From the editor's collection
Never lost for things to talk about, Rick Wilson shares another selection from his collection.
A pair of Tour de France Cochonou 2 CVs.
This might be the September issue, but as I’m writing this, Stage 17 of this year’s Tour de France is trying its hardest to distract me.What we don’t get to see on the race coverage is the colourful race caravan that runs a couple of hours ahead of each stage. It is packed with weird and wacky specially-built and decorated promotional vehicles, giving away all sorts of free gifts to keep the crowds entertained.
Having attended a fair few stages of the race over the years, one of my favourites has always been the marvellous red-and-white-checquered Cochonou-sponsored fleet of Citroën 2 CVs that has graced the race since 1997. Becoming an official supplier in 1999, Cochonou supplied a fleet of seven specially adapted examples of the iconic French car, including a stretched ‘limousine’, a Pick-up and ‘Fourgonette’ van, as well as ‘standard’ cars of course. Each of the vehicles has driven in excess of 80,000 kms at the race during the years of Cochonou’s presence, whilst promoting its speciality sausage products.The brand, born in 1971, celebrates its 50th anniversary in September, hence its appearance in this issue – neat, eh?
I currently have two diecast examples, as shown here – Solido’s stunning 1/18 scale creation, complete with opening doors, and one of three partwork releases at 1/43. I’m still hunting for the other two - they can be found on ebay.fr, but the current import VAT/postage pricing combination is putting me off, so will wait until I return to France in person (hopefully later this year).
The partwork shown, a rather cute Pick-up with a hugely-oversized food basket load, is by Eligor and was released as part of Hachette’s Auto Plus 2 CV Citroën Collection. Each edition came with one of these excellent 1/43 scale models and an incredibly informative 32-page magazine – this one came with issue No 6. A second, different version of the Pick-up was included with No 26 and a Fourgonette van, by Norev, was part of another partwork series celebrating the Tour’s caravan itself. It’s the latter two that are high on my overseas trip shopping list.
One more that is also on that list is a 1/64 scale 2 CV, again by Norev, packaged with three cyclist figures. I’ll let you know how I get on… DC