has a great solution to provide your date with an in-car Milky Way experience of sorts, thanks to 800 LEDs, embedded into the roof lining. 

Each Phantom constellation is unique and will make any occupant feel like a star seated beneath. Which the Phantom’s Starlight feature should, as it is a R200k optional extra.

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