A few years after Elly and I started Adrem Car Rental, "Go and find a hobby," she said to me. "Always being busy with your business isn't healthy.".
Well, finding a hobby. That was easier said than done.
Until one beautiful day we went with our family to the Three-Country Point in Vaals.
The place had been chosen by a club of car enthusiasts for a meeting. A whole line of strange cars with fenders that turned as they steered, rumbled past us. It was the sound of Citroën 2CVs, but they looked completely different.
I spoke to one of the drivers. He told me that all those cars had originally been Citroën 2cvs, but had been converted into the convertibles they were now. With self-steering mudguards.
Some were called Lomax, others Le Patron.
You could build a Le Patron like that yourself, the driver said.
When I got home, I searched the internet to see how this was possible. If you had 300 hours to spare, it wasn't an insurmountable problem to convert a 2CV yourself into a Le Patron, even if you had no technical training.
I had found my hobby.
I only had to look for a donor car. A Citroën 2CV, a Dyane or a Mehari. If it was rotten, that wasn't such a problem, you could buy a new chassis – they were still available back then.
This meant searching on Marktplaats for a Citroën I could use as a donor car. One was for sale in Zeist. I called the seller, who told me the car no longer had valid MOT, still had old number plates (without the EU logo), wouldn't start anymore, and had no keys. After some haggling, the deal was quickly done.
Upon arriving home with the red Duck, it could be dismantled.
The top of the Duck was screwed to the chassis with 14 bolts. If you undid those, you could lift the whole top off and take it for scrap. Or use it as a playground for the children.
The doors, the seats, the exhaust manifold and the windscreen washer system could also be removed (unless you buy windscreens higher than 10 cm – in which case the RDW requires you to have windscreen wipers and a windscreen washer system).
In the meantime, I had visited the importer of Le Patron. I had eyed a few beautiful examples there with great admiration, and decided that our Le Patron should be black. With white seats – that seemed wonderful to me.
The donor car had been almost completely stripped, but still needed to be taken apart further. The chassis dated from the famous 1980s. These are known for Citroën not using such good steel for them. A large part of that steel had evolved into rust.
While you're at it, you might as well do it right the first time. Ordered a new chassis – I could give that a proper rust-proofing treatment straight away.
I've spent many evenings tinkering. Just one sentence in the manual ('now install the gearbox') could take up 3 or 4 evenings.
But the project was completed.
Exciting was the first time starting it up. Had it been possible to build a car without technical training? It still amazes me that the little car started.
Would you enjoy building a car like that yourself? Look at this then.
Would you like to give such a car a test drive first? You can rent it from us! Book this open two-seater here.
One Response
That seems like a fun hobby. I didn't even know this hobby existed. In most cases, does the donor car always have to be a Citroën 2CV, a Dyane, or a Mehari? It's quite creative to convert those cars into convertibles. Is it necessary to secure these converted cars with an alarm? I suspect burglars would also be interested in these kinds of unique cars!