1967 Hoffman Citroën 2CV - Jay Leno's Garage

i mean it's not fast but it's not slow i mean you know you're not lagging behind traffic any car that makes me smile is good [Applause] jay leno's garage pandemic edition once again we're under lockdown here in l.a so i'm back doing these by myself the car featuring today is called a hoffman a little bit of a back story i guess you know here in america the hot thing certainly in the 60s and 70s was to take a volkswagen volkswagen chassis which volkswagens were junk yards were filled with them actually you could buy them when i was in high school for a hundred dollars fifty dollars because the drive trains were so bulletproof people made fiberglass bodies for them they made the most famous being the myers manx and any kind of dune buggy using volkswagen chassis also corvairs are very popular well in europe people took the sichuan 2cv the two-cylinder uh citroen and did the same thing a guy named wolfgang hoffman in the mid-80s in germany decided to make these fiberglass bodies that fit right over the two cv chassis i think this one was originally the charleston that was a model of citroen and that really what it is they just took off the old body and put this body on it was a full convertible you know people have seen this car in the background part going hey what is that thing so i figured we might as well have it out here since uh well it's just another car that's in the collection you know it's kind of a funny story this car belonged to a guy who was a uh ambassador to the united nations and he sent me pictures of it and said he's going to get rid of it he'd like to give it to me i said well it's very nice where's the car located it was located here in southern california and in the pictures oh my god this brand new car uh he said it was at his brother's house well it had been his brother's house outside for 20 years with a tarpon over it okay i go out to look at it it's a little different than than it looked in the in the pictures you know uh i opened the door like this and just like a bunch of mice ran out okay that's not good and just well it wasn't in that greater shape but i had committed to it and i you know i like to save old cars so i said okay uh it was very kind of him to give it to me and his brother was very nice and we got it back here and of course we had to fumigate this thing we had it we took it apart had it outside just because i didn't want to bring it in the building because i'm afraid the mice got out they'd get in all the vehicles and stuff so okay it took about a week and a half to get all the mice out of it as well as the smell all the mouse urine and everything else in it just just constantly dousing this thing with degreasers and and you know uh things to kill the odor just unbelievable but the engine was strong it ran and uh we cleaned it up we used some of our own products here on it to bring the paint back and it actually looks okay and it dries very nice we did the seats in leather a little kind of a fancy upgrade there and it's a lot of fun to drive it actually goes 6570 on the freeway uh you know the 2cv was an amazing automobile it really was the model t of france they built it from about i think 1948 or so right up until the 90s into the 90s and it was just the ultimate expression of minimalism just the least amount of parts and labor to get this thing built to put france back on wheels after the war uh incredibly soft suspension i think the rumors i heard it back in the day when they they wanted a car that farmers could take on rough roads to market without damaging their goods so the idea behind it was you could put a basket of eggs on the front seat and go down a bumpy road at 25 or 30 miles an hour and not break any eggs and that's what it did extremely soft suspension this thing just bounces down the road very flexible the early ones were made with corrugated metal to to to make it even stronger consequently france was littered with these in junkyards and things by the 70s 80s even in the 90s and enterprising people like wolfgang hoffman decided to design a body to make it look a little more upscale a little fancier you know so and that's what this is and it's a it's a fun car to drive people go crazy when i drive they have no idea what it is they run up to you and it's smooth and it's got the most unusual gear shift i've ever used i'll show you that in a minute you know the french just think differently and this is a classic case of thinking differently but thinking really smartly i mean these were inexpensive to build they were pretty bulletproof they even made a twin-engine version what's that called the safari something like that just fascinating cars it's a four-speed transmission it's two cylinders i think it was 26 horsepower originally it doesn't seem like much more than that now but it's lively and fun to drive when the ambassador got this one he upgraded a little bit to put a radio in it and a few other things but it drives nicely come on i'll show you what the engine looks like here as i said two-cylinder air-cooled as you can see this hood doesn't work look at this some way anything well as you can see this car has not been restored we just literally hosed off the engine get all the mouse urine out of it changed the oil flushed it a couple of times pulled the carburetor cleaned that just did general maintenance and it seems to run fine i mean it runs very well uh you'll see in just a minute and it's a great car for uh just zipping around you know zipping around to l.a i wouldn't get hit by an suv in this thing but that being said uh it's got a heater and it's got a few other little amenities but virtually maintenance-free you just change oil that's all you got to do let's put that back down oh now i gotta get under here and there we go pretty good sized trunk too come on let's go around the back you see it's got the kind of ugly later tear lights um actually it's got an enormous trunk really look at that got all kinds of room in this thing yeah we haven't put a whole lot of effort into this thing other than just just cleaning it up uh actually the paint came back pretty nicely it's got the classic sichuan center spoke steering wheel very optimistic 120 kilometer i guess that must be kilometers yeah it must be in this thing because about 72 miles an hour is about all you get out of this thing got a few extra gauges on i guess that's cylinder head temperature it's got a tachometer it had a top but it was so ugly i just keep it off it just is just a great grocery getter fun to run to the store go to the beach something like that as you can see it looks pretty weathered here if i'm sitting outside under that tarp but we cleaned it up as best we could i mean it's a classic case of finding an inexpensive vehicle that's case free and just putting a little elbow grease in it you know i mean not every car has to be an exotic that costs a fortune to get running again this thing these engines as i said are pretty bulletproof just change it i'll pull the carburetor clean it and put it back together again and she's ready to go we'll take it for a ride in just a minute but for right now we'll take it next door i'll put it up on the left and show you actually we could just lift it up actually if you see if this wasn't the pandemic i could get four guys you could just hold it up over our heads and you could take a look but since i'm here alone we'll put it up in the lift come on okay we've got the 2cv or hoffman up on the uh still coney lifts let's show you as you can see this thing looks like it's set outside for years the most unusual suspension let me say figure out how this see the way this works here in here you have a spring and then your shocks lie down this way so this thing is sort of independent all the way around there just there are pieces on this car that don't go and any other cars anywhere in the world same thing same deal over here with the suspension got some massive spring in there and then you have there's your shocks running lengthwise smooth under tray here okay your engine obviously as we saw is up front front suspension on either side yes this is his the shocks looking at it this way nice thing is there's no differential to high side on when you're going off-road with this thing and that's pretty much it i guess as you can see it's pretty dirty under here obviously somebody had it all uh i don't think that's z barting that's just sort of undercoating i guess when i worked at car dealerships they charge people like crazy money for undercoating then the guys just get a can of black rust-oleum oh yeah all undercoated that baby will never rust the until the first rainfall but okay give you some idea how this thing is put together let's uh let's take it for a ride as you can see the unusual gear ship had bullets straight out but first straight in for second straight out for third and in and over for fourth there you go it's not intuitive but that's okay but you know what more than keeps up with traffic i mean these are really great cars and if you like unusual driving experiences this is about as unusual as you get these days and it's so bouncy and i mean it's actually quite comfortable and of course you've got this high-class sort of uh cabriolet body i i mean the 2-cd looks fine to me you know when he sent me pictures about it i didn't know what it was and then oh okay and then i read up a bit on uh wolfgang hoffman and how he started this whole idea i guess there are probably i think there are 1700 of these registered in europe and all over the world so they're quite popular you know people always feel the need to individualize their homes and their apartments cars motorcycles and this is what it is you get a two cv you put this body on people have no way what is that you know let's see look there we go look at that i mean it's not fast but it's not slow i mean you know you're not lagging behind traffic any car that makes me smile is good this thing makes you smile it's just this gear shift pattern which seems so alien when you first get in it really becomes second nature say i pull it straight out here we go there is first gear push it straight in second gear pull it straight out third gear reverse is the opposite of uh straight out for first straight in for reverse you know nobody makes more comfortable cars in the french even their least expensive cheapest car like this extremely comfortable this this bouncy suspension it's unlike anything anybody else has you know my favorite saying was that germany was the birthplace of the automobile how are you and france was the nursery because all the original ideas especially for the first 15 to 20 years came out of france did he own suspension system prana you know engine transmission actually the gentleman i got this car from i think he drove it to alaska he drove it everywhere i mean put a lot of miles on it and they're easy to rebuild you pull the engine out put it on your workbench fix the problem and put it back in the car is so light so you don't need power steering or power brakes or anything like that french automobile seats are the most comfortable in the world the sichuan ds amazing even peugeot i had a 404 when i was a kid that was a great car i love that thing four speed on the column i don't it looks like peugeot might be coming back to america again i hope so and drop it into fourth gear there you go pretty cool i mean this is a car that had been sitting in a yard for 20 years and hadn't run in that time and it was abandoned and you know this is the ultimate recycling rather than throw it away turn it's an automobile that somebody can use i mean i like the cheap stuff as much as i like the expensive exotic cars but the fun thing about these is you can work on them and if you break it it's not the end of the world they've built literally millions and millions of these things this is the perfect car for california you know since the pandemic the roads in los angeles were wide open all these streets were bumping the bumper but everybody's staying home it's a good car to drive in a pandemic because people smile when they see it you know kind of cheers them up a little bit yeah we use this thing to get lunch and run parts and do all kinds of stuff because it gets good gas mileage it's easy to work on and be in la it doesn't overheat although it does have some pieces in the front that you you put in in cold weather to kind of keep it warm and you take out warm weather so the air can circulate this cylinder head gauge is very uh very helpful also and he's a great car to learn on you know if you can't understand how internal combustion engines work something like this is a lot of fun and you feel a tremendous sense of satisfaction when you fix it you get it running you know modern cars are so complicated it's intimidating you need computers and laptops and everything else whereas there's some simple hand tools you can take the engine out yourself viva la france i'll be glad when the pandemic's out we have our crew back but in the meantime i'll just wander around the garage and pull stuff out of the back and uh show it to you see what you think i realize isn't it as exotic as some of the others but that's okay it's still a lot of fun so now you know what a hoffman is it's a fiberglass i guess we call them replicas it's kind of insulting but it's not a replica of anything it's the original design and they sold a ton of these they're very popular so anyway thanks for pointing out something in the back of the garage that we should showcase and uh we'll see you guys next week thanks bye [Music] uh

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 282,994

Rating: 4.965621 out of 5

Keywords: Jay, Lenos, Garage, Citroen, Deux Chevaux, Wolfgang Hoffman, French cars, car porn, motonerd, gear head, petrol, car nerd, pandemic edition, Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, 1967 Citroën 2CV, Hoffman Citroën 2CV, 1967 Citroën, Deux Chevau, Ambassador, United Nations, Citroën 2CV, Citroën, 1967 Hoffman Citroën, 1967 Hoffman Citroën 2CV, 1967 Hoffman

Id: wFWftbSc3hY

Length: 17min 32sec (1052 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 08 2021