Description
An ultra-rare CX Limousine - the long body of the Prestige but with the economical and bullet proof 2500cc diesel engine. A very attractive colour combination of dark grey with a greenish-blue hue (AC067 Gris Neptune) and cinnamon upholstery. The odometer shows about 95000 km, which given the condition of the car may well be accurate, but there is no record to back this up.
The CX has almost no rust; all the experts who’ve worked on it have said how remarkably solid it is (the brown patches on the sills you see on the photos are wax). Its interior is very well preserved, given its 44 years - the upholstery is near-immaculate, the headliner firm, the carpets very decent. The door cards are not perfect but pretty good for a CX. Body-wise it's a lovely driver. It has its share of dings and scratches but polishes up very nicely. A big dent was removed on the right-hand side rear door and quarter panel and that required some paintwork. The bonnet is recently repainted as well.
It's had a lot of work done in the three years since I've owned it, all of it at Chevronics, Brodie, and CX Basis in Germany (yes, all the experts). This includes, amongst the more major items:
- Head gasket
- Clutch
- Gearbox refurbishment
- Heater matrix
- Center exhaust
- Engine mounts
- Front wheel bearings
- Hand brake refurbished
- Rear brake discs
- Starter motor
- Water pump
- Various suspension bits (wishbone, steering joints, suspension gaters, driveshaft gaters...)
- Rear suspension grease nipples installed
- Tyres
- Diravi adjusted
- Paint work (rear door, side panel, bonnet)
- Electrics sorted
- Door locks sorted
- Beginning corrosion at bottom of doors and boot lid taken care of (no welding required)
- Full waxoil treatment
This is the big(ish) stuff; there's more. Basically whatever was needed to get the CX to not leak any fluids, run smoothly and reliably across long distances, protect it and make it enjoyable for the future. I've receipts for about £13000 and that's not everything I've spent. The previous owner replaced the spheres and various hydraulics bits as well as the alternator.
The CX starts up effortlessly and then settles into a smooth idle. It lifts itself up immediately and stays up for hours after parking, steers dead straight, floats as it should, and is surprisingly quick for its grand 75 hp. Keeping up with traffic is not a problem and I've just completed a trouble-free trip from Germany, where it ran easily at 130-140km/ h on the motorway. Takes about 8 litres of diesel per 100km (35 miles per gallon).
My next project would have been the factory-installed a/ c, which is not functional and which I haven't looked at. I was toying with the idea of converting it so it can run on purified used chip fat; then you'd have a truly ecological classic!
This CX is unique as a long-body first series with the frugal diesel engine, in an amazing colour combo, that has had much time and money spent on it to make it a reliable driver. It's rot-free and waxoil-protected, ULEZ exempt (my reason for buying it in the first place as my previous XM wasn't feasible in London anymore), road-tax and MOT exempt and insurance is cheap. It's not a museum piece but pretty much the ideal everyday classic, given its bags of space and low maintenance costs. The CX has spent its entire life prior to my buying it in the South of France, which explains its condition. Allegedly (but no proof sadly as there are next to no records prior to my ownership - I have been told this by the person who sold the car to me) it was bought new by a M Bournac, who owned a garage in a small town in Lot-et-Garonne (his sticker is still on the boot). After something like 15 years he sold it to a local farmer, who eventually laid it up in a barn where it sat unused for about two decades. When the farmer died, his heirs wanted to send the CX to the scrapyard, but a local collector intervened. He got it going again but found that, given that he already had 8 Citroens (everything from a Rosalie to a C6), he had no time for it. So he sold it to me.
Why am I selling it after all this work? The usual: I have found my dream CX (a 1981 Prestige) and I don't have the space or resources for two of these lovely cars.
