The message <313030303330383344876E1376@zetnet.co.uk>
from Gerald L R Stubbs <stubbs@zetnet.co.uk> contains these words:

I gather that they still "Race" them at certain rallies, BICBW...

Not any more.

Mabor 135s seem to be the current budget tyre of choice, but nothing beats
Michs.

snip

<picks self up from floor, rubbing bruises>

Ouch!  

OK, OK, I'll put 're-built 2CV' back up near the top of the list, OK?

There are very few 2CVs on the road around my patch of north London.

I know what the car's merits are, I used one for years and still remember
it fondly - even the need to get it push-started in the winter when the
ignition got too damp over-night for even the starting-handle to work.  
(I'm sure there was a way to get that fixed too, but the local Citroen
garages weren't really interested in 'old bangers' - they wanted to sell me
a new car).

Many's the time I've overtaken Jags and Mercs struggling up the steep
passes of the Lake District, with my fully laden 2CV growling eagerly for
the next bend.

Here's a true story:-

I'd had the 2CV serviced by the local Citroen garage, preparatory to a
long drive from Salford to Cornwall via central London.  All went well
until I was belting along the M1 on the outskirts of London, when there
was a rattle-rattle-BANG from under the bonnet; but the car carried on
going at full throttle 60mph+ so I thought I'd thrown up a stone or
something.  

Then I hit the queue to get off the motorway.  Damned car stalled when I
changed down, but picked up again when I let the clutch in.  But each time
I lifted off the throttle, the engine died; it would only run at full
throttle.  Now, this is not good in heavy traffic, and not good on a
Sunday afternoon in a big city one is not familiar with.  Particularly
when one still has another 200 miles to go and people depending ... this
was in the days before 'mobile phones' too.

Happily, I spotted the friendly chevrons down a dingy side-street, and
roared my way towards it in 1st gear at rather too much of a lick for the
road, slipping the clutch to keep control as I jerked to a stuttering halt
outside the mercifully open double-doors of an archetypal back-street
bodger's garage.

A greasy-overalled gentleman wandered out, muttering and scowling; I
picked up a few words, such as 'merde' and 'sh.t' and 'vache', and many
others that were not part of my GCE O-level French, and in a very strange
accent.  "I say, this car seems to have something wrong with the engine
..." "mutter ... groan ... gesticulate ... execrable Anglais ...
dimanche".  He opened the bonnet, leaving a huge smear of dark grease on
the paintwork, and poked around, and pulled out a loose Bowden cable with
a lump of metal on the end.  "Who work on carbretta, eh? EEEdioTTa!
<spit> ... See?  screws here, here, four, gone; not good!  Carbretta,
choke, merde!  <spit> ... "

He vanished into the gloom of his work-shop, and emerged a few minutes
later with a wire coat-hanger and a box of bits and some tools including
a large hammer, and proceded to curse in some alien tongue while buried
head-first in the depths of the sick engine.  After about ten minutes, he
emerged, wiped the spit off his chin then onto the headlamp rim, and said
"OK, go now, feexed".  I tried the starter, and she purred into life; the
throttle worked smoothly, all seemd well again.  I took out my wallet, he
grabbed a bank-note seemingly at random, cursed some more, and closed the
doors behind him as he retired once more to his lurking place.

The rest of the journey was relatively un-eventful.  The engine continued
to run perfectly happily for several years ofter that, with the bit of
coat-hanger and a hand-made tin substitute for whatever vital part the
Citroen garage had failed to bolt down securely.  I never used that
Citroen dealer again, and no-one who serviced the car ever commented on
the non-standard parts - and never replaced them, either.

I could never find the establishment of the grimey saviour again.

I was reading
<news:Xns97DC6CD81D357adrianachapmanfreeis@204.153.244.170>, made by
the entity known as Adrian, that requests spam to be sent to
<toomany2cvs@gmail.com> and I became inspired,

But do they come with bullbars?