Thursday 12 June 2014

Horsepower in the Vineyard II

Claudette parked next to Vincent Roussely's delivery van at Domaine du Clos Roussely. The delivery van dates from the 1980s (!!) and has the same motor as Claudette (who is from 1956). The day we visited Vincent was having trouble starting the van and Simon was very pleased to be able to pass on a tip which helped.
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WWII Anniversary: The last cabinet meetings of the Third Republic of France were conducted on 12 and 13 June 1940 at the Chateau of Cangé in Saint Avertin (now a suburb of Tours) after the government  fled Paris.

3 comments:

Tim said...

That lovely H-Van cannot be any younger than early '81....
that is when they stopped production of the wonderful beastie!!
It was replaced by the far less adaptable C25....
Nice, too, to see it is a proppa Frenchie.... with suicide doors!!
For all other, non-French, markets the door was hinged down the front...
meaning that you had to lift the door upwards far enough to use the step at the front... and then get inside without the door trapping your leg...
the door weighs just short of fifty kilos!!
Most non-French market H-Van owners use the door on the side!!
Pauline and I were thinking of getting an H-Van camper at one point....
we even went to look at one!!

Susan said...

Tim: I must have misunderstood what I was told about the H-Van then.

Tim said...

Not necessarily....
there seems to be a lot of vagueness about vehicle dates...
the little blue runabout at the Champion mushroom caves is apparently a 1960 2CV...
it is in fact a Club...
which means it cannot be any older than feb 1970... the first year of the Club series....
also, it is a six-light body...
1960 cars were four-lights.
Therefore, 'tis not and cannot date from 1960...
unless, of course, only the chassis remains of the original...

Certain companies have made Meharis and 2CVs, from scratch, and got them registered entirely on the original Carte Gris and numberplates...
all that remained of the "original" car!!
You can in fact buy blank production code plates to stamp yourself....
using the code on the original damaged plate, the chassis or just from the Carte Gris...
Citroen used standard, over the Brico counter 6mm high number & alphabet punches!!
Strange world, hunh!

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