It's hardly a Royce, but it rolls

Van’s black trunk and black suitcase, and black king-size dumbbells, were heaved into the back of the family motorcar; Bouteillan put on a captain’s cap, too big for him, and grape-blue goggles; ‘remouvez votre bottom, I will drive,’ said Van — and the summer of 1884 was over. 

‘She rolls sweetly, sir,’ remarked Bouteillan in his quaint old-fashioned English. ‘Tous les pneus sont neufs, but, alas, there are many stones on the way, and youth drives fast. Monsieur should be prudent. The winds of the wilderness are indiscreet. Tel un lis sauvage confiant au désert —’

‘Quite the old comedy retainer, aren’t you?’ remarked Van drily.

‘Non, Monsieur,’ answered Bouteillan, holding on to his cap. ‘Non. Tout simplement j’aime bien Monsieur et sa demoiselle.’

‘If,’ said Van, ‘you’re thinking of little Blanche, then you’d better quote Delille not to me, but to your son, who’ll knock her up any day now.’

The old Frenchman glanced at Van askance, pozheval gubami (chewed his lips), but said nothing. (1.25)

Here a bedsheeted statue attempted to challenge Van from its marble pedestal but slipped and landed on its back in the bracken. Ignoring the sprawling god, Van returned to the still-throbbing jolls-joyce. Purple-jowled Kingsley, an old tried friend, offered to drive him to another house, ninety miles north; but Van declined upon principle and was taken back to the Albania. (3.4)

All that comes to mind... The phrase ("It's hardly a Royce, but it rolls") is most tempting (I mean, it looks very Nabokovian).