From Epsom to Aberdeen with 2CV
This saga started when I bought a 2CV on eBay from a policeman's wife in Epsom. Part of the deal was that the car had to be moved from this guy's driveway in a hurry. The problem was that it was not in a road-legal or drivable state. I didn't have a trailer to put it on, so I borrowed one from a friend in Kent. I collected the trailer/transporter on the Thursday afternoon and took it immediately to Epsom and managed to winch the 2CV onto it. I set off in triumph, northbound to Aberdeen. I got as far as Watford when Geoff (owner of trailer) called me and asked what time I could get the trailer back to him on Friday because he needed it for the weekend. I explained that Scotland was quite a long drive and the chances of an overnight round-trip was rather unlikely. So now I needed plan B... I pit-stopped at a friend's flat in St Albans and got online to put the backup plan into operation. I'd also been bidding on a car transporter on eBay but the auction didn't end soon enough to collect it and do the 2CV pickup. It turned out that I had actually won the auction but the trailer was in Guildford.

So... time to regroup. I took Geoff's trailer and 2CV to a local car park. I unloaded 2CV and took empty trailer 120mile round-trip back to Maidstone. Drove trailerless to Gulidford to pick up the trailer I'd bought on eBay. The directions I'd been given to the farm where the trailer was located included the words "the road gets a bit narrow, steep and rutted here but keep going". They were not kidding... I finally arrived having done what seemed like a 4x4 test track. Money exchanged hands and trailer was hooked-up. First problem was that the former owner had wired the trailer lighting circuit on both his Landrover and the trailer, but had not bothered to respect the convention on what wire does what light. After an hour or rewiring in the fading daylight, I was on my way again. Negotiating the 4x4 course was now even more fun in the dark with a car transporter in tow. After an hour or so of dropping mud around the M25 I arrived back in the car park at St Albans about midnight and prepared to load the 2CV. So far I'd done about 350 miles on the road and only moved the 2CV about 50 miles from where it started. Half way through winching the 2CV onto the trailer, the winch jammed. Thirty minutes of swearing and barked knuckles later I had made a temporary repair to the winch and got the 2CV safely on board. Finally back on the road towards Bonny Scotland...

Just short of Northampton on the M1 at about 2am, a truck behind me started flashing and blowing it's horn. I pulled off into Northampton services and checked the trailer. One of the (four) tyres was flat and was in the process of shredding itself. I had no spare so I was going nowhere until morning. The morning of the second day dawned and I unhooked the trailer and took my shredded wheel into Northampton to get a new tyre. The 3rd tyre place I tried had a tyre that was near enough the right size and by about 10:30am I was back heading north on the M1. On reaching the Scottish border in the afternoon, I had the notion that I was on the final furlong. That was until passing Cumbernauld just the other side of Glasgow, when a second tyre shredded itself spectacularly. It was 5pm and almost in time to find a tyre place open to get it fixed... almost but not quite. The only one open was Kwik Fit and they didn't have a tyre the right size but "Och, we kood git woon fer Toosdee". Yes I'd love to spend a long weekend in Cumbernauld, thanks... but no thanks.

I abandoned the 2CV plus trailer in the KwikFit car park and took ALL the trailer's wheels off and put them in the back of my car. I took them to Aberdeen where I arrived late that night. The following morning I took the trailer wheels to be properly re-shod at the local and trusted purveyor of automotive rubber to the good folks of Aberdeenshire, Charlie Chalmers. I then set off back on a mission to rescue the 2CV from Cumbernauld, where I arrived in the early afternoon. The trailer was where I had left it, but at some point someone must have 'nudged' it and knocked it off its axle stands. Getting the wheels back on took two hours instead of ten minutes. Finally I was back on the road with 4 new tyres plus a spare (thank you Charlie). I arrived in Aberdeen on Saturday evening having covered nearly 1600 miles in three days in order to move a 2CV a mere 565.
( notoolsovernight you're all luvvly an' 'orrible, Thu 21 Jul 2011, 9:55, 4 replies)

you're a nutter
but the good kind. Have a click!
(SimianKid internet faffer, Thu 21 Jul 2011, 10:24, closed)

I have to ask...
Why did you want a 2CV that badly?
(IHateSprouts is baking a huge pie shaped like an enormous pie, Thu 21 Jul 2011, 10:51, closed)

obviously he wants to race it and needed to get it back so it could race preped

( fluffybunnykiller Is feasting on the clitoris of life, Thu 21 Jul 2011, 11:14, closed)

Given that a 2CV weighs about as much as a bag of sugar,
you could have skipped all that trailer malarkey, and strapped it to the roof!

Was it worth all the hassle?
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Thu 21 Jul 2011, 11:34, closed)