Crazy Belgian has been in the 2cv scene for many years and is very well known for some of his cars. We managed to get a hold of him at this years world meeting in Czech Republic in his air ride 2cv. He has kindly done us a brief history of all of his cars to date.


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13 years ago I was 18 years old and had no knowledge of cars I had no one in the family related in the car bussines or maintenance. I just had a strong interest in how something was built.

The first car I bought was bought together with my father and it was a Citroen ZX 1400cc reflex with LPG .This was not my choice of car but it only survived for 11 months and then it was driven completely worn .Then I bought myself a citroen ZX 2.0i volcane 3 door and this was more my choice because it was quite a fast car for a 19 year old boy.
In this year I gained a lot of interest in car repairing and tuning so I started to completely modify my ZX into a ultimate tuning car. I changed almost every part of the car and I did it all by myself. I built a complete bodykit from parts for other cars and I even adjusted a KW height adjustable suspension so I could lower the ZX 12cm (this is 4 cm more than usual.)

In this period my brother in law bought himself his first 2cv and he immediately started going to meetings. At first the 2cv didn’t gain my interest but after doing some repairs to his car we decided we wanted to buy, rebuild and sell 2cvs. In the coming years we restored more than 20 2cvs, but it wasn’t until my first worldmeeting in Austria 2001 before I decided to buy myself a 2cv. This was just two weeks in front of the meeting and I wanted to go with a decent car so I started stripping it completely to get it completely painted ,it was finished one day before I left for the woldmetting in Austria. The car was painted in a baby blue color with black wheels and blue hubcaps. Naturally I wanted it lowered so I screwed it down until the rubber bump stops. At the time there were not many lowered 2cv’s so mine looked really low amongst the rest. The world meeting in Austria was so good, I immediately got the 2cv virus and I started making plans for my next project.

I drove the 2cv every day after the world meeting and after one year it gained more than 40.000km on the clock so when the Italy world meeting came around i decided that the car had had its best times so i decided to give it an extreme makeover.



Because a maximum lowered 2cv was not low enough for me I wanted to do a channeling job like the people in the US do with their pickups. Only 10 days before Italy I cut the floor out of the car and I lowered the body 18 cm. I then welded all the gaps closed and did some more mods to get everything to fit. This car was so low that while driving the front and rear 15 inch wheels kept rubbing in the fenders, even the paint came off the fenders those who have seen it believe it. This worldmeeting I was given the name ‘Crazy Belgian’.
I had a lot of positive and some negative reactions but it just gave me more energy for more extreme ideas.



After the world meeting in Italy I did one more meeting with that car but it was a tuning meeting in Lommel, Belgium but I wanted to go more extreme with it for the last day so I removed the fenders and I put 17 inch wheels on it 8.5 inch wide in front and 10 inch at the rear because of the big wheels the car raised itself so I lowered it more until it was only 4cm from the ground. At the meeting everyone was stunned by the looks of it, when I arrived there was a dragrace going on and about 2000 people were watching it until I drove by and all the heads turned . After the meeting I took the car apart because I couldn’t dry store it.

I was thinking for some time to build a motorbike engined car and a month before the world meeting in Scotland my brother in law had a birthday party and some friends told I couldn’t do it and at the outside stood an engineless RTT Acadiane so I told them I would build up that car for the world meeting next month. I put an original engine in the acadiane to get it thrue technical control and when I came home that day I cut out the rear floor to make room for the bike engine with 2cv gearbox for differential.



I also placed a front axle at the rear and made it line up and welded the steering pinion. This way I could mount driveshafts in the axle and couple them to the 2cv gearbox which I adjusted to mount a bike sprocket on the differential, this way it becomes a chain driven differential. After this it was only making a engine stand to mount the bike engine I used. Afterwards it was connecting all electricity and gearbox connection and fuel delivery and a lot other modifications to make it driveable. This was finished two days before leaving to Scotland and I only drove 15 miles with it to testdrive. What a kick a 750cc 125BHP that makes 12500rpm in the rear of a 2cv, it was an exiting drive to the harbour completely loaded with luggage and my wife next to me. Actually the car was much to heavy for the engine because it had not a lot of torque at low rpm but 90 km/h in first gear is crazy. I liked that it looked completely original from the outside until it started and drove away.

The next world meeting in Sweden I did not build anything because not enough time and no opportunity to build something. I went to it but together with a friend who was single for some time.

About a year ago I found the 2cvsnail.com site on the internet and I found some people who tried to build a car like my blue channeled one I did in Italy and they were doing a lot of cool things to their cars, but there were no real new limits set and for some time I have been thinking about some stuff to do to a 2cv once and now I had the opportunity to try and set new standards. I started a new topic under the name ‘Lowest 2cv with airide’.




I took the strengthened chassis from the blue one I still had and took the spring pots out of it. I bought some airstruts that I mounted in place of the original spring pots. I made some connecting parts to the swing arm and adjusted the pulling points at the front swing arms to get more torque, I knew to get really low I had to make some 13 inch wheels which I made myself with thinking about the ideal offsets to use to get the car as low as possible. I also narrowed the front axle 11cm. My brother in law gave me a rusted and used body to get channeled 12cm. I made a completely new floor and firewall and welded the rear windows. The paint is the color ‘field drab’ from the american army from Iraq war.






To get it this low I had to lower the engine in the chassis so I mounted it 8cm to the rear and 6cm lower than normal. There were a lot more things done to get it to look original and to fit every part nicely.





I used LPG valves (this is cheap and 12V) and i use FESTA easy click connections and pressure lines. The prices for the cilinders are 75 euro a piece the compressor I used is VIAIR 550C proffesional compressor and costs 450 euro but there are also cheaper ones on the market prices start at 150 euro then I have a 3 Gallon airtank this costs 85 euro then you need switches to send voltage to the valves .This is all that needs to be bought to build your own airride 2CV.





When fully lifted the airride lifts the car about 30cm I adjusted the front arms so the connection to the airspring has more force because the distance between the rotation point on the front arm and the connection pin is 4 cm extra so this gives me more than 30% extra pulling force.
I think I got everyone thinking that it wasn’t driveable this low but it is and it can even go lower I have 2cm left in the fenders.




The car is not completely finished because I want to place in total 8 valves to be able to control each wheel separately and I will mount some titanium sparkle blocks under the car.

Greetz Nico (Crazy Belgian)