Hi all.

I know that there are at least three Beachcomber owners on here, so maybe they (or any of the other informed luminaries!) can help me with an insurance valuation on my 1983 Beachcomber.

She's a series 1 registered 1st August (remember that?!) 1983 with astronomical mileage. 230,000.
All panels are original and unresprayed.
Upholstery is good, but the driver's seat has torn under the stress of my enormous weight (!?) so I'm just about to replace the front seat upholtery with some nice-looking ECAS items.
Original engine still pulling 80 mph on the flat!

Bodyshell and chassis were replaced with brand-new items in 1989 and are still mainly perforation-free, but there has been a tiny bit of rust repair to the chassis legs. A strange story here. At the time, this rusty-chassised Beachy was my company car (!) and with no desire to replace it, I had it put onto a brand new shell and Citroen chassis. This was, believe it or not, funded largely by the sale of a very tidy Sinclair C5! At the same time I had the wiring changed to the latest type with new dashboard and the fabby new "Dim-Dip" lighting system, which promptly ceased to work about 9 months later. She was also re-registered as A2 CVG which looks suspiciously like A2CV6 if you squint with your head on one side. It helps if you have a mild astigmatism.

Looking back, I probably should have kept all original, but at least it kept her on the road for another trillion trouble-free miles until she was semi-retired and replaced by an Axel11E (where is she now I wonder!?) in the early '90s!! Since then she's been driven sparingly and maintained as necessary- she's had all the usual bonnet hinge section and vent flap replacement at least twice etc......

Anyway. There's a pic of her on the "Welcome" thread, and as you can see, she's not totally mint, but not far off and MOTed and Taxed etc. And she has nearly always been on the road and driveable even if I've not bothered actually TO drive her!

I now need an insurance valuation for an agreed mileage policy. At the moment she's valued at £1500, but I'm told that prices have gone up a bit, and and she may well be under-insured! Some geezer on the box the other day (cable, so I don't necessarily believe the info!) said that there are only 24 Beachcombers still on the road in the UK. By my reckoning that's 5% of all RHD output.

So. What do you think I should insure for?

Ta!

HRx

it's hard to say without seeing it in the flesh, but bear in mind one 2cv spares company sold a questionable one for £9000 recently, i reckon an original car like yours in good order would be worth insuring for £4000, going on current values. (just for the record, I dont think any 2cv ever is worth more than £2000, but sadly thats what the market dictates....)

Coolio!

I'll get on to Footman James in the morning.

Agreed with your last point. I'll have a Sahara please. Here's a wad of notes.

have you seen how much a sahara goes for now? €40,000 if not more. I've got a 2cv and a spare engine/box, how hard can it be...?

I turned one down at €25,000 last year when the € was weaker than now.

I should have borrowed and got myself into debt!

I have to submit a form and photos of my Beachy for insurance to be agreed value.. ok so mine is A1, inside and out, new seats the lot.. and l have declared the fibre glass cut away wings too.. and agreed value of £6500..
See what you would sell it for on the open market is sometimes less than you would get of you were buying from a dealer.. so what is worth is a difficult question.. mine is based on what l would pay for a beachy in my beachy condicition and what a dealer is selling fir.. and spilt the differance.. one 2cv seller regularly sells cars that are partly restored for £4000 so thats the bench mark.. hope this makes sense...
for a tidy one then l'd say £4000-£4500

Cheers!

And are there only 24 left on the road?

Dont know about number.. l have seen about nine in 2cvgb meetings... quite a few at forgien meets.. but they are wrong hand drives!

depends, maybe 24 known in the uk, but if you include transats and france3s, no, theres loads left.

This was just at one meeting..

(yeah, i know they aren't beachcombers, but they're much the same..)