Sally is a Cornflower Blue Citroen GS Club. She's been pretty much restored, with new rear subframe, lots of new body panels, new exhaust, rebuilt engine, new gearbox, new brakes, new suspension spheres, a second-hand interior from a sports GS and a respray. She's in much better condition than the Rover, and should do very nicely as a daily car while the Rover's being restored. I bought her at a GS rally, and everyone else there told me I had a good buy - in fact, they all said they'd have bought her if I hadn't!
21-4-2001
Within a couple of hours of buying the car, I'd locked my keys in it, as it has the weirdest locks I've ever seen. I opened the passenger door with the key; put the keys in the car; shut the door; door was locked when I went to re-open it. I've since found out that this doesn't happen on the driver's side, in order to stop stupid owners from leaving the keys in the car... Fortunately I hadn't locked the boot, so I got in the boot, unbolted the back seats and opened one of the back doors with a hook a passer by made from a piece of wood and a length of garden wire. Good start. It needed a new headlamp bulb, as well.
13-5-2001
Fitted the Rover's radio. I never listen to the radio, but have a Minidisc player connected to a jack on the Rover's original Radiomobile, so I'd hoped to find a nice, discreet amp to hide under one of Sally's seats. No luck though, so the Rover's lending her the Radiomobile! Not too difficult a job, although the dash was a bastard to remove - and the last screw never came out. The heated rear windscreen doesn't work so we used a power feed from that rather than bothering to try and wire it all the way back to the fusebox.
Found a rather worrying rust hole in the left hand sill. Ho hum... she's got a new MoT though, so I've got some time to learn to weld - I think all GS owners have to eventually!
28-5-2001
Sally's engine seemed a bit noisy on the way home from visiting friends in Rochester last night, and this morning I discovered that she's cracked the manifold on the port side of the engine. What is it with me and exhausts lately? I'm a bit upset because the rest of the exhaust is new, apart from the difficult bit. I hope it's not going to be too expensive for me to replace.
Anyway, a temporary patch should do until I can get her booked in for a replacement - it's not perfect because the area's completely inaccessible, but it'll do for now. I want to go to France for the day next weekend and it should survive that! Famous last words, I know...
8-5-2001
Oh dear. It's been one of those days. First up, I did an incredibly stupid thing this morning - Sally had been behind the gates on my Mum's drive, and I started her up and drove away without waiting for it to rise up on the suspension. Result: I've ripped the wooden stop for the gates out of the ground, torn a strip of underseal off the bottom of the car and wrecked the back section of the exhaust.
Anyway, she got into the mechanics, making a hell of a row on the way, and they tell me that they should be able to beat the exhaust back into shape. Oh, and it's not an exhaust manifold that's broken, it's the inlet manifold. And no-one can find a replacement part.
20-6-2001
Eventually I found the necessary inlet manifold, and P. Wells Engineering of Chelsfield (01959 532525) replaced it and re-aligned the exhaust system at a total cost of £105.75. Ouch... but Sally's still cost me less than she's actually worth. I think. And less than the Rover in a similar time.
14-7-2001
5,000 mile service at Oaten Hill Mews Garage, Canterbury (01227 765411). £119.20.
3-9-2001
Oh no! Front right hand brake failed - leaving quite scary handling as Sally pulled hard to one side under braking! A quick look at the side of the road revealed that the pad was heavily contaminated - with LHM. Whoops... sadly a week working in Austria meant that I couldn't try to fix it myself, but left the car in the capable hands of the Acorn Garage, Canterbury (01227 456303) who found that the caliper hadn't been properly replaced at some point and had simply fallen off. They replaced it at a cost of £59.93.
25-10-2001
A little while ago Sally went into the Acorn Garage (01227 456303) with a nasty knocking noise over bumps and I got her back today. They’ve done a lot of work and presented me with a big bill, but she’s been transformed. All the drivetrain knock’s gone so you can change gear with total smoothness, she brakes in a straight line, she’s quiet and they’ve even fixed that annoying rattle from the back door. Fantastic stuff - deep joy.
30-10-2001
Up early, and away to my new job in Italy! Sally’s pretty slow with all that extra weight, as I'm going to be here for eight months and have all my belongings with me, but we made it to Dover in plenty of time for the boat. I was pulled over for a security search, as about half the cars going through were, but fortunately they didn’t go through everything. I got straight onto the ferry - the Northern Merchant, the same ship which brought the Rover and me back from Saint-Dizier in April - had some breakfast and watched the video during the crossing.
I followed the Routes Nationales for a while, mindful of the charges which I can ill afford on French autoroutes, but kept getting stuck behind tractors and lorries and having to slow or stop for roadworks so I got bored before Cambrai and got onto the autoroute there. I stopped at the huge Auchan outside St Quentin to buy petrol, sunglasses and something to eat (although it was late so the Flunch didn’t have anything left but ham sandwiches), then carried on to Vitry-le-François (through a beautiful but blinding sunset) where my friend Ludivine met me and took me to her home in Aulnay-l’Aître for dinner. Everyone was interested in the GS and couldn’t believe I’d replaced the Rover with another “antiquité.”
I’d intended to carry on as far as Dijon this evening but was too tired to continue past Chaumont (which I reached at about half ten) so I found a hotel there and collapsed into bed. I’d only managed about 350 miles - and some of that was because I’d missed my exit towards Dijon at Saint-Dizier and had to come back.
31-10-2001
Up bright and early and out to get a copy of Gazoline, some patisseries and a coffee before hitting the road again. I got going at about half nine and joined the commuter crawl in cloud and drizzle (stuck behind a lorry again) out of Chaumont, under the spectacular viaduct (I’d lived in the area for nearly a year and no-one told me it was there - I wish I’d taken a photo) and onto the A5. Motorways all the way today - I had to get a better average mileage than yesterday. Down straight past Dijon and on towards Lyon, with the weather clearing all the time and getting very glad of my new sunglasses and Sally’s sunvisors, which are bigger than the Arsemobile’s and can be unclipped and turned to shade the side windows.
I probably could have bypassed Lyon but in the absence of a navigator I flew straight in and had to negotiate the ring road (which was extremely busy) before finding my route towards Turin. I ended up leaving on the same road out which had brought me in, but that was okay because it meant I could stop at the service station I’d looked at longingly from the other side of the road for petrol and lunch. I made the most of the lunch, knowing it would be my last French food for a long time.
By this time the weather was gorgeous. In the Rover, I’d have had the window and quarterlight open for buffet-free ventilation, but that’s not possible in Sally. Opening her windows just gets you buffeted - and her streamlining was already suffering enough with the topbox on. I just added to her electrical strain by switching the cold fan on.
When I finally got out of Lyon, I was cheered by the easy signage - I’d planned to go by the Fréjus tunnel and you can just follow the “Turin via Fréjus” signs. The motorway takes you through the Alps, which slowly rear up out of the landscape, making you ask yourself exactly where they start; you round a small hill and find yourself facing foothills; round one of them and the next peaks are a little higher; and it goes on and on until you realise that the car’s struggling hard to hold 60mph on these gentle but long gradients and there’s snow atop the distant peaks. You hope fervently that the road isn’t going to keep winding through those; I’m sure there are routes over the Alps as well as under them, but I wouldn’t want to tackle them in a fully-laden GS. For the first time, I started to worry that my steed would fail me; that Sally would finally balk at one of those gradients and that she’d blow her clutch or gearbox in order to save the engine. And shit, what’ll I do if I break down here? I’ve got continental breakdown cover on a classic car insurance policy; will that cover me for a breakdown in a car that’s older than me, carrying all my worldly goods, in the middle of the Alps, when I need to meet my boss in a new job 150 miles away this evening, a company that failed to help me when the battery failed outside Beckenham Library?
I was worried, but I couldn’t get too worked up with all that beauty around me. What a drive! It was worth bringing the car and not flying just to have seen the Alps. I’d love to come this way again for pleasure, with no appointments to keep and in a car that’s not at the limits of its capacity. What a fantastic drive - I kept on bursting into big grins as every new peak came into view. Odd things to remember... the road runs past a powerstation, where the speed limit’s 70km/h (40mph) because of the magnetic field (why? Brakes are mechanical) and there’s an alternative route for people with pacemakers. Some bridges across high gorges, which would have been scary but I’d driven all the way across France by then and was no longer afraid of mere heights. Despite the Monto Bianco and Gotthard tunnels being closed, there was very little traffic so I could just drive without worrying too much about other people. Apart from a couple of lorries, all the other road users shot straight past poor little 1222cc, overloaded Sally and me anyway. Then through lots of tunnels, the longest being the Fréjus (7 miles), and across the border into Italy. The Fréjus is terrifying, by the way - they charge you 20 quid and it’s just a single carriageway with no central reservation, and a lorry tailgating me on and off - it would come right up close, then drop back so that I could barely see it in the mirror. I kept thinking of Duel. I was very mindful of the accident which took place in the Gotthard tunnel the other week, and didn’t want to be responsible for completely closing Italy off from the outside world.
I carried on right into Turin, arriving bang on five o’clock. Not having a navigator, and Italian road signs being written impossibly small, I managed to miss my exit and fly straight into the town. I think I deserve a medal. I’ve driven through Turin in the rush hour. In a car older than me. Which was totally overloaded. After a short time I figured it out; it’s actually impossible to drive sensibly in Italy. The roads were marked in two lanes but people were making three or four (parked and double-parked cars excluded) so I sat in the middle, ready to dive one way or the other as soon as I could read the road signs, driving foot-to-the-floor like all the Italians (and abusing poor Sally’s clutch even more than necessary with all that weight) and with one finger always on the horn/indicator so that we could make a bid for freedom at any time. I kept seeing cars in the mirrors closer than I ever had before and always expected collisions, but somehow we survived without a scratch.
Not far left to go now - just 76 miles (which took an hour and a half) of straight motorway until Voghera. Sally was doing okay on the motorways despite the extra weight - she could still do a legal 130km/h, just accelerated slowly. The motorway was a faster but less crowded version of the battle to get through Turin though. Italians are all bonkers behind the wheel - they just drive flat out all the time. It’s terrifying. At one point I could see headlights behind me in the distance, but figured it safe to pull out to overtake a lorry. Those lights frantically flashed blueish xenon-bright and instinct trusted them more than my own judgement; I pulled the wheel back hard over and Sally wobbled (heavy and top-heavy, remember) but settled back on her original course. A second later a brand-new Porsche blasted past; probably doing its own maximum speed. Even base-level Porsches can do 140mph and I have no doubt that this one was doing at least that. I cheered out loud when I saw a “Voghera” sign and the town itself came up only a few minutes later.
Sally’s trip counter is showing 826 miles from Canterbury. She’s going to get a good rest now, anyway - no more long trips until I’ve replaced all her tyres and got the tracking and wheel balancing done. My right arm’s aching from keeping her going in a straight line all that way. I’ve been through three countries and one mountain range, and seen the aftermath of two accidents (both family estates and no other car involved, by the way). And bloody hell, I’ve driven through Turin in the rush hour.
15-8-2002
I finally waved goodbye to Sally today. The market for these fine cars is really low, so I ended up giving her away - to a previous owner! Look out for her soon at the Citroen Car Club. We had a great time together and there can't be many £450 bargain cars capable of getting you to Italy and back. I'll miss her roadholding, handling and comfort, but I won't miss the feeling of fragility and that awful colour. I'd like another GS one day though - preferably a GSA estate, when I've got a dry garage to keep it in.