Déjà vu Deux
Yes, it's in pieces again but for very good reason
You’re not seeing things and you’re not going mad. Yes… my 2CV is, once again, in bits. The journey so far has taken us from accident damage victim (PC, Oct 2022) to rebuilt live stage project at the NEC (PC, Feb 2023) and then heroic conqueror of the Lakes (PC, March 2023). So, why is it all in pieces again? Well...
The post-nec journey to Cumbria, as part of our annual winter road trip, absolutely blew my mind. To me, it was irrefutable evidence this little 2CV was a survivor… a car with soul. That air-cooled flat-twin shrieked joyously up and down mountain passes in fierce rain. However, my 2CV'S future is to become even brighter.
An insurance settlement only goes so far and, in this case, it covered the basic parts and repairs. To keep costs reasonable, I used a second-hand bonnet and wings to replace the accident damaged ones – all of which were rather faded but they’d have to do. During the weekend of the NEC show in November, our progress on stage had been observed by Steve Brown of HB Body, who delighted the audience (and me) by volunteering to buff up the faded panels. The car looked significantly better for the show's grand finale when it started and drove for the first time since the accident last June.
Nevertheless, this was still hardly a concours car. The rest of it clearly looked all of its 37 years. Rot-free (except for a slightly crusty nearside rear door), there were scuffs and little dings here and there, inside and out. This hadn’t gone unnoticed by Steve, who was quite taken by the story of the 2CV and the presence that weekend of its former owner, Barry Annells, who’d driven his family around in it for three decades – from school run to adventures in Scandinavia. This was a workhorse – no restoration of any kind had taken place before. Steve reckoned it deserved one.
Brush strokes
The unexpected new phase in the 2CV’S revival would be no ordinary squirt with a rattle can. You see, there is paintwork and there is paintwork. There are painters and then… there is Steve Brown. You may have seen the exquisite work on PC’S Reliant Rebel van or perhaps clapped eyes on his Land Rover Series III at the NEC – an extraordinarily well restored vehicle which featured in the pages of Practical Classics magazine last year. It’s not one for the Land Rover purists… because unlike most other Land Rovers out there, this one has a paint job that wouldn’t look out of place on a Jaguar E-type. It is probably the best paint job on a car you’ve ever seen. I'm not kidding.
Steve is technical manager for HB Body, a firm with a forty-year history of manufacturing and supplying a vast range of automotive refinishing products. I don’t think I’ve ever
met anyone with such a meticulous eye for bodywork, or knowledge for all things paint.
Knowing just how fastidious Steve is, meant that I was in for a tough time with my 2CV. He was never ever going to be in the least bit kind about its condition. As the shell was carried out from the back of Clive Jefferson’s trailer, Steve certainly pulled no punches.
‘This is terrible. The quality of everything – from the manufacturing process to whatever work has been done since – is really bad.’ As a dedicated Citroën enthusiast, this was difficult to stomach. The car was thrown together in decrepit former 19th century Parisian bicycle factory and his observations were a reminder of how cheaply made the 2CV was – from paint runs to obvious rot traps. However, the car’s bodywork had been maintained over the years by Barry and son Peter to what I thought was a very reasonable level. Steve didn’t look at all convinced. But then, with his unspeakably high standards, I wouldn’t have expected him to.
Wiping clean a section of original bodywork, Steve checked the paint he’d mixed was the correct match. It was perfect. This made him happy and that in turn made me happy, until he resumed prodding at the shell again and into the shell’s orifices. ‘Is it meant to be like this?’ Quite aside from whatever Parisian factory workers had done in 1985, Barry and Pete had performed miracles to get the 2CV repaired, mechanically perfect and onto the
Pete Annells removes the electrics. stage of the NEC in November. That meant some ‘interim’ cosmetic work. However, the intention afterwards was to return the car to their workshop for more permanent fixes – including addressing some of the temporary paint.
Steve put a stop to all that and, Pete and I having removed and transported the shell to a workshop in Shrewsbury, Steve is now headlong into a job that’ll see my beloved 2CV looking better than a 2CV ever did in 42 years of production. I’ll be stripping the doors down next and taking those to him, along with the bonnet, wings and boot lid. I’m nervous… they can’t surely be ‘worse’ than the shell, can they? I somehow suspect they are, so I’m gearing myself up to thoroughly disappoint a man for whom the pursuit of perfection is paramount. Imagining how impeccable my car is about to turn out, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
■ james.walshe@practicalclassics.co.uk
‘I have never met such a genius with a paint gun’