You love a classic Italian car with your eyes, a German car with your hands, an American car with your ears, and a French car with your heart. Perhaps that’s why I’m so enamored with the vehicles of the Mullin Collection, which goes up for auction tomorrow and contains a remarkable assortment of French cars.
Peter Mullin made his money in the insurance business and, over a long life, converted much of that money into a collection of amazing French cars. Those cars were held in the Mullin Automotive Museum in Southern California but, with his passing, those vehicles are going up for auction tomorrow.
“It’s probably the best collection of French cars in the United States under one roof,” Steven Posner, CEO of Putnam Leasing told me. Putnam Leasing is the finance arm of Gooding & Company, which is hosting the auction.
You can see the full list of vehicles right here. The cars expected to garner the highest bids are the 1938 Bugatti Type 57C Aravis ‘Special Cabriolet’ or maybe the 1933 Hispano-Suiza J12 Cabriolet. Both would make you a hit at any concours event anywhere in the world, though expect to pay at least $2.5 million for the right to own either one of them.
That’s not what got my attention. No, what got my attention was this:
Yes, that’s a Citroën 2CV. A simple car designed by Citroën to put French farmers and others on the road cheaply. It was actually designed prior to WWII but, with the Germans taking over the country, the 2CVs were hidden away. I visited the Conservatoire Citroën–the automaker’s officially sanctioned museum–and had the opportunity to see those cycloptic early 2CVs in person and was moved.
While the 2CV is purposefully simple, much like the Beetle, it’s also irrepressibly French and looks approximately 400% more charming than it technically needs to be. Here’s a video on it I made with Sam Smith for Hagerty:
This particular model (one of six 2CVs for sale, or seven if you want to include the Dyane), is one I’ve never heard of before. I’ll let the auction house explain it:
In 1983, the France 3 yacht was the French entry into the famous America’s Cup sailboat race. In celebration, Citroën created a new special edition 2CV, dubbed “France 3,” in honor of the racing yacht. Unique features included white paint with a blue wave-like stripe design to the body sides and twin blue racing stripes to the upper surfaces. A commemorative decal to the lower-left rear of the 2CV depicted a stylized France 3 yacht.
Indeed, those seats are delightful.
I love all the little details here.
This was a museum piece so it’s unclear if it currently runs, but all the cars in the collection are extremely well-kept, though as Posner warned me “If I bought anything from the auction I certainly wouldn’t stick a plate on it and drive home.”
It’s a 2CV, though! How complex could it be? It was made to be fixed with a corkscrew and half of a stale baguette.
The 2CV France 3 is being offered with no reserve and the lower end of the estimate is only $20,000! Is there a better car available anywhere in the world for just $20-30k? I think not.
“I can’t wait to go there to look at the stuff,” said Posner, who was planning to head over to the auction when we spoke. “I would just tell everyone to bid with your head and not with your heart… but that’s going to be hard because some of the stuff you’ll never see again.”
Posner lives near me on the East Coast and we were both plotting out where we could potentially get one of these cars fixed in the area, so I’m not sure either of us are going to take his otherwise good advice.
Photos: Gooding & Company
Apparently, it was in driving conditions about 20 years ago according to it’s license place… But it probably it’s first plate.
The license plate is from Paris ( the 75), and we were going through numbers and letters sequencially for the rest.
I had an AX with 246 LDL 75 that got wrecked in 1996, but it had initially 6127 TP 63, I had to change the plate when I moved to Paris in 1994.
Plates with the NXX letter combination appeared a bit after Y2K but before 2009, as it’s when we changed the license plate system.
What a sad thing to hear, I met Mr. Mullins once before and he was a charming, incredibly nice person. The other sad thing is to see his collection redistributed all over the world….for those who never visited his facility, you missed a once in a lifetime experience.
I was left there alone for 3hours once, it’s something i’ll remember all my life.
The perfect Forester replacement. It cheaper, a classic, your daughter will probably love it, it’s easy to wrench on, gets great fuel economy .
Actually, you love French cars with your butt. They have the most comfortable seats on this or any other planet.
That includes 2CVs, even though the seating is of the simplest variety.
I’m almost glad I’m too poor to bid. Were I wealthy, I’d be poor afterward. But I’d own a couple of Citroens, and a Bugatti or two.
My older brother was a bricklayer who loved his 2CV. He worked with several macho 4-wheelers who used to mock him about his ride. He finally got tired of it and challenged 3 of them to a large wager that it would go places they could not follow… They lost the bet!
If they are near you, they are near me. HINTS please????
I love the contrast here.
America’s Cup yacht racing is both bleeding edge and incredibly expensive and a 2CV was never either of those things, not in 1948 and not in 1983.
the listing is crazy !! and so far from France !!?
Including a 1970 CITROËN M35 rotary engine…
Sainte merde
It’s Dyane, pronounced dee-anne except just one syllable (not dye-anne). Not Dayne.
I always make this mistake!
What a cool little car. I love how the blue sport stripes extend onto the canvas roof section, too. All those stripes have got to be add at least 5 extra HP.
+5CV is a lot here…
Beautiful! I’ll take the Bugatti though…well, would take them all of course
White car with blue stripes: Shelby 2CV. Whodda think.
That Sam Smith video was gold! I’ve watched most of those videos, but I didn’t know you were involved Torch. Makes perfect sense now.
Also, I miss Sam’s writing.
I think Sam is a sometimes contributor to C/D now. I really missed him when he left R&T a few years ago (although they are now under the same publisher).
It’s hilarious you instinctively think Torch wrote this!
The prose wasn’t unhinged enough for it to be a Torch article. He has a way of putting words that don’t really fit—like cutting your own puzzle pieces—together such that the sentences work beautifully. That’s a rare and precious gift
“cycloptic early 2CVs”
Ah yes, before they became bicycloptic.