re: #384 Birth Control Works

I stayed off the interwebs yesterday for the most part, buried myself in photoshop.

I didn’t stay off the innertubes, but I did spend a fair amount of time on apolitical content. Back in 1971, my Mom and Dad took a 1 month trip to Europe, primarily France and Spain. My Dad did one of those deals where you pick up a European car at the factory, drive it around on your vacation, then have it shipped back and pay lower duties since it’s a ‘used car’ (don’t know if that still happens). The car he chose? A Citroen DS21 Pallas.

You know, one of these…

He brought it back and drove it till it no longer passed PA inspection (they rust like crazy). He traded it in for one that was only one year newer, but came from the South. And he drove THAT until it no longer passed PA inspections. Then he parked it in his garage, dreaming of restoring it one day, or selling it to somebody for parts (at any given time since 1964, Dad has had at least one dead car in one of the garages).

The Cit has sat for probably 20 years, neither restored, nor sold to somebody for parts.

Then I happened upon a mention of an annual meeting of Citroen enthusiasts, only 20 miles from where Dad lives. Back when he still had all his marbles, he’d have enjoyed that. But this led me to looking into what people do to restore old Cits. Apparently, a fair number of people spend a lot of money doing it! A lot of money, since as I say, they rust like motherfuckers. So, people spend tens of thousands having them stripped to the bare metal, all rusted metal replaced, and some folks have even had the resulting entire chassis galvanized! There are entire businesses devoted to restoring the old Citroen DS.

All of them in Europe.

So, no help for Dad’s car. But it was fun looking.