High Mile Club

A quarter of a million-mile Citroën AX GT stars this month.

I1990 CITROËN AX GT acquired the car in March 2016. It was advertised on the AX Owners’ Club forum as free car. I already had an identical project car, but this looked a much better proposition. The only issue was that its owners (who had bought it new in Bristol in 1990) moved to the south of France in 1996 and had taken it with them. I also had no idea of the mileage at the time, and discovered the car’s legendary past when unloading it from the transporter it arrived on.

The best thing about this car is that it’s a Citroën AX, a car maligned for flimsy build quality and flaky mechanicals. Wrong. It’s still going strong, still doing what it was built to do, still reliable and still huge fun. In fact it drives a lot better than most other lower mileage cars I’ve driven; it’s been on a rolling road and matched the 85bhp original book figures and it’ll still do 40mpg with ease.

One drive that stands out was when I took it on a long trip, last year, to Abbotts Ripton and the Citroën Car Club National Rally. I went from my home in Fareham to Wycombe to buy some bits for my Hillman Imp. Then I drove on to the rally, then back via Sydenham and finally home. Some 340 useful miles covered in fine style. I’ve carried out some work mechanically, though it probably only needed a third of what I did. It’s a delight to work on, which is why I wouldn’t recommend one as a starter classic to learn mechanics on – it’ll raise your expectations, and every subsequent car will seem difficult to work on! Honestly the biggest headache it ever gave me was a low-level coolant lamp sensor in the radiator that wouldn’t stop weeping coolant. And the one difficult thing to remove (without breaking) on an AX is the dashboard – and I haven’t had to do that yet. Most of its miles were covered in its first 10 years and I’ve done a few thousand now. But I’ve enjoyed tinkering with it as much as driving it.