This 1960 Citroën 2CV Van is in Louisburg, Kansas, just 40 miles south of Kansas City; but it’s 4,530 miles as the crow flies west of Paris, France. This one is listed on eBay with a current bid price of just over $3,500 and there are five days left on the auction. The 2CV family of vehicles was made from 1948 to 1990, that’s a pretty incredible run. 3.8 million 2CVs were made over their 42-year run, which included 1.2 million of these great little vans, or fourgonnettes. 57,724 of these little vans were built in 1960.

Did you ever run across something that you had completely forgotten about when you were cleaning your garage? The seller of this 2CV Fourgonnette (“van”, in French) must have a heck of a garage, they say that they were cleaning their garage this spring and ran across this thing! I’m guessing that they’re kidding, but it would be a good story: “My garage is soooo big..”. This solid looking truckette has been stored indoors “for the last 27 years.” I only see a few little dings and maybe a bit of surface rust. The owner says that the frame is “very good, very solid”. The 2CV Fourgonnette was known internally as the AZU.

This one looks like it’s in great shape, no doubt from being in storage indoors for almost three decades. But, because of being unused for years and years, there are some mechanical things to take care of. The seller cleaned and resealed the gas tank three years ago but now they have to run it with a gas can because they say that the gas tank has to be cleaned out again. That seems like an awfully short time to have a problem, but they must not have used any fuel stabilizer or anything. I assumed that we all knew that when you store a vehicle for an extended period of time, say, more than a few weeks, you automatically put in fuel stabilizer if you’re going to leave fuel in the system.

These are simple vehicles. The seats would have been canvas-covered, and supposedly only the driver’s seat back is canvas now. You can easily bring those back to original spec again. The seats can come out without too much trouble, and they can be used outside for picnics; that’s much better than sitting on a blanket on the ground! There’s a decent amount of room in the back which you’ll need to haul your organic, solar-powered-roaster, free-trade coffee beans to your 4 urban coffee shops around your city. This would be a great advertising piece once it’s restored with your company logo on the side. I would love to have one of these things, it would give me an opportunity to create a 2CV corner of the garage with custom wallpaper.

But, first you’ll have to get this fire-breathing monster running reliably. The seller says that the engine “Starts And Runs But Hasn’t Been Driven For 3 Years When It Got A Brake Master And Hoses.” It also comes with “Many Extras Including A Couple Of Gearbox’s, A Later Model 21 Horse Engine And The Original 12 Horse Engine.”  I love oddball engines and this is a great one! These were 425 cc, two-cylinder, air-cooled engines, and the 2CVs were also front-wheel-drive. I think this looks like a great example, it shouldn’t be an impossible task to restore this one and with prices for great examples going for $15,000-$20,000, you could sink $10,000 into the restoration and still not be in over your head. Would you tear this one apart and totally restore it, or would you just get everything working and use it to promote your business, or just use it to turn heads at car shows?