Citroën m35

I drive through the city again, tourists and unknown photographers go all the way when I park the M35 on the esplanade right in front of the Eiffel Tower. After being near Philip Freriks' residence on Montmartre and rubbing the breasts of the bronze bust of Dalida, who, according to the surrender, would bring happiness and prosperity (you never know with such a car).

Via Porte d.l.Italie de A6 towards the south-west, the motorway goes up steeply. Despite the warm weather and traffic jams, the car continues to do well. In the late evening I arrive in Salbris where I immediately arrive in a 2CV file , at midnight my tent is on , on an overcrowded festival grounds . The following days had a lot of views with the car, among others the owners of No.47 and No. 95 met. Also speaking the owner of No. 406, he told to keep a register of M35S.

The world meeting is coming to an end, thank God, but I'm starting to hate all that pressure on a dusty far too small terrain. The Monday to the car museum in Valencay where No.396 was to be admired, the car was in a very respectable condition and apparently had been driving for the last time twenty-five years ago. After going through the entire museum around noon via the Loire region to Saint-Lo in Normandy. The next day, looking for the Citroën dealer Lebouteiller who sold my no 122 to Monsieur Glaize, veterinarian in Roncey.

The Citroën dealer had changed his name and also changed place, Lebouteiller no longer existed and since it was a completely new property I didn't go to ask if they knew anything about Lebouteiller. On to Quetrevillais there is a garage of Lebouteiller that still keys to Mercedes and Citroën , the service pump operator told me that the patron was on holiday , I have to come back in three weeks.

Continue on to Roncey where No. 122 drove around the beginning of her life. There went to local veterinary practice to ask if they could remember the name Glaize unfortunately that was too long ago. The car but parked in the church square in Roncey to have lunch, suddenly a lady stops with a Citroën C4 and says she recognizes the car, I of course hotel the botel, but what turns out her father had two Citroën garages in the 1970s. One in Avranches and the other in Granville, of which she can remember that her father had a number of Birotors in maintenance outside M35. She had one herself, but she regretted getting rid of this car. So the trail was temporarily dead here , after exchanging email addresses I left north to visit the D-Day-coast. After wandering around here for a few days, driving home in one piece, no problem in six and a half hours.

Later that week, several e-mails came in from the Francaise, Babette, which I had met in the church square in Roncey. She had asked her mother if she could remember any of M35's clients. Her mother said she couldn't remember. The old administration of both Citroën-filials was also cleaned up in the early nineties. All she could remember was a small Citroën service garage in the village of Bréhal. Now slowly the quarter started to fall on me that I had seen this name on the old import papers that I had received when buying the car. The car was bought from the local Citroën service garage in Bréhal in 1984. After a week, I received an e-mail from her stating that she had tracked down the former garagist and that he himself had a blue M35 in the seventies and eighties. So this couldn't miss us talking about the same man.

The former garage.

The next appointment was that I would come to the classic automobile meeting at the automobile museum in Lohéac the first weekend of October and meet Babette and the old Citroën garagist there. That first Saturday in October to Lohéac where I'll be at noon Babette met again, she had made an appointment with the garagist who had come to Lohéac from Saint-Martin-Bréhal on his own accord. I finally met the second old owner of my car. It is Jacky Jardin, 80 years old and still very vital and good looking despite his age. He joins his Citroen XM berline with his Welsh terrier.

We walk around together in the museum of Lohéac and outside about the parts fair, it is pleasant and we decide to have lunch around the barbecue that is set up outside on the lawn. For me, Babette translates back into English what Monsieur Jardin all said, he is a waterfall of French words. After lunch together to my car in the queues in a special classic parking lot outside the museum. There are already some seventy classics of all kinds of brands and I am the only one with a foreign registration number. Monsieur Jardin suddenly sees the M35 and gets excited about his old car, we make photos together with me and Jardin at the car. We'll have lunch at Monsieur's on Monday afternoon. Jardin home in Bréhal.

Monday 10 hours visiting Babette in Granville, she lets me look at everything at home about the time her father had two Citroën garages, mainly many photos. Like me, she has filled a few large showcases with Citroën model cars further on she is also passionate about large sailing yachts and old planes. She tells the whole story of her father who at the time was very passionate about planes and had his own two-engine Cessna. Unfortunately, fate struck on a foggy day in 1980, her father bumped into another one-engined Cessna plane in Granville Bay. Both aircraft including the pilots and passengers did not survive the crash. She showed me the newspaper article from the plane crash. Through a pontoon one tried to store parts of the planes as far as possible. From that moment on, her mother was alone in running both Citroën garages in Avranches and Granville.

She lasted ten years, after which she finally decided to sell the garages in 1990. She told that her father was close friends with Monsieur LeBouteiller of the Citroën garage in Coutances, also a passionate aviator and as if the devil was playing with it it appeared that Monsieur LeBouteiller had crashed in the early eighties with his Cessna near Cherbourg. So I didn't have to ask this Monsieur any more if he had kept any records of the delivery of my M35 to the veterinarian Monsieur Glaize in Roncey. Babette had because she works at an administrative office in Roncey also with acquaintances in Roncey asked about the veterinarian Monsieur Glaize. She was no longer among the living, but his wife would still live in Donville. She could only tell me that villagers of Roncey could remember the vet in his Citroën SM and M35, the M35 to visit customers and the SM was more for Sunday use.

It was already beginning to walk towards 12 o'clock, it was time to take the cars to Saint-Martin de Bréhal, Babette in her Peugeot 204 convertible and me in my M35. I liked my M35 from Monsieur Jardin in the jardin parking so we had a good view over the car during lunch on the terrace. It was fantastic late summer weather, Monsieur Jardin was all a waterfall of stories he wanted to get rid of us. But first, Champagne !! to celebrate the joyous fact that its old Citroën M35 was back in the garden after 27 years. Occasionally Babette joined me in English so I got something from the quick talk of Jardin. Monsieur Jardin had put together a four course dinner for us, which tasted me well.

He said he had seen the M35 in 1972 with his colleague Citroën garage Le Boutiller in Coutances, the car was completely short drive up to the windscreen and he asked if he could have the car. This was not possible, the car had to be destroyed by order of Citroen Paris. After a few months of standing in front of all the other demolition cars, Jardin finally got Jardin to take the wreck of the M35. He disassembled the body of the chassis, at that moment the Ami Super was on the road. Because the new parts of the Ami Super could be ordered, he decided to weld a completely new body part from the windscreen to the footbox in the coach. This original sheet metal part for the M35 coach was no longer available.

On the footbox the Ami Super-accelerator control was placed, which was a considerable improvement compared to the old 2CV poker control. A new M35 chassis was ordered and a new gearbox-carter (the chassis was nodded and the gearbox was broken by the blow). All gears were switched into the new carter, also a new price-axle was mounted. The old engine was badly damaged. There was a hole in the carter. Through the internal Citroën training school for young mechanics who gained knowledge in the field of Wankel engines, he arranged with exchange of his old engine a new engine with on the engine new components such as carburetor and high pressure pump etc.. Now the construction of the car could begin, transfer all hydraulics from the old chassis, the repaired body, the overhauled gearbox and engine, bumper radiator for front bonnet etc. The grille front was ordered completely new.

The car changed from the dull grey colour to a metallic-golden color, and a towing bracket was mounted so that he could drive his boat trailer to the beach to go fishing at sea in his spare hours. His wife used the car regularly to take the children to school, until she overlooked a lamppost and there was another significant damage at the front of the car. After repairing everything himself in his workshop in Bréhal, he decided to spray the car in the color Blue Delta which was at that time a very popular color, we are talking about 1974/75. In the following years, people regularly asked him if the car was for sale, but the answer was always non. Until after a long time he insisted on selling the car to a Dutch Frenchman, Mr. Anfray from Zeeland. He gave him all the spare M35 parts, a new grille, the carte grise, the spare door and contact keys and a used front and some small parts.

After five hours of lunch and hearing all sorts of interesting stories and anecdotes from the sixties to nineties (he worked until his 70th birthday in his Citroën garage), it was now time for him to sit in his old car and push the pedal a few times. He lived on this. After making some photos it was time to say goodbye and we agreed that I, after having completely restored the car, should come again (hopefully Monsieur Jardin still lives, so I must hurry). Back to Granville in the evening to have dinner with Babette at a fish restaurant in Granville harbour. After having said goodbye I return to my hotel where the next day I accept the return trip home, the car and the engine are still doing well and it is wonderful to drive over the Pèage. Even the Pont de Normandie and the steep slope that follows is no problem for the car.

So much for the story of my M35 history.

Michel Evers.
30-09-2012.