| Yesterday I attended the Auto Brunch event at St Ives Showground again. It’s still far and away the best cars and coffee event in Sydney. This month was no exception. After about 10 months of horrible weather, we’ve finally had some lovely spring days here in Sydney. It was a perfect day for a car show, the only slight downside was the rural fire service were also taking advantage of the weather doing a controlled burn in the vicinity. At first the event was quite smoky but it soon cleared up. As with last time, it was an official event […] Today I attended the monthly Auto Brunch event at St Ives Showground. This is easily the best cars and coffee event in Sydney. There is always a huge variety on display at this event. This wasn’t the biggest event I can remember, but it probably has the biggest variety. A great example was a timewarp Chrysler Lancer. I don’t recall the last time I saw one of these, especially a car from before Chrysler sold out to Mitsubishi. Both the Mercedes and Citroen Clubs had this event on their club calendar. Like last time, I took my DS to the […] I visited the St Ives Auto Brunch event again this month. Like last time, the event was huge – probably slightly bigger this time. Due to other commitments i didn’t even get to see all the cars yet I was there for over two hours. I got there about 7;30AM and there were already queues to get in. While there is a bit of chaos, I like they have not brought in over zealous security guards that would just spoil this event. One thing that would be good would have been if they were to open a few more […] Today I attended a Citroen Car club tech day. Since most Citroens are equipped with hydropneumatic suspension, the club has equipment to pressure test spheres. It has been five years since I tested my spheres, so they were well overdue. The sphere pressure check equipment consists of a hand pump and pressure gauge. The club is also equipped with re-gassing facilities, although those were not available today for the rebuildable spheres in my DS21. The tech day did have a hoist available, but my preference is to remove the spheres at home first. As with last time I removed them, […] My car show season normally kicks off with the French car show. The show is timed for Bastille day, so always occurs mid July. It was a lovely sunny day for the 2018 French Car Show, so the turnout was great. This was in contrast to 2016 (the last one I attended) where poor weather kept the numbers down. I took the DS for the first time since 2014. It was looking great in its new paint job, the Rouge Massena really coming alive out in the sun. I’ve noticed that since DS values have more than doubled over the […] Today I went to the Citroen Car Club meeting to get the historic rego signed for my Traction Avant. I am not often able to attend these meetings so it was good to catch up with the members. The club had a raffle at the meeting and I even won a prize! I took the DS and it was running really nicely on the way home. It is such a relaxing car to drive. Unfortunately, disaster struck during parking when I knocked it into gear and sent it flying into a post. After at least 10 years insured with Shannons […] Today was the 2016 French car day. As usual a good day out, including my Traction Avant taking out 1st place in the pre-1955 category. Attendance was down this year compared to last year as the weather was a bit iffy this morning. But it turned out nice enough in the end. A humorous side show was a member of the Citroen car club arriving in his GS with only three wheels, showing off the ability of Hydraulic suspended Citroens to do it. This car was for sale and he was trying to attract attention, which he achieved. The GS […] In October 1955, Citroen unveiled one of the most innovative cars ever designed. There have been plenty of new cars that have introduced a new technology, or even a couple, but the DS was so radical that it immediately made everything else on the market seem old fashioned. And this was just the looks. Under the covers, the car contained a revolutionary hydraulic system that controlled the suspension, gear change and brakes. This system would go on to be used for over 50 years. It was also licensed by other marques such as Rolls-Royce and Mercedes-Benz. In addition, there were […] My Light 15 was awarded 2nd prize in the pre-1956 Citroen category at the 2015 French Car Day. I hadn’t planned to enter the car, but did since there were only a couple of Tractions there. 1st prize went to a nice Big 15. Without a lot of effort I should be able to do better as I was obviously marked down for things like my missing front carpet. Concours is not really my thing, so while I want to make improvements to the car for my own enjoyment, I will not be wrapping it in cotton wool. As usual […] The Citroen club held its monthly meeting at the Tesla showroom, where club members got to test drive the model S. As well as seeing the Model S, one of the members of the club brought along his electric DS to compare with the Tesla. I have to say I was very impressed with what he had done with the car. Not only is it 100% electric, but he has managed to preserve the character of the DS. This includes the hydraulic system. From the outside the car looks like a stock DS, albeit with some additional buttons on […] | |
