Finding good Citroen 2cvs is a little like a black art. They are usually at least 30 years old (although production finally ended in 1990) so age and mileage are less important than how they are kept and, unless we are lucky enough to find one ‘dans son jus’, the quality of renovation.

Thus I found myself at Avignon station at 7am for a long and slow train ride to Mont de Mazan, about 600 kilometres to the west and almost on the Atlantic coast. Arriving at 4.30pm I was greeted by the sight of a pretty baby-blue car with a gleaming white roof - bingo!

A good look-over revealed that she hadn’t been used much for a while but was generally in good clean condition - definitely one for the fleet. A steady ride home started well the next morning with a good look around the Aquitaine region - it was my first time there so I wanted to explore Biarritz, Pau and the Bayonne. General conclusion? Very pretty but coooold - a good job that the 2cv’s heating system worked well.

Heading home the next day and by about 5 o’clock I was looking for a hotel way out in the middle of nowhere when around a corner I come across…the Mirage hotel and casino! Maybe I should say the other Mirage as there definitely was no desert and it wasn’t next door to the Stratosphere or down the road from Caesers Palace. A slightly surreal experience, eating well and wandering through the rows of slot machines all set just one level more ‘low-key’ than the original.

The deux-cheveaux (the 2cv name comes from the bizarre formula used by the french taxation office to calculate ‘fiscal horsepower’ to calculate tax payable on cars, the original Citroen had 2 and even though this one has three they kept the name) is now sitting in the workshop, polish and a good service are booked just as soon as I get my paperwork back up-to-date so she’ll be sparkling by the new year…