2CV IN PROVENCE
There is no prettier part of France than Provence, and there’s no better way to explore the region than by 2CV
The joy of driving slowly
‘NO PART OF FRANCE,’ according to my tatty 1968 guidebook, ‘is more compelling than Provence, or richer in scenery, art and a sense of history.’ Only proper, then, that we explore the place in an historic automobile.
My 1965 Austin-Healey 3000 whisked us all the way from London to south-eastern France without complaint, but would soon be allowed to rest its legs…
Lourmarin, a commune at the foot of the Luberon Massif, was our first post-autoroute stop, and could scarcely have looked more like the Provence of my mind’s eye. A short excursion after lunch took us through a twisting gorge, the Aigue Brun river running below the road, then on to the summit of the Col du Pointu. Turning towards Saignon we found ourselves surrounded by lavender, planted in row after row with military precision. Painterly purple fields, blue sky, and, right on cue, a splash of red courtesy of a Citroën 2CV.
Our route took us almost but not quite back to the centre of Lourmarin, the ’Healey coming to a stop instead at the Mas de Guilles hotel, where we cooled off with a rosé from the nearby Château Fontvert.
The next day we took the D56 through vineyards and medieval villages, passing close to the haunts of the late Peter Mayle, author of the best-seller A Year In Provence. Our plan was to collect our very own Deux Chevaux, a 1960 example in blue, and experience this most French of cars on the roads around Ansouis, thought by many to be one of France’s most beautiful villages.
Martin Smith, owner of the 2CV and former design director for Ford of Europe, was away, so I had to rely on my not-exactly infallible memory to start the engine and find the gears: turn the key, full choke, pull knob D, chugga-chugga-chugga and the 425cc flat-twin rattled into action.
Rural life is what the ‘Tin Snail’ was designed for, so it laughed off Martin’s rough driveway and bounced happily over drainage ridges as we putted down to the road.
After a few kilometres of country road I was back in my 2CV-owning youth, lurching around sweeping bends at full revs, roof rolled back. We photographed the car in the centre of Ansouis during the lunch hour. The streets were deserted but for a few locals drinking outside the Bar des Sports; they grinned and gave the Citroën an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
The 2CV is a wonderful machine and even those with a preference for more exotic cars cannot fail to be impressed by its brilliant simplicity. The deckchair-like tubular-frame seats are comfortable, and the only dials to distract your eyes from the road are an ammeter and the speedo. The latter, fixed high on the left of the metal steering wheel, stops at 100km/h, but we never got past 65. Kids on mopeds passed us regularly. From left to right The smell of lavender is inescapable in Provence, especially with the 2CV’s roof rolled back; sleepy Ansouis has in some ways changed little since the heyday of Citroën’s Tin Snail.
‘The speedo stops at 100km/h, but we never got past 65. Kids on mopeds passed us regularly’
On day three we headed north onto what turned out to be stage 12 of the Tour de France. Warnings of coming road closures gave the game away, as did fresh blacktop on the Col de Gordes and Col des Trois Termes on the way to the top of Mont Ventoux. The red hue of the rocks in this region give it the nickname Le Colorado Provençal.
Despite the fact that we had so far seen very few fellow tourists on the road, we somehow managed to find the crowds at our next stop: we arrived at Sénanque Abbey along with several busloads of tourists, all brandishing camera phones and posing for holiday snaps. A faint whir overhead revealed the presence of a drone taking photographs of the 12th-Century building from the sky.
We escaped back to the race route, which brought us to the Hôtel des Pins in Bédoin, once the starting point of the Mont Ventoux hillclimb, held for the first time in 1902 and for the last in 1976. In that very first year, a Panhard et Levassor 70hp was quickest to the observatory at the top of the mountain, covering the 21.6km course in 27min 17sec. In 1976 the winner was Jimmy Mieusset’s March, which needed just 6min 11sec.
Our time up the mountain was much closer to the former than the latter, but I have rarely had more fun in a car, and would recommend the 2CV experience (the cars are readily available to hire) to anybody. In a Tin Snail you’re welcome wherever you go in France and, while you have to accept that you won’t get anywhere in a hurry, the journey could end up being just as memorable as your destination.
For more information, visit: – Hôtel Mas de Guilles, guilles.com – Hôtel des Pins, hotel-des-pins.fr – 2CV hire, 2cv-provence-location.fr Recommended reading: An Omelette and Three Glasses of Wine: En Route with Citroëns by Andrew Brodie.