There are certain parts of each state where anything is possible as it relates to the vehicles you can collect and the number of them you can store on your property without being hassled. The seller of this assortment of French delights lives in Afton, New York, which is a part of the Empire State where you’re heading towards Buffalo but no where near it; in other words, there’s not a lot preventing you from building a stockpile of rare Citroens and letting rot in the snow for years at a time. The seller claims these cars all come with keys and registrations, so maybe they were drivers at one point in time. Find the Citroen collection here on Facebook Marketplace in upstate New York.
Nowadays, finding a French make of any variety and in any condition takes a fair amount of work (as I came to find out when I tracked down a clean 1988 Peugeot 505 wagon). The seller has not made much of an effort to keep these French delicacies preserved, but I’m guessing he had far better cars at one time and these were throwaway vehicles way back when that provided numerous good spares. The thing is, they’ve become so hard to find that vehicles that aren’t completely rotten are now being restored, which is likely why the seller decided to take a few pictures of his backyard and see what comes back for interest. Here we can see he has a Citroen DS Safari wagon, along with a standard sedan.
Inside the barn, there are more goodies to be discovered, including what I’m guessing is the Citroen DS21 with 23,000 original miles. It’s hard to say for sure if that’s the car in the picture, but given it’s indoors and parked next to a low-mileage SM coupe with 50,000 miles, I suspect these are the cars he deemed worthy of indoor storage. A DS21 with that sort of mileage would definitely be appealing to a Citroen enthusiast, and possibly even an overseas buyer where a lot of these cars tend to end up. It would behoove the seller to present it as a time-warp specimen rather than a sorely neglected car in his dirt-floor barn, but that’s up to him to decide whether it’s worth the extra effort.
Even with the low mileage, rot could be a problem in this part of the world where any extended wintertime use would expose these cars to untold torture on salt-caked roads. Fortunately, what we can see shows us largely complete body panels in the case of the SM, and also this 2CV that isn’t mentioned in the listing but looks like a complete car. The stars of the show will always be the DS and SM cars, and if it were my listing, I’d put that low mileage SM front and center. The seller says you can see the cars by appointment only, and I’m guessing no one is beating a path to upstate New York in the depths of winter; regardless, if any of the cars are worthy of restoration, we hope someone makes the trek up north.
Yikes, stale french bread, moldy cheese and skunked wine!
And a rude waiter! Located about 4 hours from Buffalo or NYC in the Catskills Mountains region.
You have it right on the “stale French bread” and the “Skunked wine”…but you the “moldy cheese”….?? a good cheese is 80% mold…..
Pepe le Pew, votre voiture vous attend! Vite!
tu m’as bien fait rire !
You can buy everything that you need to fix a 2CV from a combination of ECAS and Ken Hanna.
Floaty cars? Hmm, not sure where’s the best place to buy parts for them (apart from Retromobile).
There are at least three cars indoors. In addition to the SM, there is a DS Break (the dusty car in the photos) and a DS21 sedan, pictured under a tarp.
Sacrè bleù
Throw out your hands
Stick out your tush
Hands on your hips
Give ’em a push
You’ll be surprised
You’re doing the French Mistake
Voila!
[Bridge]
Come on try it, move those feet along
Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong
Whee!
[Verse 2]
Throw out your hands
Stick out your tush
Hands on your hips
Give ’em a push
You’ll be surprised
You’re doing the French Mistake
Voila!
Blazing Saddles reference! Sacre Bleu! If I were much younger I’d consider the sm and the 2 cv.
New Kevin Costner movie: Fields Of Rust.
According to a app called I scrap a complete car is $227 A ton at today’s price take the money and run.
There junk.
Junk!!!
That 2CV looks just like the one Richard Dreyfus’s drove in American Graffiti. Maybe it’s a lost movie car worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lost my mind for a moment.
Located in Sidney, NY
I always found Citroen cars interesting, but never desirable. I guess that comes from having to work on a couple many years ago.
(the green fluid goes where?)
2 DS Wagons in the same the same place has to be a record of some kind. (at least for the last 30 years)
No Thanks.
Even if rust free, how can anyone drive one without being embarrassed?
What a junk collection. How could some choose this brand for collecting?
Ian Roussel, of Full Custom Garage, should be let lose on this collection .
.. just imagine the end result.
Nothing that a good metal fabricator cannot resolve artistically.
Just look at Gene Winfield’s Reactor. It was once a DS
Holy smokes! I’ve been to that property! I worked for the local tax assessor and my job was to go out and measure structures on properties. That citron was parked behind the barn then and it looked nearly perfect. That was in 1989, I think…maybe 1990. I remember it because of its uniqueness, I had never seen one before. The guy also grew strawberries I think.
Catskills or Hudson Valley? I picture both areas as a target-rich environment for French cars. it’s so “artsy”
is a panhard in the collection?
Dave Burnham is the Citroen expert (and truly expert) in that general area. If Dave hasn’t picked up those cars already, there’s prob nothing worth saving
LD71😄
I would like to buy the DS 21