The vineyard is far inland, the car will garaged 99% of the time and only used in on dry summer days. So it's not a question of preparing it for hard use on wet and salty roads. Mileage is likely to be a couple of hundred per year - really just enough to avoid the deterioration that very long term storage brings but not enough to devalue it or wear it out. If a Portugese 2CV can't cope with that level of use without strengthening then I would worry about driving the car in any circumstances on public roads. I have owned a Portugese 2CV and found it to be tough as old boots - just lacked appropriate corrosion protection for British roads as has been pointed out.

A similar car recently went at auction for £25,000 (in Australia admittedly but at those prices it's worth shipping it over). We have discussed using 2CV specialists but given the value of the car would rather use specialists from the classic car restoration world to do rustproofing, bodywork, paint etc rather than have some bloke pitch up with his entire workshop in the back of an old van and slap some Jenolite on then cover it with aerosol bodyshutz on the driveway.

Having said all that I don't think it's necessary for this car now. I will try and get over there next week and post a picture - the car isn't fitted with a number plate so no chance of it being tracked down through the DVLA

And you can see said factory and the "skills" that were used to build the cars here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU70ekyF25E

Hows about I build him a decent 2cv for running round in, in the summer, and he can mothball this one still, or make it a museum piece, as much as I agree with the sentiment "its a car, cars are for driving" I think it would be a shame to loose a pristine factory fresh example. (Being 15 I've never seen a new one in the flesh)

Paul,
isn't it a bit unfair to criticise the Mangualde workforce, when any plant which is based on an assembly line system of production relies on each worker specialising in a very small part of the process?

One of the most significant changes made by Citroen when production was moved to Portugal appears to have been the use of an electrophoretic spray setup rather than the previous 'dunk it in a big vat of paint' method.
That change alone could must have had a considerable influence on the reduced life expectancy of Portuguese built cars when compared with those which were built in France.

I remember Roy ( ECAS) buying a low mileage late model car and commenting how quickly rust would appear in the overlapping seams, which were one of the areas where a spray process would not be as affective as immersion.

@ Blackjack,
are you quite sure that 1990 car has never had petrol in the tank?
On the that video, it looked as though each car was taken for a test run, with an observer on board working his way through a checklist.
After final inspection, the cars were driven to the railway station to be loaded onto tranporters.

ken.

I *think* there's an article in a 2cv mag about this guy somewhere from a few years ago. I'll scan it if I can find it... Northern Spain rings a bell cos in this article he talks about driving his everydayer there and back in a day.

Beulie (or however it's spelt) motor museum have one with about 27 warehouse to warehouse miles, I did have to lift the roof to have a smell of the inside lmao!

Dont go to Plymouth, bring it to Eastbourne and I will swap it for my rusty heap....even chuck in the remaining 2 months road tax

Ken - we're pretty sure it never had petrol in the tank. It was delivered straight to him and not to the dealer because it was never going to be commissioned, so all the wax, paper wrappings etc are still there. There is no petrol smell in the tank. I suppose Citroen could have put a couple of pints in there to test drive it and load it on to the train in Portugal. But my friend recalls it being empty when it arrived and they pushed it to its resting place. Could easily have dried out - I can't imagine that they'd fill it up.

I'm hearing what everyone's saying about museums etc. I will speak to him again next week to see if putting it on the road is really what he wants to do. I'm not sure he has considered lending it to a musuem. I'm taking the point about the opportunity to record everything about the condition of this car. I've already had an offer for someone to photograph it and will probably take that up.

I had some major surgery before Xmas and we are just waiting for me to recover before we get started. I will try and get over to take a couple of pictures and post them in the week commencing 14th March. I'm leading in to it with a respray of my Avion and some light fabrication work (making a set of lakes headers) for the hot rod.

Little Louis - if he wanted a restored one he'd go out and buy one. I'm assuming you are Louis Barber Jnr? He'd be more likely to buy from your Dad than other "well known specialists" as he has expressed interest in a 4x4.

Squeezebox - Sure, yes - and that winning lottery ticket will be sellotaped to the windscreen next to the tax disc