Good morning, and happy Friday! We’re going to end the week on a seriously weird note. I was alerted to the fact that a car I have seen before in person is now up for sale, back in Portland, so I wanted to see if I could find something equally oddball on this coast. I do believe I have succeeded.
The Buicks we looked at yesterday were anything but weird, and they were so similar I thought it might be a case of “six of one, half a dozen of the other.” And in fact, the voting was very close: as of this writing, the Regal is ahead by a single-digit number of votes.
I think the Regal would be my choice as well, especially if they include the service records. Knowing the history of a car is helpful, and having been owned by the same family is a good sign. You don’t sell a car to a family member unless it’s a good car, otherwise Thanksgiving dinner gets even more awkward than it already is. Besides, I prefer the driving feel of the W-body to the H-body.
Yesterday, Opposite-Lock member HFV_Junkyardin posted a weird little Soviet car for sale, and I recognized it immediadely. I know exactly where it is – less than a mile from my old house in Portland. I’ve seen it parked there, along with a couple old Ladas, Russian military trucks, and various pieces of heavy equipment, in a dirt yard full of shipping containers. Just another of Portland’s quirky denizens, in a town where you have to be really weird to stand out.
I kind of miss that weirdness; Maryland is pretty tame by comparison. But I figured there had to be some oddball cars for sale somewhere nearby, right? Like, say, a front-wheel-drive French sedan from the 1950s with a body design dating back to the 1930s? Yeah, that’ll do. Let’s look at some weird stuff.
1990 Zaphrozhets ZAZ-968M – $6,000
Engine/drivetrain: 1.2-liter air-cooled overhead valve V4, four-speed manual, RWD
Location: Portland, OR
Odometer reading: Ad says 10,000 miles, probably not accurate
Operational status: Runs and drives… once you get it down off that big tire
As soon as I saw the post about this car, I thought, “Holy crap, it’s the guy with the Ladas!” I’m sure everyone who spends any time in southeast Portland has seen this guy’s Lada sedans puttering around, but unless you’re a car person, they’re just old square sedans, barely worth a second look. This car, which I have seen on the road as well, probably gets more attention, but I bet some people think it’s a Corvair.
It’s not a Corvair. Neither is it a Hillman Imp or an NSU Prinz, two cars it also closely resembles. This is a ZAZ-968M, the pride of the Ukraine in the Soviet era, a car whose design dates back to 1966 and was produced all the way up until 1994. It’s rear-engined and air-cooled like a Corvair, but it sports a tiny little 1.2 liter V4 engine making about 40 horsepower. Like most typical Soviet cars, it’s dead simple, built sloppily, and designed to be repaired with a screwdriver and some baling wire. I don’t know why the seller decided to perch it atop that giant tire, but I imagine for a serious buyer he’d get it down and let you test drive it.
It’s actually in pretty good condition, it looks like, though it needs a good cleaning. The interior is intact, and there isn’t much to go wrong with it, so I would imagine everything works. Completeness is important when you’re buying a car like this; if a piece of trim is missing, it will remain missing the entire time you own the car. You won’t find one of these at the local Pick-N-Pull. The seller might have some parts in one of those shipping containers, though, if you ask nicely.
It sure is a cute little thing, even painted in this bleak industrial peanut butter beige. There’s something very charming and affable about it, with its little dog-dish hubcaps and happy face.
1956 Citroën 11N Traction Avant with parts car – $3,000
Engine/drivetrain: 1.9-liter overhead valve inline 4, three-speed manual, FWD
Location: Downingtown, PA
Odometer reading: 102,000 miles
Operational status: Does not run, but includes rebuilt engine ready to install
Unibody cars with front-wheel-drive are the standard nowadays, but in 1934 they were unheard of. Citroën wasn’t the first to build a FWD car, nor a unibody car, but they were the first to combine the two into one design and mass-produce it. The Traction Avant (literally “front drive”) set the stage for everything to come after it, though it took most of the industry decades to catch up. The Traction Avant series stayed in production all the way up until 1957, when it was replaced by something even weirder, cooler, and more advanced – the Citroën DS. The automotive world still hasn’t caught up to that one.
This is the 11N model, 11 for its taxable horsepower under the French system, and N for “Normale,” or the standard-body Avant. There were a few variations, including the “Commerciale,” the world’s first hatchback. This car is obviously not in a running state; the radiator is out, and the engine is a big hunk of rust. But it does include a complete rebuilt engine and gearbox, just waiting to be dropped in, as well as several boxes of parts, and a non-titled parts car to pull from.
It’s not like this car has been sitting and rotting, either: someone has done some work on it. The seats have been reupholstered, so it looks halfway decent inside. Gotta love those “suicide” front doors, and in true Citroën fashion, it has a weird gearshift: an H-pattern shifter sticking out of the dash next to the steering column. Call it “three-in-the-air,” I guess.
This is, obviously, one hell of a project, but it’s such a unique and historically important car that I think it’s a worthwhile one for the right person. And with the rebuilt engine and the interior work, it’s maybe a little less daunting than some projects that need everything and you have no idea where to start.
Yeah, you’re right. Tracking down parts for either of these is going to be a real pain in the ass. But look at it this way: If no one took the time and effort to fix up obscure cars, eventually we’d be left with nothing but Mustangs, Beetles, and ’57 Chevys at car shows. It would be like those awful “Classic Rock” radio stations that only play the same two hundred songs over and over again. If you want to hear “Hotel California” again, they’ve got you covered. But personally, I’d rather hear some deep side-two track off an old Procol Harum record. I like the oddballs and misfits, and these two definitely qualify. And with that, I will leave you to your choice.
(Image credits: sellers)
While I’d love to drive the ZAZ around with the ‘Russian warship, go f**k yourself!’ bumper sticker, I have a pathological attraction to separate, sloping fenders—so I actually voted Avant
I’ll take the Citroen and turn it into an art piece.
As much as I’d like to support the Ukraine (Fuck You, Putin!!!), the Tracion Avant is a freaking movie star. And that doesn’t even include the best of its roles in Diva.
The Citroen is neat, at least it was at one point. But there’s a lot to be said for a car you can just get into and enjoy immediately. Depending on how much time, money and talent you have in your life, that can be worth the $3000 difference and then some.
ZAZ for me, owning it will always be interesting.
So a thirties car from the fifties – or a sixties car from the nineties? Hard one…
The ZAZ seems a bit too much bad taste eastern block rip off (of NSU and Simca), so I’ll go for the TA.
Citroen for me. It will cost way more once you get it running and cleaned up, however once done, you’ll have a better and more interesting classic vehicle… and possibly two of them.
Citroen, loads of them in France starting at five times the money (although they do actually run and do not have rusty bonnets…
And strong support network of enthusiasts, selling parts, advice and organising sales weekends…
“If no one took the time and effort to fix up obscure cars, eventually we’d be left with nothing but Mustangs, Beetles, and ’57 Chevys at car shows.”
Unfortunately most car shows around here, in East Tennessee, are indeed just that, Mustangs and tri-five Chevys with the occasional highly modified Beetle. Oy.
All the more reason to get one or both of those choices. There actually used to be a Traction Avant that was for sale for several years (!!) at a local used car dealer a decade ago. It was still unsold when the dealership went out of business, alas. One can only hope it ended up in good hands.
Yeah, unless you’re at a dedicated VW show around here (Louisville area) there usually aren’t too many Beetles in attendance, unless one of the local clubs decides to make an appearance.
What’s great about owning a regular, average, mostly original condition Beetle is that everybody loves it, because it reminds them of a car from their past. They’ll walk right past a custom car with $75k worth of work done to look at my dented, kinda rusty, run of the mill Super Beetle. Because it looks just like a car they/their parents/boyfriend/grandma had.
Citroen by a country kilometer. They made around 750,000 between ’34 and ’57 and while there were a bunch of models they were mostly interchangeable. Parts are widely available and if you don’t speak French you can buy parts from the UK.
I’ve seen that particular shade of brown on quite a few Soviet-Bloc cars. I believe it was known as People’s Brown and was widely used to remind the owner that fun colors are for decadent Western pigs.
“ don’t know why the seller decided to perch it atop that giant tire “
Why, to avoid theft of this valuable automobile, of course!
The brochure described it as “Decadent Vibrant Beige”.
I’ll take the (hopefully) driving zaz. I always liked the way they looked.
Man, such an obvious both day. I wanna check out that ZAZ if only to meet the wacko owner and his Empire of Funky Stuff. And visit that manor where the Citroen lives.
I would just like to know why it’s sitting on a huge tire.
Theft deterrent
My vote for the Citroen is conditional. I would like to know more about what, if anything, the seller has done to the car. If they’ve reupholstered it, did they also give the suspension and brakes some love? I would be 100% okay with driving it looking as-is, but only if some of the other major stuff has been done…by someone else.
I’ve seen plenty of classics with this level of patina that have had major work done to make them drivable, so I’m curious if the seller was intending to doing something like that.
So you’re asking me, a red blooded, 100% ‘Murican to choose either a Commie car or a cheese eating surrender monkey car?
Or are you asking me, a genuine educated American to buy a car from the country valiantly jamming their thumbs in the eye of Big Bad Vlad or the country that backed us in our quest for independence from King George?
I voted Citroën.
Official car of the Royal Society of Putting Things on Top of Other Things.
While I’m kinda drawn to the Zaphrozhets, which is even stranger than a Citroen, if possible, I’d still take the 11CV. I’ve ridden in one — even drove it once — and, while not as refined as I’d have liked (it was already an old and well-used ride at the time) I dug it. Plus, there’s another one not all that far from me, and I could track down its owner to commiserate with.
Sadly, the nearest Zaphrozhets dealer is much too far away for parts runs. And I don’t see it listed on the Rock Auto site.
Admittedly, I’d like to have both. I mean,, why not?
The notification bell shows up before I sign in, but it disappears after I sign in. WTF?
Running & driving for the win.
My aunt bought a ZAZ when they lived in Romania for a couple of years. She spent more time walking after she got the car than before. Probably even more unreliable than a Prinz or an Imp both of which masochistic relatives have also owned.
The concept of a running citroen seems better to me than the running block on a tire.
Who couldn’t use a little Zaz in their life? I’ll take comrade car.
The Citroen, so that I can pull up to Cars and Coffee looking like Gen. deGaulle liberating Paris.
Citroen, so that I, too, may have a beautiful rusty shitpile I’m perpetually going to fix in the spring melting into my lawn.
In Soviet Russia, you put car on wheel.
Sasha, bored in the work yard one day.
Looks at car. Looks to tire.
Looks at tire. Looks to car.
“Hey Mika, get the loader. Boss said to clean up the yard.”