I wonder who that was...

My lips are sealed mate.

I think he has a point. If you consider the likes of us lot who have owned them for years ever since they were seen as cheap runabouts, then it's difficult to get your head round paying five grand and up for one.

We've got used to fixing things up with bits of rubber inner tube, or various bodges that work without spending much money. It's become a 2cv ethos in a way, cheap cars that are kept running on a shoe string. I must have expressed regret for the passing of those days many times before on here.

Now when a dealer tells me I need to spend around 5k for a good 'un I start looking what else that 5k can buy me, and it's a lot more than a 2cv believe me.

Peter,
2CV4s had the 435 engine though, with 26bhp @ 6,750 rpm, so a slightly different animal to the older 425.

I'll planning on putting a 435 engine and box back into my 'shopping trolley' Dyane, now that I've got my grubby paws on a brand new crankshaft for it.

Around here there aren't many hills, a bit like Holland, if only in that one respect...

ken

I (think) that I've dealt with two of those buyers, both of them having got rid of their cars after barely a year of ownership.
One car had covered less than 1,000 (dry and sunny) miles in that time and needed over £500 of work to get it up to MOT standard...

Rusty rear brake pipes, wheel rims leaking air through rusty seams (even though the outside faces had been painted), kingpins held in with grubscrews, partially seized rear brakes, etc., etc.
The clutch release bearing on one was so sha*gg#d, you could hear it whistling from 20 yards away.
Almost forgot about the seat belt bolt which had stripped out of its thread in the sill, so was held in with seam sealer.

'All that glistens may not be gold?'

ken

I know where you're coming from Smiffy, but 2cv prices will never reach the sort of prices that Jags, A-Ms, Ferraris and such like (those machines are much more prone to economic uncertainties). If you look at prices of stuff like Austin 7s(common & Garden classics) they have always tended to float through the choppy waters of recession with much more buoyancy. Perhaps I'm wrong that prices will rise, they may even fall back a tad, but on the whole I think they'll remain fairly buoyant.

Just my opinion, you understand.

If it's who i think it is, he said the same to my local specialist when he came down from 'op North to collect a few shitters for 'restoration'...

I can't honestly remember. Mum had a series of them. The last one was Dutch registered and I can't rightly remember how old it was. It may have been a 435 but that didn't come in until 1970, which is approximately how old the car was. It may even have been a late 60s one. She got that one brand new and part exchanged the previous 2CV. I spent hours reading the owner's manual figuring out how to start it and drive it. I cracked it when I was about 10 and made it move under its own power. Great fun....

Mum drove it everywhere flat out. I was amazed when I got taken out in someone else's 2CV and it didn't wail like a banshee; it seemed just plain wrong.

The one before that (the car that got traded in for the new one) was a hand me down from my aunt and had a modern bonnet, I think it was a '64 or so. It had a Radioen!

The one before that was a suicide door car and I can barely remember it at all; other than the fact that it never seemed to start without written notice!

Must have been a 435, they're a hoot if the pedal's kept jammed to the floor.

I remember having a bit of a battle to get past a 2CV4 when we were on holiday in France, as they put their foot down upon noticing it was a RHD Dyane, dragging a trailer, which was being cheeky enough to start overtaking them up a long hill.

Think they gave up when valve bounce set in, as there were a few backfires heard above the high pitched scream of their engine, just before the deadlock was broken.
Difficult to hear properly, mind you, above the noise of my passenger 'advising' me to stop being so silly...

ken.