Pictures: The Traction 11BL ‘Edition Spéciale’ from CTA Holland
The 75th anniversary ‘2009′ special edition Traction in Brabant, Holland this week. The car is built from a Paris-built 11 BL that was manufactured 58 years ago this month, in July, 1951.
Here is another shot of the restored car on a road test.
Above is the donor car before restoration. In the pictures that follow, you can see what CTA did to it, to create a ‘new’ Traction out of an old one.
There was a lot of rust.
Where to start? As the project went forward and the car was dismantled, the extent of the problems was revealed and the program of work expanded.
There was serious rot to the underneath and the rear, the engine was leaking at both ends, the electrical system looked as if it has been nibbled by mice, and that was only the start. The door hinges were rotting, the seats collapsing, the brakes wonky and it only started when it felt like it. What to do? With its pre-war body panels and ID engine, nothing would ever make it worthwhile to restore this car to original so instead a decision was taken in certain respects make it radically modern.
When this picture below was taken, the car had already been extensively rebuilt.
Above is a view of the front suspension. The Pilote wheels were later replaced because of safety concerns.
A lot of work had to be done on the floor pan and at the back of the vehicle in the boot/trunk area including fitting a new fuel tank.
Preparation of the cabin before re-installation of lining, upholstery & seats…
A replacement 11D motor is installed for the 11D unit leaking at both ends…
The bottom of the car was in poor shape and this is what replaced it…
Here is the new engine with a good view of the twin carbs. These were installed to give the car some additional horsepower. Performance details will be released after the car has been tested.
Leather door lining has been installed to match upholstery. Note early Jaeger instrument panel.
All these pictures are by kind permission of Marcel Smits at CTA Holland.
Some more Traction pictures
2009 Citroën Traction 11BL Edition Spéciale (CTA Holland Photo)
La Traction Edition Spéciale (CTA Holland Photo)
La Citroën Traction 11 BL de ‘2009’
Edition Spéciale (CTA Holland Photo)
Finally finished – the 75th anniversary ‘2009′ Citroën Traction Avant BL. The vehicle is currently being road tested in Brabant, the Netherlands, and will be at the 75th anniversary Citroën re-union in Arras, northern France, this weekend.
The car is the culmination of 10 months work at CTA Holland. In the 75th anniversary year of the Traction, the intention has been to make a car fit for the the next 75 years. The emphasis has been on useability rather than slavish authenticity – a restoration decision that may provoke some mutterings of disapproval among some Traction collectors.
The basis of the car is a monocoque Paris-built in 1951. Nothing is known of the early history of the car although the vehicle subsequently became the property of a Belgian general/Traction enthusiast who attempted to restore the car backwards to a 1936 appearance.
The general fitted pre-war body panels, seats and in a deviation forwards in time, an 11D engine – the same engine fitted to the early Citroën ID. This gives the car the superficial appearance of a pre-war vehicle although an expert will notice, for example, the post-war rear-window molding, but with the power of the later performance versions of the Traction.
Because the car was not original in any case, the restoration was not inhibited by the requirement for preservation. Nevertheless, modernisation has been done as sympathetically as possible, with the intention that the car should superficially appear as a pre-war vehicle, but with 21st century technology where it could hardly be seen.
As the car was dismantled and deterioration was revealed, the decision was taken to profoundly restore the extensive body deterioration underneath the car. To achieve more power, the nominal 60hp 11D engine was replaced with a CTA re-built 11D unit with twin overhead carburetors.
The car was entirely re-wired with a 12v electrical system enabling a largely invisible updating of the vehicle’s communication, entertainment and navigation systems to 21st century standards.
The 12v system powers LED lighting which is fitted to the rear for improved evening and night-time visibility. The vehicle is equipped with power steering which is fitted at the base of the steering column and largely invisible.
The car is compatible with GPS, iPhone/iPod and similar devices. Bluetooth hands-free telephony is available through a concealed Alpine head unit. Seats and interior have been finished in leather. Seat belts have been added for driver and passenger.
The colour scheme uses a 1936 paint colour named Vert Olive with the fenders in black.
CTA Holland did the work.
Vive La Traction! Vive les 75 prochaines années!
1954 Citroën Traction 11B Normale
This is my 1954 Citroën 11 B Normale – garaged at the Starter Château in Caux. The condition is original.
Economics of train travel (continued)
I have previously described the economic absurdity of trains which in any given transport corridor carry fewer people at a higher cost than planes or buses.
Out of curiosity, I price a trip on a plane and a train for a similar trajectory. The train is more than 400 per cent more costly.
It costs £480 and takes 7-8 hours to go from London to Montpellier by train.* Not including the cost of a change of trains and terminals in Paris.
It costs £110 on easyJet and takes less than half the time, door-to-door. **
*Eurostar->SNCF St.Pancras-Montpellier return. Only available fare, booking one week in advance.
**Booking one week in advance. LGW-MPL return. Includes taxes. One hand bag included.
Read this: Alone in Berlin
Even before ‘Jackboots’ Jacqui Smith announced her plan to recruit block wardens throughout Britain, trained to work with the authorities in the war on terrorism, there was more than a strong whiff of fascism in the air.
To see the consequences of how easy it is for people to be led down this road by unscrupulous leaders, there is Alone in Berlin.
Today Berlin is a city that throbs with youth, art and music, but these streets are cohabited by ghosts and they are far from exclusively Jewish.
But you do not need to know Alexanderplatz to see the contemporary resonance in Hans Fallada’s brilliant testament of Nazi state terrorism.
Modern Britain, where the police also kill with impunity, is a good place to read this.
Alone in Berlin has only now been published in English, in a superb translation by Michael Hoffman. (The book is published in America as Every Man Dies Alone.) This is the best book I have read about Berlin during the war.
This is not the high society Berlin of the same period, described by Marie Vassiltchikov nor do the grand events of the war provide more than a passing backdrop to the events Fallada describes. More or less everything happens in this book, all at once. There are love stories, tales of brutality, ordinary people who are extraordinary for their braveness and courage, and ordinary people who are bullies and cowards. This is yet more evidence that what happened in Germany could happen to any of us – and perhaps especially to the delusional British, with our demented politicians and ridiculous media.
Fallada died shortly after finishing this masterpiece. On the basis of the experience of reading this novel, he seems to me one of the great journalist/writers of the 20th century.
Click on the image above to look inside this book.
The Queen seizes control of her Treasury
The Queen debags the prime minister
Even though I am by nature a Republican (in England – even if a monarchiste in France) it needs to be admitted that Her Majesty has pulled a blinder, whether or not you want to call it a coup. It was the first time in 57 years she had granted an audience to the man who signs her money; it was of course a coincidence that Bank of England Governor Mervyn King (presumptuous surname) had spent the morning telling MPs that he had declined the prime minister’s credit card.
All this as the demented/self-deluded sub-prime minister was being humiliated in Strasbourg, before flying to South America to be humiliated again, while psychotically imagining that he is saving the world and his own discredited regime with it.
Her Majesty’s deftness was astounding – a move combining media cunning, split-second news cycle timing, and unmistakable symbology (look at that handshake – no gloves) all culminating in the magic of a puff of smoke, as The Queen once again disappeared, answering no questions, telling no lies.
The woman is truly amazing: she may not be a genius but is even better, like a very wise old horse. She has been around the course many times, and knows every single hedge, ditch and rabbit hole. Like the rest of us, she has no confidence in Gordon Brown. (You can imagine what her husband must think.) Unlike us, she was able to do something, and did. It was a clean kill.
So Brown lingers still in office, yet no longer in power. His ability to do much more terrible damage seems to have been limited. A pity that the Conservatives are second-rate politicians with sub-prime policies and ethics of their own. British claims to being a democracy are anyway much more ridiculous than a shrewd old woman derailing a prime minister with a photograph.
Nobody will be surprised that Brown, a coward and a bully, responded by meaninglessly threatening Her Majesty with constitutional “reform.” The man is beyond embarrassing. The BBC has tried to pretend that none of this has happened. (It’s what they leave out that’s the real scandal – not the drivel they actually broadcast.)
Superpoppy
The versatile Papaver somniferum
I have been telling you so for some time (ITYS passim) that poppy grown in Afghanistan should be purchased by NATO and converted into biofuel. This would add up to a winning strategy in the otherwise endless Great Game, in my unhumble opinion. Predicatably, few have listened.
My arguments are even stronger now than they were in 2007. Biofuel made from poppy would create a legal outlet for what the farmers already grow, so no more costly-daft-deadly attempts to make them grow cereals. Burn it in a bus and it is less pongy than chip-shop oil. It is green sustainable energy grown by renewable Afghan peasants. It ticks all the boxes.
Poppy->fuel yield is not only respectable (119 US gallons per acre) but genetically modified poppy can be richer in energy conversion potential.
Poppy is a competitive and important fuel crop that can be put to use without necessitating the destruction of a single cubic centimeter of rain forest.
We could not only allow the Afghans to grow poppy, but to grow more. And promise to buy all of it. This has to be cheaper than trying to destroy it.
The GM super poppy is described here – an article that shows that great minds think alike.
Superpoppy as a game-changer in the Hindu Kush must surely be less delusional than the recently attempted efforts in Afghanistan by NATO and the ISAF (I saw Americans fight). Indeed, it is an idea entirely consistent with the radical Obama concept that we should engage with the Taliban rather than shoot missiles at Pashtun wedding parties.
Let the Taliban be famous throughout Central Asia for their delicately perfumed “Golden Brown” brand of diesel fuels.
Biofuel yield of conventional somniferum compared with other crops is here.
