Automotive

MANY MANY Years ago at San Diego harbor ...



Our back yard before global warming and a few tractors came through

It's not THAT much fun for camping, but we have lots of 2CV friends who own Meharis and we did lots of European exploring with them. This is France. At the time I also had a 4x4 2CV - the front car in this photo.

Here's a rainy Mt Olympus in Greece. We borrowed a car there.

and in Sweden. Here we had the blue Citroen C1

SOLD IT

I sold it to a guy at work for about $2000 - I can't recall the reason, probably because I had about 10 cars at that point. He was afraid to drive it in traffic, and quickly sold it off to someone else. 

BOUGHT IT BACK

A few years later I was driving through an alley, due to some roadworks, and I saw it sad and broken down between two garages. I went to the front of the house, got the owner's information, and made a deal to buy it back. I bargained him down to $400 but the joke was on me, because after it broke he never paid his road tax, and in Calif a new owner is responsible for all the unpaid charges at the DMV. The back taxes were $425 which I had to pay. 



However, after I handed over my money, the seller said,

"I feel kind of bad because you will find there's a broken suspension link that's unavailable in the US. Good luck getting it going again." 

I appreciated his honesty and assured him I could get it fixed, somehow. Too bad he didn't feel honest enough to confess to the tax liability he stuck me with!

After he left and we had dragged it home, I told my friends, a suspension link once broke on me, so I had 4 new ones machined. The last one was too rusty to change, and I couldn't unscrew it, so I put that extra link in the car's glove box. And that was the corner which was now broken. Could the extra link still be there? 

YES!!! 

We had it fixed within the hour and it took only one beer apiece.

Of course it also needed some paint,



and soon an engine rebuild was required



which was performed in conventional 2CV fashion on the floor

but reassembled on the bench just like one-third of a 911

Pardon the (non) surgical cleanliness of my then workbench.



Yes, despite Health and Safety concerns expressed by my wife, I started and ran the engine on the garage floor. I did have a fire extinguisher handy as you can see on the leg of the bench.



So the love affair began again



despite its constant appetite for small expensive bits, like some tires and powder-coated wheels

Eventually after another decade or so it just became one more old car to register, insure and never drive. And I had too many of those...

SOLD IT AGAIN

This time for $4000 and I was truly glad to see it go that time.



Cheers,

Cazalea