Yes, work has commenced. I managed to find a couple of hours to do some ‘easy’ bits, as I try to get Elly stripped down to the bare shell. Before I could start, the XM was called up for a tip run.

Stage One was clear some space for dismantled 2CV. Tip run!

With that done, I could turf the Dyane out of the garage, and insert a certain 2CV.

Let the restoration commence!

Things began badly when I realised that I’d left most of my tools in the boot of the Dyane, which was now hiding in the garage that has been the 2CV’s home for many months now. Fortunately, you can remove the bonnet, bootlid and rear doors with no tools at all. So I did. Then the XM got another quick run out on a tool mission. With tools, things came apart pretty quickly, bar one incredibly rotten spot. I really don’t remember parking in the sea, but perhaps I did at some point.

This was horrible! Rotten wing mount.

The nut, which holds the wing in place, was seized. Lots of penetrating oil, a hammer and a ruddy great breaker bar eventually had it turning – albeit it twisted the headlamp bar! No great loss, as it’s clearly too rotten to use again, and I do have a spare…

By now, Elly looked like this.

First stage of panel removal.

Still quicker than a Dyane! 2CVs do have their advantages. Next to come off were the headlamp bar and front bumper. The same rusty spot proved a problem though, with one of the bolts rounded and seized in place. I had a quick play around with molegrips, penetrating oil and brute force, but nowt was doing. It was angle grinder time!

With the bolt head off, I could remove bumper and headlamp bar. The front doors put up no fight (four 11mm-headed set screws between them0, and nor did the hood (two crosshead screws and two 8mm-headed set screws).

Close of play for today. Good progress.

I decided to call things a day there, as emails were starting to stack up. Not bad progress for a couple of hours. I still need to disconnect the pedals, the gearlever, the exhaust, fuel tank wiring, brake lines and some other bits I’ve probably forgotten. Ooh, like the speedometer cable. I may strip more of the bodyshell while it’s still in-situ though. I did examine a few crusty areas with a hammer, and it’s confirmed just how big a job this is going to be. The hammer just pushed through in a few places! However, things are moving, so watch this space! Or, watch this 26-second timelapse of today’s progress.

At the time of writing, the contribution pot for Elly’s restoration stands at £1096. Remarkable. I’ve also had offers of spares and assistance. I hate to turn all hippy, but I really can feel the love.

I’m hoping to get started on the project today. This morning, I’m trying to clear some work out of the way (Classic Car Buyer mostly) so I have time to get started. The plan is to swap the Dyane and 2CV over, as the 2CV is in a friend’s garage at the moment. Because no-one has bought my Honda Prelude (anyone? Please?), I don’t actually have room to store the Dyane on the driveway…

Time for Elly to get naked again. (this was in 2003)

Incidentally, the XM has a stay of execution. I’ll need it for towing duties.

Speaking of which, I have FINALLY located the wheels I need to get my trailer roadworthy again. That’s important, because once I have removed Elly’s body from her chassis, I’ll be transporting it up to Citwins for Stage Two to begin.

At this stage, it’s safe to say that a good chunk of your contributions will be spent on panels. The 2CV is blessed with truly excellent parts support, and you can now get pretty much every part of a bodyshell. In fact, you can get entire bodyshells, but that remains out of budget as an option. So, panels and Alan Rogers’ skills are what you lot are buying.

I’ve already had someone offer a stash of zintec panels for an exceedingly good price that will cover many of the problem areas, and someone else has donated a small panel that will be essential for the seatbox repair. That said, to do the job properly, I reckon that a good few hundred pound’s worth of panels will still be needed. Your contributions will be making the impossible possible.

What exciting times!

Incredibly, the 2CV fund now stands at £814. I need to tidy up my garage, turf the poor Dyane out of it and get the 2CV in for a stripdown. Let’s see how the next week pans out! In the meantime, here’s a fresh video of the star of this operation.

Even just pottering about, it was good to have her out for a little ‘exercise.’ Her next outing will be to return to my garage, where the body will be stripped and removed. It’ll then be heading off to Citwins in Bradford for an assessment. A friend has kindly offered a load of panels at a discounted rate, but your contributions so far will pay for more of those, and Alan’s skills. I’m not sure he realises what he’s let himself in for!

Man and machine about to be very busy.

At this point, I must thank Gary Dicks for putting this whole thing into motion. Gary was also very helpful with the Dyane project. He imports a lot of cars and parts from France, so is always worth a call if there’s something you need. I still need some bits for the Dyane, so I’m sure I’ll be badgering him shortly!

Speaking of the Dyane, I took it for its first 2CV meet today, in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire. A great time was had by all, and the Dyane found some suitably scruffy stablemates!

My Dyane fits in nicely here. Scruffy doesn’t mean unloved!

I thought I’d travelled quite a way, but the beige 2CV (a very rare 1975 Belgian-built right-hooker) came from Uttoxeter, and the yellow beast from Cornwall! Fantastic.

The Dyane ran very well – entirely without problem and also entirely without pools of oil when it is parked up. Fabulous! It does feel a bit flat, so I think I’ll get the carburettor rejetted. The new transistorised ignition is so good that I had to turn the tickover down when I got back home too.

But back to the 2CV. You lot deserve some progress, so I’ll do my best to crack on. I’m out with work tomorrow, and have two deadlines this week, so can’t dedicated myself to it 100%. Progress is not far away however!

PART ONE

You people are amazing. I started my collection fund 23 hours ago and already, it stands at £614. Extraordinary!

What’s been even more heart-warming is the personal messages that have often accompanied payments. Messages saying how much folk enjoy the blog, the writing and, perhaps most frequently, how they’re looking forward to seeing this 2CV back on the road again. This car really does tug on the heart-strings it seems – not just mine!

I’ll obviously be providing regular updates on this project, and will be recording a new video for my YouTube channel later on. I’ll have to try and find sufficient words of thanks.

But today, I’m going to tell you a bit more about this car and why she’s become such a huge part of my life. Bear with me, it could be lengthy.

I purchased Elly in 2000 for £450 – with a fresh MOT! How times change. I bought Elly from a 2CV specialist in Birmingham called Bob, who still sends me a Christmas card every year. At the time, she had 89,000 miles on the clock, and a horrendous gearbox oil leak. So, I bought another gearbox for £20 and got to know my new 2CV by changing the gearbox. Again, how times change.

Two years later, Elly hit the milestone of 100,000 miles. I went on a roadtrip to ensure she clocked, which she did somewhere near Wolverhampton. We ended up in Snowdonia.

My 2CV way back in 2002

I was automatically drawn to Wales even back then. I now call it home.

Anyway, I was in a rush to get her to 100,000 miles, because she was still on her original chassis. I knew she had no hope of passing another MOT (two successive passes had required increased levels of patchery) so I decided this would be the first 2CV I actually restored. I thank a friend in the club Dave Burdett for forcing my hand. He wrote a very eloquent piece in 2CVGB News about how we had to start protecting the 2CVs that existed, because no more were being built. He was right.

So, restoration one commenced, which coincided with me getting a digital camera. Well, the rebuild part did. I shipped the bodyshell and axles off to Pete Abbott in Lincolnshire, and he set about restoring the bodyshell on a new GW Fabrications chassis.

Elly during her first rebuild. Yes, that is a genuine pick-up behind.

I then shipped my bare 2CV back home, where Pete confidently predicted it’d take me a couple of weekends to get Elly back on the road again.

How he must have laughed when it actually took me about three months…

Almost there! Now, where do those wires go again?

I was even more clumsy with spanners then than I am now, if you can believe it. I also had the difficult job of trying to remember where everything went, months after it all came apart. It was a very valuable learning experience, that’s for sure!

Elly returned to the road in April 2003. It was a little disappointing in some way, as I’d spent over £2000 to have my 2CV look very much like it did before! You see, I couldn’t afford (pattern developing…) a full restoration, so it really was just the bodyshell and chassis that were sorted out. All the doors, wings and other panels were just as scruffy as they were before!

After spending over £2000, she looked much the same.

That shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. Especially as she was still my daily driver. Between tests in 2006 and 2007, she clocked up 15,614 miles. In 2005, which predates the computer system, she visited Belgium and Scotland for another frantic year.

But I’m jumping ahead a bit here. In 2003, I met the lady who would become my wife. And she really liked my 2CV. Even though the first time they met, my 2CV hurled its door handle into a muddy puddle in disgust. They get on much better these days, possibly because for our first Christmas together, Rachel made the 2CV a set of door cards.

We decided to get married in 2006, and I decided it’d be nice to have a shiny 2CV again. So, she was shipped off for another bout of restoration. This time, the full works. Rarely, I was actually in a (very) well paid job at the time, so could actually afford it.

Elly after her 2nd rebuild.

Quite the transformation eh? This photo was also taken in Wales, as we’d collected the 2CV in Lincolnshire on a Saturday, so we could take part in a road run in Wales the following day. Yes, that was a silly idea, especially as when we turned up to collect the 2CV, it wasn’t ready! We had a frantic few hours screwing bits back on, before driving right across the country. You’ll note that we didn’t even have time to fit the stripes to the doors. Amusingly, the road run started in Aberystwyth – near where we now live.

It meant Elly was looking all set for our wedding.

A very special day.

Thankfully, Rachel was very accepting of the fact that my 2CV really was a part of the family. Elly the 2CV remained in daily use as I swapped jobs and became a motoring writer in 2007. That gave opportunity to take part in fun events, and we did more than one rally together! I also developed a habit of thrashing her around race tracks…

Giving it hoon on the Haynes Motor Museum test track at a Retro Rides Gathering.

But, bad times were coming. After just a couple of months, rot was creeping in where the paint had cracked. That was nowhere near as bad as what happened next though. Elly got smashed up the arse by an amorous Mondeo, and shoved into a truck! Isis Recovery as it happens…

Ouch! Elly gets walloped

The truck cut me up on a roundabout, by deciding to go right from the left hand lane – I always give trucks room, but he was clearly entirely wrong, as this was a roundabout with two very clear lanes on it, and he was in the wrong one. I performed a perfect emergency stop, which caught the Mondeo driver unawares. 2CVs stop quickly! BANG, BANG and suddenly I was sat in the back of my 2CV (the seat came off its runners) and worse, Elly was driving away with me unable to reach the pedals! Somehow I stopped, but the damage was done. The beautifully restored bodyshell had folded up at the rear, the beautifully restored front wings were both destroyed, and the gearbox mount had gone through the engine. I was gutted.

I shall continue this tale in my next post. The sun in shining, and I must take the Dyane for a run to get its engine run in! Thanks for your contributions so far, and if it feels a bit odd to give someone money to restore a car, don’t forget that by buying the magazines I write for, you’re effectively paying my fee. By giving directly, you’re just cutting out the middle man!

To be continued…

Just yesterday, I put my 2CV up for sale, but it turns out people would rather pay me to keep it! I was staggered by the response as folk started offering money, parts or time out of the goodness of their own hearts. Wow.

EDIT: Running total – £1720! (as of 12th March 2016)

So, a plan has been hatched. I am going to attempt to crowdfund the restoration of my 2CV! Clearly, more people than just myself care about this car’s future, so here’s your opportunity to get involved.

You can help this 2CV live again!

You can donate right here, but I’d better explain what will happen with the money. It will be ringfenced and all funds will only be used in relation to this project. I will regularly update this blog with running totals and targets. In short:

1. If £500 is raised, I will seek to get the bits of rot that need sorting out for the MOT replaced, with new metal welded in. This is a short-term fix which will focus on just what is needed for an MOT pass.
2. If £2000 is raised, then substantially more work can be done, which will ensure this car’s long term future. We’re talking lots of new panels and a substantially overhauled bodyshell, with all of the rot replaced by solid metal. If 400 people donated a fiver, then this one is achievable, and would be an ideal solution.
3. If, somehow, more than £2000 is raised, well it just gets better and better for Elly. More can be done to smarten the ol’ girl up. I’m initially only seeking funds to get her back on the road again, but if the total gets high enough, then I can sort out the rusty wings, doors and bumpers too. Not that she’ll ever be a show queen. That is not the intention!

Whichever option is chosen, the project will be fully documented, with regular updates appearing in the classic press, on my Blog and also on my YouTube channel. Should the project fail to reach the minimum £500, then contributors will be refunded and the project cancelled. The money will be spent on parts, materials and specialists’ time to make this happen, plus any directly associated costs – ie transport.

If we could get Elly back on the road for April, which marks 30 years since she hit the road for the first time, that would be absolutely fantastic. I can’t thank you enough for helping this car to live again. Expect a blog post on what this car means to me very shortly.