Let’s Look At Some Weird Stuff: 1990 ZAZ-968 vs 1956 Citroën 11

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)