2cv heaven

The 2cv was the first car I ever bought, £300, bargain, one broken chassis later and a lot of crying, I had a 2nd hand chassis put on by Doug Cuuningham, the famous 2cv mechanic who happened to live up the road from me in UK, very handy.

After several years of driving around in Valentine, and a lot of arguing about the awfulness : comfort, weatherproofness, humility (in ricks case) versus the merits of it : cheap to run, fully convertible, fun and exciting to drive and attention drawing, we got rid of it in a pact, you sell your clown car and i will sell my selfish paris dakar motorbike. (actually I pulled out of the deal, but did eventually fulfil my end of the bargain).
We both regretted it. Years later I asked the 2cv mechanic if he ever saw the people who bought my car and he said he hadn't seen them for years. I explained to him that I would love to buy it back as missed it so badly and we needed another car. As luck would have, but i'd call it something else, the people that had bought my darling 2cv from me rang my mechanic the very next day and said they wanted to sell!!!.
I bought her back cheaper than I'd sold her and I still have her to this day. She isn't here with me but will come one day and possibly on her last trip, back to the country where she was actually built! funny that.
Rick has bought yet another adventure motorcycle, actually he has two, but one of them is apparently for me but in pieces. Both of which also sit uselessly in a garage.

Imagine my delight when this morning I heard some familiar sounds in the village, peeked out of my door and discovered that there was a convoy of pristine 2cv's all lined up in the street. Where they here just for me? maybe. They were on their way to the Estrellas as part of the www.2cvclubdoporto.pt



This is what my idea of heaven would look like, tonnes of 2cv's all restored and shiny and gleaming. If i had enough money I would have a fleet.
Nobody could understand my ridiculous mountain Portuguese so I found a young member of the convoy who spoke english and with a very sad photo of my 2cv, explained that I too had one. Oh but it's very bad they all said. Bring it here and you can restore it cheaply....i quite like it's shabby chicness, but they didn't understand, they were the most respectable, smartly dressed and posh 2cv owners I had ever met. I had a tear in my eye and huge lump in my throat, they understood that, no language needed.