1986 Citroen BX 4TC

The seller has tried a couple of times to sell the car through ebay. It’s a mint example though with less than 5000kms on the clock. The interior as can be seen on the picture below is pretty standard.  Only 200 cars like these were made. Sales of this exclusive Citroen were not very high, infact only 62 out of 200 were sold. Many showed problems wich Citroen solved by buying back the car and scrapping it! Estimations of how many are left vary but there are probably around 30 cars left.

The 2.2-litre, 200bhp engine was derived from the Peugeot 505 and placed longitudinally into the front of the car. When you look at some of the pictures you will notice that the car has an unusual long bonnet. The car is also 4×4 enabled. The 4×4 system under the car made the boot a bit smaller compared to normal BX models.

Here is some footage of the BX 4TC in action.

The car is available on ebay France, offered out of Yvelines.  We’re not sure about this car. It is cool, powerful, rare but is likely to break down. Our guess is that the target audience for a car like this is quite limited. Click on the pictures to get through to the auction.

Originally the company had the intention of selling 20,000 cars but the Rancho became quite a trendy car and eventually well over 57,000 cars rolled out of the factory. It used most of the platform of the popular Simca 1100 and was front wheel drive. It had none of the off-road capabilities, but some special versions were fitted with a winch mounted on the front bumper, two moveable spotlights mounted on top of the scuttle panel, a roof-mounted spare wheel, … all features that contributed to the rugged off-road look.

This Sologne green car is a remarkable find in this condition. It is for sale here in Belgium, near Lièges. The seller wants EUR4200 for it.  It’s not cheap perhaps, but you will be hard pressed to find a car in as nice a condition as this one. As always, you can click on the pictures to get through to the original for-sale listing.

This 1953 example has been restored in a sympathetic green colour. It has been used as a “party” vehicle in Aalst, the Belgian city renowned for its carnival. It would be great for promotional use as it is certain to draw loads of attention. We assume this one has been used originally as an ambulance, and although they are 9 out of 10 certain to have some rust issues, they have the better preserved engines as they most probably never had to work too hard. This one doesn’t mention a price, but unrestored examples are for sale in France for €3000. Plenty of spares there too.

The engine to power all this is a 2-liter 4-cylinder that doesn’t really deliver much more than 64bhp at 3300rpm. The speedo only goes to 105km/h. Should also mention that these cars didn’t really have heating. It was an option, hence the electrical heater behind the front seats. Check out the video below to see the most common of the bodywork variations. 

The Djet was the first Matra car to roll off the production line. Under 1000 Djets were built, all powered by a 1.1-litre Renault-Gordini motor delivering 90bhp.  The engine sits in the middle of the car, which was a first. With a glassfibre body on a steel chassis, weighing a total of around 660kg, this car is fast like a pocket rocket!

The car is for sale in the North of France on anciennes.net here. It seems the front bumpers have been removed. The ad just says the car drives. This “mini Renault Alpine” if you like is for sale for €10000 which considering the uniqueness of the car is not bad going.

(Shot above is a library picture from motorbase.com)

Available as Injection 1800 (1969-70), Injection 2000 (1971-74), TI (1977-83) or V6 (1974-77, Coupé until -83). The first cars look best with double rectangular headlights and three-part taillights. Colour-coded bumpers were introduced from 1979 onwards.

The whole range seems to be for sale with a 1970, 1971, 1974, 1979 (x2), 1983 (x2). The blue one, the maroon and red one seem to be the cleanest ones judging from the pictures and come with the nice TRX alloy wheels. There are also a couple of Coupé versions for sale. We think it could be a model-specialist trader offloading some of his (restored) cars. They are for sale here out of Belgium.

 Citroen finally entered Group B rallying in 1986 with a developed BX. It was an absolute disaster as the car proved totally uncontrollable on the track. It participated in 15 events (of which 3 FISA WRC rallies: Monte Carlo, Sweden and the Acropolis) before Citroen pulled the plug and Group B rallying got banned altogether after the death of Henri Toivonen in his Lancia Delta S4 in the Tour de Corse rally.

Citroen consequently wanted to destroy all 20 cars made for the rallying. Two went into collections: one into the Citroen collection and one into the Hommel collection. While most cars were sent to the scrapper, two cars got into the hands of amateur driver P. Pivert who managed to reconstruct one of the cars, then crashed it and used a second shell to remake the car. A third shell was allegedly sold in Paris in 1992.

It could be one of these last cars then that has come up for sale. It is the left one in the top picture (the right one is a homologation BX 4TC) and the one just above in action (the car was marked as nr. 17 in the Monte Carlo). Below is a picture of a different car.

So it comes as no surprise really that this car is very rare and very sought after. The description on the French ebay where the car is for sale is a bit weird in the sense that the seller only posted one picture with the intention of tempting buyers to contact him directly. It is a recent trend on ebay that we’re not really big fans of.

Update 11/8:  The seller has removed the ad. We hope he changed his mind about selling his R5.

Another homologation series has come up for sale, this time a Renault 5 Turbo. Only 1500 cars were ever produced of the first series and this is car #1059. It has been laid up for a while and will need a bit of work. It looks nice and a bit understated in black.

The interior looks very neat and apart from the dials on top of the middle console looks completely stock. The seller has recently put in a new starter engine, alternator, fuel pump and battery. We’re not quite sure how much work will be needed but it could just be a good tune-up.

The mid-bodied engine is a 1400cc engine that delivers 160bhp. When Jean Ragnotti took the real works car out for its first Monte Carlo WRC rally, he went straight for the first place. Until it came up short against 4WD cars that were introduced in the same period and were much more powerful on dirt. The car is for sale here out of Ghent in Belgium.

The aluminium body was made by Simca in conjunction with Facel Metalon, the same company that gave us the Facel Vega. The car is based on the Simca Aronde 1300 but seems to have a different front. The grille is typical of the mid 1950s and lots of famous Ferrari racers from that period had a similar one. The car was used as a rolling restauration, the floorboards and door pannels have been done, as have the brakes.

From the pictures, it seems the interior still needs a bit of sorting out, but the vendor has stated that the car is complete. Also, with the strong availability of Simca parts throughout France, it shouldn’t be a problem to restore this car to its former glory. Don’t you agree the steering wheel looks super-cool?

The car is for sale on a few French websites, like this one. The seller has been lowering his price over the last couple of months to around €10.5k , so we think further negotiating could be possible.