My dad was a keen Citroen man - I learned to drive with him in a DS Safari (estate) and with BSM in a Triumph Dolomite - what a contrast! The Dolomite was truly terrible...

So, my Mum had a couple of Dyanes, then I had one too in my late teens and joined the 2CVGB club, going on to own at least 6 2CVs, as well as attending rallies all over Europe - including the World Meeting at Orléans in 1989, where I first saw an Eriba. Here's a couple of photos of Eriba taken from my extensive slide library of that event. These were actually taken in Amboise on the Loire, where many of us moved (after the event ended) seeking cooler weather - it had been around 40C at Orléans...

Anyway, I always fancied an Eriba and, many years later, bought the first of the three we have owned.

I'll scan some more slides when I have time - there were some amazingly wacky 2CVs at that "do" - including V8 engined monsters, supercharged flat 4s and even a float plane...

always wanted one in my youth but always got talked out of it……!!

One of those strange cars that went much better than the on-paper 29bhp promised. I remember a friend with a Golf GTI having to work hard to keep up on a road I knew well. If you wound up the steering before bends it wouldn't roll or torque steer as much, which was great fun... Once they put disc brakes on the front it was a much safer car to drive at speed, as the earlier drum brakes tend to fade really badly on a long hill. I well remember coming down the Puy de Dome near Clermont-Ferrand and being very glad that the last stretch onto the flat was straight! I then had to rebuild the front brakes at the campsite the next day.

Of course Motorways were not a good place for 2CVs - I remember, as a student, being sat on fractionally over 70mph (i.e. flat out) on a German autobahn between Stuttgart and Munich and being overtaken by a (then newly released) Audi Quattro followed by a Porsche 911 Turbo doing double my speed. Never saw them coming and had flashbacks of me being in a cartoon-style spinning car after they passed...

My friend has a 1960s VW Campervan and he says a 2CV's a sports car in comparison (though, due to its weight, not as easily blown about, I would assume). I remember that Porsche built a 911 Turbo engined VW Camper in the late 1980s and they used to terrify the bejesus out of people on the motorways around Stuttgart... And those were the days before ABS as standard and before the anti-skid and anti-wheelspin technology that we take for granted nowadays...

and here is one of those late 70s/early 80s 911 powered B3 vans - for sale this summer for $500,000! Porsche only converted a few - and they were never sold to the public. Probably the best disguised performance car ever...

I had a 2CV. Like driving an umbrella.

Here are some pictures of the flying 2CV I mentioned, plus a 2CV as the basket on a hot air balloon - not great quality pics, I'm afraid, just stills taken from someone's video on Youtube. I have much better photos somewhere...

The one thing I really liked about early 2CVs was the built in wine rack in the boot...

Class...

On a par with the Fiat Strada ( built by robots, anyone remember them), it had a wine bottle holder just in front of the handbrake, it also had a strap to hold the bottle in place in case it was already open. Not quite following the Drink/drive ethos 😲

I think that was the drink/drive ethos in rural France...

I remember the advert for the Fiat --

Designed by Computer

Built by Robots

(Then a picture of a pile of wreckage on the autostrada)

Driven by Italians.

Why always have evil thoughts. The bottles could also be soda or water or tea. About the bottle holder the Discovery has one too, and what am I supposed to think.