Woman searches for the classic car of her dreams - part 3

Here is the final part of this trilogy. As in every fairy tale, it has a happy ending!

The search continues. I have ended up with a chassis from a Salmson VAL3, a cyclecar with a little engine with two overhead camshafts! This one, however, seemed to have been assembled later from separate parts. How long and how often something is offered can sometimes also be a signal and turn out to be a lesson for the future. So I did not buy the Salmson VAL3.

From a seasoned Amilcar/Salmson collector/mechanic I received very useful tips and information and a lot of good advice, which I took to heart. The seller advised me, among other things, never to start a project if your budget is limited and certainly not if you are not an experienced mechanic yourself. You will probably spend less by buying a restored car, especially if this hobby is new to you and you do not have any experience with it yet. I stuck to that rule and in the end it is also a lot more appealing for a young petrol head to first be able to enjoy driving and at the same time learn to wrench on a not too complicated engine. A project can always come later, but then with much more experience and knowledge. But first of all, an Amilcar was needed...

Budget is of course the deciding factor in everything, but at the same time it is also a huge dilemma, especially when you find something beautiful that goes beyond it. For a nice restored Amilcar that looks attractive you may need to be prepared to spend a bit more, or be lucky. As my father always used to say to me: "You already have no, yes is what you can get." Earlier I had spotted a really cool CGS on the PreWarCar site, but I had already put this Austrian CGS out of my mind, because someone told me it looked too "new" and seemed too expensive. But then something very different happened...

An acquaintance told me that there was a CGS for sale in the Netherlands. It was too good to be true, especially because it was said to be in perfect condition and, oddly enough, was being offered for a very attractive price. So I contacted the owner right away, but unfortunately I was just too late, it had already been sold. And the price really was very reasonable! Ouch, that hurt, and I was quite upset about it for a while.

After this educational experience, I turned my attention once again to that CGS in Austria, which I was so fond of. After a phone call, my father and I were in Austria two days later, and there the garage doors opened...

That was it, a beautiful Amilcar CGS with the looks of an Alfa Romeo 6C (especially in that color!). After I had personally experienced how difficult it can be to find the right Amilcar, this felt, despite my earlier reservations, like my big chance. Fortunately my father felt the same way and, without too much hesitation and after a test drive, we left Austria with a purchase contract. It was now just a matter of picking it up, and the party could finally begin with the 1925 Amilcar CGS, which had by then been christened my Amillioncar.

It is certainly an adventure, because as we had already noticed in Austria, getting the engine started did not go smoothly. Of course you do not buy a new car, although this CGS was a bit of a 'new' car since it had hardly been driven after the restoration. That is not exactly ideal, because it means that, although we are talking about a 91 year old car here, teething troubles can still occur. In my opinion that is an adventure in itself and a learning process at the same time. You are heading into a period in which you will need a lot of patience, knowing that once all the teething troubles have been sorted, you will have a perfect car that should be fairly reliable. But it still remains a car with a design from shortly after the First World War. A first priority, if you are not a mechanic yourself, is: find a good and reliable restorer/mechanic you can get along with. Especially that last point is something you should not underestimate. Another old piece of wisdom here is that you have to take into account that in the first 5000 km you may well face all kinds of unexpected surprises. Only after that will all the teething troubles hopefully be gone. And yet another old piece of wisdom is: do not give up too quickly! How often has someone sold their classic because they had had enough of it, only for the buyer to call after driving it hundreds of kilometers home to say that the trip went perfectly, without any defect.

After doing the necessary tuning on the engine and of course the inspection at the RDW to get a license plate, I was finally able to get the car running. And then comes the part I had been looking forward to so much: the driving experience, and what an experience it is! I already knew the feeling of a pre war car, and I had a bit of experience with double clutching and the accelerator in the middle, but that first drive in my own Amilcar was amazing! Full of enthusiasm and without fear I jumped behind the wheel, and it felt as if I had been driving it for years. Lovely without little windscreens and briefly back to 1925... well, almost. Now it is time to put on plenty of miles and really get to know your car. With the intermediate throttle you also get an increasingly better sense of how to shift in the best way. That is the charm of a pre war car.

So far the routine has been driving a bit and then putting everything right again, because those teething troubles... they are no myth. A reassuring thought is that in the end everything will be fine again and everything can be fixed, with of course the ultimate goal of soon taking part in the international cyclecar events with a good feeling, wherever they may be. If I then end up stranded, I hope by that time to know the CGS well enough to solve problems myself, at least as much as possible.

As mentioned, a nice bonus of my Amilcar CGS is that I can take part in many great events, such as drives organized by fun clubs (my 'poor mans Bugatti' happily joins in among the real Bugattis). And in rallies that also have a category for prewar cars, sprints at Zandvoort or during the Concours dElegance Paleis het Loo, and so on. A whole new world opens up for you.

I hope that everyone who walks around with the same idea as I do has been reached by my story and that I have persuaded you to embark on such an adventure. Who knows where it may lead... For me the adventure has only just begun, and I can assure you this is something you have to experience for yourself, and you can. Just make a solid plan and do your research properly, because I believe anyone can drive vintage. Keep in mind that the market is incredibly broad when it comes to classics and is about much more than just sports cars from the 60s and 70s.

Text: Rose Veenenbos - CRANKHANDLEBLOG