Bidding adieu
James sells his 2CV and gets a last-minute surprise
James, it’s Brian Andrews. I believe you’ve been looking for me’ said the voice at the end of the phone. My shock was hard to conceal. ‘I thought you were dead!’ I replied. Thus far, efforts to track down the ‘original’ owner of my 2CV had been fruitless. Having rescued it from a dusty London garage and revived it at the Practical Classics Restoration Show in March, I was keen to know about its past and with further investigative help from David Mcwilliams (the man from whom I’d bought the car) led to this surprise phone call. I was naturally thrilled at the prospect of finding out more about my 2CV’S history. Little is known of its life in France but the 2CV was imported to Britain in 1963 and bought by an eccentric collector of Citroëns, named Ivan Crowshawe. ‘He painted it green and sold it to my friend Nigel, who later sold it to me in 1973 for £40,’ explained Brian, who used it for his daily commute to Billingshurst train station, although he and his wife had other cars at the time too. ‘We had a Singer Chamois but I accidentally shot it with a twelve-bore shotgun.’ He lived in the countryside and was trying to deter foxes… ‘I gave it both barrels but unfortunately shot the car instead.’
Tin snail adventures
Thereafter, the 2CV was used on most days and took Brian and his wife on holiday to France in 1976, where the roof was blown off by a passing truck. Coupled with an oil leak, the car limped home to Sussex, where it was tucked away in a garage. ‘You couldn’t get spares easily in those days, so I put it into storage.’ The car didn’t hit the road again for 42 years, until March 2018 at the NEC. ‘I had a stroke some years ago and lost my memory and speech’ explained Brian. ‘But I’m much better now so your timing is excellent’. Well… not exactly. Just weeks before, I had sold
the 2CV. Alas, Brian would never get the chance to be reunited with his old tin snail.
An unavoidable combination of factors led me to part with it. We had been through so much together, from barn extraction to pulling up to the banks of the Seine in Paris but alas, the head must sometimes overrule the heart. Firstly, I had no garage for it and that thin, freshly-painted metal would very quickly dissolve in the British climate. It would wasteful and careless – especially after the efforts my Practical Classics restoration pals and I had gone to in order to preserve its original panels and chassis.
Lastly, there is a whopping great A-road between my home and the office. Two attempts at commuting to work rattled my nerves so much, I would most likely have ended up being flattened before too long. Within seconds of pulling onto the main road, I was a menace to everyone – from aggressive Audi Man to impatient Evoque Mother. I was therefore owner of a car I could neither use nor store. I therefore had two options: to quit my job and become a cheesemaker in rural France where I would get fat and potter about safely in my ripple bonnet Citroën (appealing, I have to admit) or sell it to somebody capable of caring for this exquisite little car. I concluded the most responsible thing do to was to hand the keys over.
I had made noises in the direction of a few