Leaning against the oil-stained door at the 2CV garage was the biggest hammer I have ever seen. It had a head on it the size of mine and the handle tilted against my hip. Slumped against that beast was a clutch of other monster hammers. Behind their ranks was a box of assorted hammers. Leaning against that was a small tray of spanners.
“Is the big hammer just to finally crush them up when they stop working?’ I joked. “Oh, no. That’s for getting the king pins out,” said Johan,the owner of the oldest 2CV garage in the Netherlands, Garage Ruimzicht.
“You’ve got quite a few more hammers than spanners here,” I said.
“Yeah, 2CV’s,” he said, half-sighing, half-smiling “More hammers than spanners.”
In the coming days, in between measuring up Charlie Charleston to see how much space we will have for our entire possessions, I’ll tell you the amazing story of this little car – with a smaller engine than any motorbike I have ever owned. Just as a taster did you know that the design requirement for the 2CV is that is be “simple enough for a French farmer to understand; be able to drive across a freshly ploughed field carrying four small french peasants, 100 kilos of produce including a sheep or bale of hay and most importantly a basket of fresh eggs, without breaking.
And those spanners don’t get left completely behind – did you also know that the single wheel nut brace is the same tool to crank start the car and take off the wheel guards – genius or madness, I can’t decide!