Voitures Francaises at the Great British Car Journey

The Great British Car Journey is a motor Museum in England with a vast selection of vehicles exhibited spanning decades of motoring in Great Britain. It is also the home of Drive Dads Car where you can actually book a drive a car or car’s. I can’t think of another museum that allow visitors to be so hands on with the exhibits.
Most weekends throughout the year various motoring events are held and this time was the turn of French Cars. As always I’ve featured a few cars in more detail and include interviews with a few of the owners.
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welcome back today you join me from the Great British car Journey I’ve visited here a few times in the past and had a look around the Fantastic car museum here as well as visiting Drive dad’s car where you can come and actually um take the vehicles for a drive around the site which is great fun if you’ve never done it before today though I’m here for something a little bit different today is an event that suits me down to the ground because it’s a French car event today we are here for VOR France and you are watching Mark on Motoring [Music] now when you say French cars you automatically think of perso citan Renault perhaps uh but there are actually some other French marks out there too take for example Matra Matra who was actually big in Motor Racing circles who also built the um first three generations of the asasa Renault and the aent time but they also made some rather interesting sports cars for the road as well uh like this one behind me the Matra Marena these replace the earlier beira uh but very similar uh mid engine layout uh three seats in the front with the driver sitting on the left hand side this particular one is a 2.2 but there was also a 1.6 L version as well which I believed shared its engine with one of the Albert Saloon cars of the era now the car that preceded this the beera was actually manufactured in greater numbers than the Merena the only thing is the rust proofing weren’t so good so uh the survival rate on the Merena is much greater although as I say they did make far less of them but if the matro Marena wasn’t rare enough there’s probably something here that is even lesser seen Renault 17 over there now up until a few years ago I never actually seen A Renault 17 or indeed the Renault 15 um yeah Renault sort of Coupe from the 1970s uh pillarless Coupe as well in uh terms of this 17 over here I’ve probably seen two or three of these in existence in last few years that’s it really really rare car um I always felt they actually had a little hint of American styling about them as well especially around the rear end and on the earlier cars with the chrome front bumpers as well so it’s not just older Classics that are here today there are some slightly more modern cars as well um and before you start shouting at me in the comments I’m not only going to feature something modern but also electric um Peter you happen to own this rather interesting little EV Rena twizzy so tell us how did you come by this well I started looking at electric cars on auto trader um 5 years ago I just put them in price order just to see what was around and these started to come up and I’ve seen them um when we’ve been abroad I’ve never seen them in this country and I didn’t realize they’re available here so as soon as I saw them I was interested um so yeah uh before I knew it we were down on our way down to Oakbridge uh to have a look at this I bought it just for a bit of a laugh really you know it’s just something different um and I actually prefer to drive this than my ordinary car you on a nice day I use this for going to work nipping to the shops you know all sorts of things it’s great you could use it as an everyday car but in reality there are probably a few issues like the fact that uh it doesn’t have Windows and the doors were an optional extra yeah I mean I have actually got windows for this um but perfect onest they’re like a piece of purse specs they don’t look great you have to velcro them in at the top and they flap around in the wind so I I use this generally when the weather’s nice if it does rain whilst you’re driving along you don’t get wet it’s only an issue really when you’ve left it parked and the rain comes in it is waterproof and I keep a towel in the glove box to dry dry the seat just in case you know but yeah it’s it’s a nice wor the car really yeah I suppose anyone that used to ride in a motorcycle it’ll probably feel like luxury by comparison yeah I guess I guess it would do yeah yeah so so obviously speed on these is it 50 mph the limited to yeah it’s it was limited to 52 mph I bought a tuning box for this that plugs into the OBD port and there’s a phone app so um the power’s been boosted I have told my insurance company about this as well they’re happy with that yeah um and it’s taken the speed restrictor off I have actually had 70 M hour out of this on the motorway right um which surprisingly you can actually take it on the motorway it’s a heavy quad so you can do that um and the acceleration is is much quicker now I mean I I live in a hilly area and it was sort of you were holding traffic up you know going up a hill slowly at 24 miles hour now it’ll do 30 plus so you’re not really in anybody’s way yeah well obviously there’s cars like the Citron Ami isn’t there is it 28 mph I think that’s limited I mean that that would be too slow for me to use yeah you know if you’re in a city great but I sort of you know out in the country and you need bit more he got power to overtake as well now which is which is Handy well I imagine even at 50 mph you must feel like you’re really going some in one of these you do yeah yeah it’s um yeah 7 70 I was surprised actually I had it on the motorway I got it up to 70 mph it was on a slightly downhill stretch and it did take a while to get there but it did it um and it was surprisingly stable actually I you know I was I was quite happy with it it didn’t feel particularly scary I mean when you look at the thing from the outside it looks really small but when you’re in it you almost feel like you’re in it’s so carlike you don’t you don’t feel small it’s strange yeah obviously mentioned you’ve got that tuning box so I mean these didn’t have the greatest arrange to start with because so was always intended as a a city runaround really so what what’s the range sort of standard and then with the extra performance yeah I mean in terms of range um other twizzy owners go by the they call it the 30/50 rues so you’ll get 50 mil at 30 mph or 30 m at 50 mph okay even with the tuning box on this generally I get 40 m out out of the charge yeah which for most people is enough for most Journeys I would imagine yeah I mean my trip to work’s only four miles each way I park it under the bike shelter at work just in case it rains so yeah it’s absolutely fine you can get four bags of of of shopping from Supermarket two in the back one down each side so right it’s more practical than you you might imagine yeah I’m trying to remember when these were new they were they about 6 or 7,000 yeah I think that they they were um about £7,000 but you have to lease the battery okay now that was £45 a month which is quite a lot of money you know in in terms of running costs when I bought this second hand um I had to pay the battery lease and after a while I thought I’m just going to buy the battery I think it was I can’t remember whether it was three or 400 to to buy the battery so I have um and I’ve had no issues with it at all excellent that’s great right well thank you very much y thank you nice to meet you so lots of fascinating cars Renault sport CLE 182 I do love those citen GSA again another fantastic car Renault twingo I love these little cars and they’ve becoming so popular they actually um m 30 years of the twingo last year um this one’s actually owned by a young lady who bought it quite recently she’s even got the little um electric toy twingo as well which I really really like but one car that really has caught my eye is the citan BX now I’ve seen plenty of citon bxs before uh but this particular version is a really really early one David you’re the proud owner of this car and and I believe it’s just one at the show today just one I think it’s third thirdd place but I’m very very happy about that it’s a bit of a shock only such VX here um yeah it’s uh I’ve owned it since November last year bought it off up and down vids off uh YouTube Richard kitchen uh Richard deserves a lot of the credit for restoring the car mechanically and now I’m trying to sort out the the Cosmetics on it basically which is why if you put your ear down to the bumper you’ll actually be able to hear it oxidizing there’s been about 40 hours gone into those bumpers to make them look even vaguely red basically now most of the panels on these are plastic aren’t there um it’s it’s actually a bit of a misconception um most of it is metal there is more plastic in it than most of cars of the time so uh Bonnet is plastic tailgate is plastic and the rear quarters are plastic where those little um quar likee windows are but everything else is steel and does rust yeah yeah thing is well obviously when you have got um you know sort of composite body panels and things it sometimes it’s what’s hiding behind them isn’t it because usually there’s a metal structure somewhere behind there yeah absolutely I mean I’ve been quite lucky with this one because it’s because of the history of it because never ran right from new um I think the original owner that bought it it had a faulty carburetor okay um and as a result I think they gave up on it so it got parked on various driveways in Swansea over various years with people trying to get it to work um unfortunately that meant it was parted by the Sea so uh lots of salt water sitting in the bottom of the doors which is why this is Rusty in a few places that it shouldn’t be um but because it’s only done 25,000 Mi and it was barely driven it’s not rotten in the usual places which is why I’m quite lucky with it um so underneath sort of on the floor pan where the rear suspension mounted and everything is absolutely as solid as a rock so it is a good basis to um to work off yeah um but yeah it it had a faulty carburetor um from brand new which is why the why the mileage is so low CU people just I think they gave up um and like I say it’s Richard kitchen um up and down vids who sused it out basically I think he tried rebuilding the carb first couldn’t get it to work threw a brand new one on and fired up straight away um he did the mechanical recommissioning so subframe got sorted out new bearings all those bits and pieces uh suspension repiping big mechanical recommission so it does Drive absolutely spoton and then like I say I’ve been working on the Cosmetics which is trying to tidy it up a bit I fitted a new interior because the the original one was he said painfully original I said excruciatingly original it was just um the original uh Jersey cloth fabric that was in these the moment the sun saw it basically it just dissolved so the seats in this car were like tissue paper you you put your put your sort of hands on them and you could hear them crinkling oh dear um so yeah it’s it’s not strictly period correct the interior that’s in there I think it’s out of a leader this is a 16 TRS so yeah extreme Citron nerds will look at it and go that’s the wrong one but they’d look to % better than it did yeah definitely worth the effort to save I mean it’s hard to believe you look at these now these Berton styling and you can’t believe they’re 40 years old they still look like something from the future don’t they and the thing I loved about this cuz my dad had a 16 TRS when I was growing up an a one and it’s what got me interested in cars in the first place basically um and as was like a spaceship compared to everything else that was on the road I remember being super proud of it you know I’d got Electric windows in the back in an armrest nobody else had those sorts of things no you know and the car you know rised when it started up and it really really captured my imagination um he loved his BX so much that he wound up working for uh Bristol Street citen in Nottingham selling them so as a result he was coming home with new ones every 5 minutes and if you’re watching this Dad it’s your fault that I buy so many cars now because you kept bringing new cars home every 5 minutes yeah um but he he loved it and it really ignited my imagination it without this I wouldn’t be interested in cars this is what got me going in the first place yeah um so to be a I never thought I’d have a BX let alone a mark1 BX so to be able to have one and drive it um some aspects of it are great some aspects of it aren’t quite what I thought they would be um but it’s very charismatic and apart from trying to wrap my head around it’s the first car I’ve had since 2001 without power steering so yeah so everything else is power the suspension and everything BR I mean the brakes are ferocious the brakes are unreal um but yeah no power steering so you do have to think a little bit when parking it and stuff but it just drives the blind well that’s fantastic thank you very much and uh obviously you mentioned you’ve got a channel yourself if people want to see a bit more of this um yeah you can follow me to indecisive Auto on YouTube EXC and I’m also that ID on Twitter as well that’s great right well thank you very much and there’s plenty more for us to look at so we’ll move on CU it wouldn’t be a French car event without some farmer citen 2cv and there are plenty of those cars um but the 2cv does lend its chassis to a lot of very interesting kit cars um Pete tell us a little bit about this tricycle that we’ve got here this is uh oneoff it was uh originally in 1979 citen Diane 602 CC M and it was built specifically for longdistance trials organized by the motorcycling Club oh wow so it has to meet all their rules of compliance with a toe bar a a toe rope on the front Okay a huge fire extinguisher yeah an ignition cut off on the outside in case of any problem on the Hills yeah um and it did some competition uh there’s a YouTube uh where it’s title of the fastest mle on the hill Oh by me and that shows the previous owners thrashing it up a very loose Rocky Hill yeah for the L end trial yes no no yes he’s off he’s off he’s going he’s going make it go [Music] [Applause] on come on God [Music] he’s going to overtake him wow why um I bought it in 2016 uh totally by accident I saw an advert on a commercial page and it said tricycles brackets 3 so I clicked on the link and contacted the the guy thinking it would be sold H and he said I’ve not had one inquiry all right so he had a an inquiry I had a long chat with him we trolled off to Devon to collect it um I also got a vanload of spares spare engine you name it um and drove it back up the uh the M5 and then the m42 and the M1 home at 70 mph yeah uh and people were passing us and then slowing down and taking pictures um and um yeah it’s just a total fun car well earlier this year I actually had my first ever drive of a 2cv which was over the butter tubs Pass of All places so probably not the easiest place for your first time in in one of these cars um and even that will great fun once you get to grips with it obviously this obviously has a wheel less for a start and it’s probably even lighter than a 2cv I imagine so probably great fun it is but like everything else it has its draw backs because it’s front-wheel drive yeah um yes the engine’s over the front wheels but of course if you’re going uphill you really need the weight at back right and secondly being front wheeel drive the steering Lock’s restricted you really need a rear engine car with a really tight yeah and on those trials there will be a lot of tight turns things like Hilman HS and yeah yeah but um yeah it’s it’s just a totally fun car I mean you know the rules the fire extinguish is nearly as big as the fuel tank on it and uh and being homebuilt and and a bit uh there’s no fuel gauge I have a a piece of stick with markings on it and I the tank to see how much better I’ve got yeah but it’s yeah just absolutely fabulous well that’s fantastic well thanks very much Pete thank you thank you so yeah plenty of 2 CVS citran AK van over there um Renault 9 this one actually belongs to darl I’ve featured this car previously at French car show at Chesterfield a couple of years ago um really nice example actually that one and a special edition as well um yep another 2 CV actually y looks like an early Ripple bonnet car um Sima again you just don’t see uh Simas at very many of these shows uh this blue one here um again I actually interviewed Stephen who owns this car um at Chesterfield a few years ago as well um this car actually owned by um by Mick who I’ve spoke to previously from the Sima club I’m actually hoping to um maybe film one of mix other cars at some point in the future as well Alpine A110 here there was actually another one here earlier on Club UK perso sport here as well with some really nice examples of some 205s U but there is another 205 here that is a really Immaculate example uh 205 XR these were actually quite a nice spec model so you got things like tinted windows and a few other niceties that just weren’t standard on cars back in the 1980s we’ve also got that 1.4 L Tu series engine uh similar to that that you would have seen in models like the XSI but yeah this one looks really fantastic we’ve also got some nice alloy wheels um as seen on the 1.9 L versions of the GTI as well got this white GTI that’s the 1.6 version of the car um that one’s actually got the little PUO sport graphic on the front as well there on the grill and the yellow fog lamps that looks really really nice we’ve actually got two uh convertible versions we’ve got a CTI in front of me there and then next to me here we’ve actually got a Gutman version as well so really really nice to see that one out today um 205 dimmer I’m actually not sure if this could be the one I saw down at uh simply friendship brooklands um last year which is quite away from here but it could be uh dimmer exceptionally rare car obviously quite expensive back in the day but they do look a lot like the t16 with those wide wheeel archers and those sort of faux vents at the back um is still a front mounted engine but um one thing with these dimmers is they are a lot more than just a body kit there is a lot of other mod ification that went on with these cars as well now I do love a m one Reno Cleo and uh interestingly enough not all of them were Williams as and 16 valves no most of us actually drove something a little bit more modest um that said though this particular one here is quite a nice specification car so what we’ve got is a Mark 1 Phase 2 model so it had the slightly revised trim on the boot lid uh this little piece added into the griller a few other little subtle differences um this one’s actually got the extended dashtop on as well um which again initially not all cars had that it’s an RT specification now the RT got you a lot more equipment inside things like a rev counter electric windows sunroof none of these things were standard on your more basic cleos you also got colorcoded bumpers and front integrated fog lamps which again you wouldn’t have got on the Lesser models of this car this one has got the 1390cc fuel injected energy engine uh which would have produced around 80 horsepower and this one is actually made to the automatic gearbox um as with many m 1 cleos that are not the hot ones these days um a lot of the ones that survive do seem to be automatics um I have actually been told this particular one was a motability car back in the day and I think many of these probably were bought by elderly drivers who just hung on to them and cherish them it was really nice to see this one out I’m not 100% on this color but I believe it could be lavender I know lavender certainly was on some other Renault was in the later 1990s this looks very similar it’s sort of a a lilu purple color um but yeah looks really really nice on this car so here’s one of the cars I actually thought I’d left but thankfully not so we’ve got this uh Alpine this particular model is a GTA turbo so we’ve got that um prv Perse Renault Volvo V6 engine uh with a Turbocharger the prv also incidentally is the same engine um that powered the DeLorean back in the early 1980s these are actually really really interesting cars they’re completely unique um often referred to as the French 911 but to be honest even in France they bought more 911s than than they did the Homegrown Alpine model unfortunately but there’s certainly nothing else out there that looks like these well nothing except another Alpine obviously the 310 that preceded this car has got some very similar styling cues and then the a610 that followed on from this car um again very similar looking just with pop-up headlights and a few other minor differences but where the 310 um seemed to hold a lot more of its Heritage to the early A110 rally car um certainly the GTA were much more of a GT car in fact in Turbo form these cars could probably easily crack 150 mph again the cabin was a big step up from the uh the 310 that came before they’re certainly far more spacious this particular one seems to have everything in as well so we’ve got a lovely um beige color leather interior in here we’ve got the double stack highi as well which is very eights with all those sliders and things in there um a few very interesting quirks things like these windscreen wipers which for some reason we’ve got two wipers both mounted near the center of the windscreen never fully understood why that is but that is one very interesting and unique qu of the Alpine back in 2013 I took the plunge and placed an order for a brand new citen DS3 now the car that I had um was the 1.6 thp so that was the prince engine petrol engine with a Turbocharger and in that particular form of that time because it was an early fa lift was 155 horsepower um it was a really really quick car although I did have my reservations um about its handling on poor Road Services I did find the K used to tramline a lot I am convinced to this day that the problem was not so much in the suspension but in the wheels and tires it Sat On 17in Wheels with a really low profile and quite a wide section tire but the car did have a lot going for it it certainly felt a lot classier than say a Ford Fiesta which were just as well because obviously the fiesta would have probably won rings around it on the handling the prince engine itself well again that’s something again that is often berated the um they had a very skinny timing chain almost like a bicycle chain um obviously when the cars got a bit older especially if they hadn’t had those regular oil changes y you could have some really serious problems but the engines pulled really strong the Rev round to 7,000 RPM pulled cleanly from 1500 RPM and certainly when there was in working order it was one of the best things about the car now the model behind me actually predates the one I had very slightly um but this isn’t the standard thp engine because this is the racing these actually produced over 200 horsepower um I think we had a few subtle adjustments to the suspension as well so the interior of this car got some niceties like some racing bucket seats with alcen tiwer and leather we also got this um orange facia panel as opposed to the carbon fiber that my car had or the piano black that featured in some others the orange was also replicated on the roof the mirror backs and on these 18in alloe wheels a few other differences on the outside of the car this trim piece here instead of being Chrome carbon fiber same with the um skirts at the bottom and we got the lch spats which only come on the racing again when you see close up carbon fiber around this Grill piece again everything all painted in this orange to match the um other trim pieces on the car these were only actually made in small numbers so you very very rarely see the racings these days but definitely an interesting car yes the DS3 was a little bit flawed I think in the drive or I certainly found that to be the case but the cars did definitely have a lot going for it as I say they do really feel a class at these cars um and I think that one day yeah certainly these racing models I’m convinced will become quite collectible admittedly I’ll seldom walk past a V6 clear with any of these events so this particular model here is a facelifted car so we’re up to about 255 horsepower um still quite a wild beast but supposedly a little Tamer than the um the earlier cars the phase ones were less powerful around 230 horsepower from that 3 l v624 valve engine but supposedly the wheelbase was was ever slightly longer on the phase 2 Cars first ones were developed in conjunction with tww and those cars really were quite a handful even for professional racing drivers well with so many Fantastic cars attending here today and the weather been so hot I’m certainly glad that I brought my hat along today um things are slowly starting to wind down so I’m going to go have a chat with a few people um and I’m going to have another look in the museum as well because even though I’ve been before well why don’t have a look again um I’ll drop in a little bit of footage but I do highly recommend the um the museum if you’ve never been before um as I do with Drive dad’s car again it’s a great opportunity to maybe have a go in something that you’ve always wanted to try or maybe something that you remember a relative having in the past or simply maybe you’re interested in possibly buying a classic car yourself uh and you’d like a quick go to see what they’re like before you uh make that investment as always thank you very very much for watching there will of course be more videos to come in the very near future so make sure you do hit that subscribe button and again if you’ve enjoyed this video please do give it a thumbs up just to let YouTube know that you’re enjoying what they’re showing you that is all from me today thank you very much again for watching and I will catch you on the next video soon thank you