The Ami is just such a cool car to see lowered, just exentuates its gorgeous lines

Anyway, I promised some details on the build so here goes

Picked this lady up from just south of Paris in December 2013. My lack of french made the paperwork a little complicated to understand, I could've signed anything. Unfortunately I couldn't rely on google translate as I had done when conversing with the seller.

So here she is all loaded up ready to come home



After a long day of going to get it (I'd already decided by that point that it looked good from the videos and photos received from the seller) that I'd be bringing it home. The worst that could happen would be that I'd end up breaking it!

Thankfully 'Blue" was good and solid, couple of photos in the cold light of day, no real horrors to report. Although there was obviously a fair amount of work to do to get ready for MOT





Those jobs included bolting the engine in (it had one driveshaft that was too long that prevented the engine sitting square) and deciphering a french wiring diagram (who knew mauve was brown )

Anyway the MOT was eventually obtained with no issues at all. Then the modifying could begin

This was before the MOT





After a lot of late nights thinking about how best to achieve the airbag setup in a way that maintained as much of the original suspension without the airbag working backwards (i.e to lower the bags have to deflate). An order was placed through various suppliers to get the best price overall for the bags, tank, and management system including the compressor.

First up was to tackle the tank and compressor and decide where they would live



Next up was the gauges and manual paddle switches



Following this the spring cans were removed and ditched never to return The threaded tubes and tie rods were retained. The threaded tubes were then modified with a base welded to them for the airbags to mount to



The chassis and body were clearanced to allow the bags to work and fit without rubbing or touching on anything





All bump stops were removed, the rear silencer was removed and the brake pipes relocated under the rear arms so I get could the Ami as low as possible, the front chassis and exhaust sit on the ground



Workshop shots





1st show and it got an award



My bus and the Ami together

Beautiful. If only mine (Russ's) and that one could have been photographed together.

Hey Rhythm Thief, where is it now?

Nice. Does look good.

No idea where RT's Ami is now, but I seem to recall it's not a van any more and it's trebled in price, so it ought to be looking pretty good somewhere!

I can't find the pictures of it when it was low, which is a shame, but it looked like yours, only red.

When you drop it right down don't you stand a good chance of ripping the bags/pipes etc apart while driving? Are you planning any kind of skid protection? I used to just treat the undersides of mine as disposable but I was only using mainly standard (cheap) stuff...

good to see a dural plate protecting the importanr bits

"Slamming" your Ami, 2cv or van then crying when youve shaved off the axle bolts or knocked your shocker pins out your expensive chassis is just retarded.

Sean,
I'm not too sure that this is a dural plate protecting the important bits.
Looks more like the joints between the bottom skin and outer chassis webs have been ground away to give clearance, then rivetted back together?

Ken is correct, the lip on the chassis has been locally clearanced around the air bag and riveted back together to regain some of the strength.

Russell, yes I need to figure out some skid plates for the bags in order to protect them, which will be a future project. I'd love to body drop it in the future as well

The guy who bought it from me for £1600 - what I paid for it and roughly the proper value - sold it on to some friends for, er, £3000. I don't know if they're still friends. It went to Sheffield, where the new owners refitted the back windows and then got bored and put it on Ebay four times at steadily decreasing prices. I was offered it back outside of Ebay for £2000 but couldn't stretch to that and probably wouldn't have even given the funds. It appeared briefly on here at one of the International meets but since then there's been no sign of it. No idea if it's still on the club scene, or still lowered or still fitted with that lovely LOUD amp and boombox, but I hope so.

all i can say is it was an uncharacteristic bout of enthusiasm on my part this morning