STAFF CAR SAGAS
The 2CV’s bolt-on panels return home fully painted
I don’t think I’d ever been as nervous at the wheel. My mission was to transport a set of painted 2CV panels 150 miles home to where the rest of the car was awaiting reassembly. Volkswagen UK very kindly loaned me one of their Transporters, so I wasn’t short on space for the bonnet, boot-lid, doors and all four wings. Everything was packed carefully onto a bed of old duvets and cushions before departure and I couldn’t help but notice the expression of the man responsible for the hard work, whose face disappeared from my door mirror as carefully drove away. Steve Brown, like me, had spotted the ‘Sportline’ badges on the VW. A 200bhp bi-turbo van with seven-speed DSG, fat alloys and sports suspension? Steve gave me a final warning. ‘Please don’t drive that thing fast’. I dawdled home gently, which gave me plenty of time to reflect on what the 2CV means to me.
I’m thankful for an assortment of exciting family adventures as a child in the Eighties, but one stood out for quite specific reasons. It involved an SR.N4 Mountbatten class hovercraft, a futuristic orange TGV and the sight of a bright red Citroën dancing across the cobbles of the Champs Elysees. That weekend break in Paris ignited a lifelong love affair. I distinctly remember making a promise to myself that one day I’d own a red Deux Chevaux. A few years later, as detailed in the October 2022 issue of PC, I was also captivated by the red turbocharged 2CV of Steve Cropley – former editor of our sister title, CAR.
It took me until 2019 to buy my own – from a chap who’d driven his family around in it for the previous three decades. When I first spied C410 PPJ, the car had been in their garden hedge for a few years but in the space of a week back in July '19, Barry Annells dragged it from the brambles, fitted a new battery, filled the tank with fresh petrol, bagged an MOT and drove the car straight to Citroën’s 100th birthday celebrations near Paris.
There have been efforts to tidy up the car since then but, although structurally solid and mechanically great, her once bright paintwork had long since lost its shine.
Yikes!
Like a giant jigsaw puzzle, James begins to meticulously load panels into VW van, cushioned with pillows and duvets.
