Celia's home!

Snug, but dry

Each time I opened the garage door I spontaneously smiled, both inside and out, there she was all snug and dry in her new home, with snug being the operative word.

As you probably gathered and can see, my garage isn't very wide. I had already done my homework on the dimensions and I knew she would fit but quite how practical it would be to get myself in and out I didn't quite know. Luckily there is enough room providing the car is parked very close to the wall. This is where having both sides of the wall fitted with a meter wide strip of carpet comes in handy and is a modification everyone with a narrow garage should consider.

Now she was home also meant that I could finally see what I had purchased with scrutiny. The colour was one I had not see before.  It's a kind of a clay brown colour and one which I think suits the car really well. The strange thing is, is that it's not a colour that was available for 1971. A great reference on Citroen DS colours is Doctor Danche's website dedicated to the colours of the DS. The only brown that Citroen widely used on the D range which  is remotely similar is Brun Pallissandre a 1962 colour but even that doesn't appear completely right.

Photos can be misleading, colour is not like this in real life

When photographed, the colour sometimes looks maroon and I've known it to be mistaken for the colour Bordeaux a 1967-1971 colour. I later found photos of my car on facebook which were taken at the auction and the camera definitely lied. What is also interesting about these photos and photos I received since is that it shows a Citroen CX Prestige in the pictures. This Citroen CX was owned by the same gentlemen that owned my car and apparently he also ran a Citroen AX - a true Citroen man through and through!

Well back to this mysterious colour, the first natural reaction is to assume she has been resprayed at some point however there does not appear any obvious clue to this.  A possible colour change perhaps, all panels off and taken back to metal but this would have been very expensive and unusual to do so if so. This is something I will be investigating  further with a few specialists who know where to look in order to conclusively solve this riddle.

Old dried up banana!

As mentioned previously, when I purchased Celia I performed a cardinal sin, which was to not remove the rear saw bar cover and check for corrosion. When home I had some trouble getting the cover off following the removal of the bolts, I thought this was a bad sign of nasties lurking behind but the only nasty I encountered was a dried up old banana skin and lots of dust and fiber material from the boot lining. It felt quite good that providing this area was in tact the prognosis for the rest of the car would look fairly good too.

The main areas of corrosion that are visible are the left and the right boot rain gutters and some minor surface corrosion on the bodywork, so far so good.

Years of dust (21 to be precise)

I was pleased to see that the engine turned, and the engine bay looked complete and unmessed with, with no strange looking aftermarket wiring in there, which can always cause confusion and be a nightmare to put right.

What was interesting was a few marks near the starter motor which had obviously failed at some point and the owner was trying to coax her into starting, I wondered... Was that why she was retired to the garage in the first place?

As far as the interior goes, the Velour Or seats at first sight look to have done very well in lasting so long and I had hoped to preserve them. I've now decided that this was a pipe dream since sitting in the car a couple of times has brought home the delicate nature of the fabric which is going brittle with age and tearing easily. This is primarily down to Sun exposure and age, it was fun vacuuming the seats and having to pat 21 years of dust which was quite a feat. I would like to source a cloth interior which is very close to the original but I've not managed to do so yet, so any ideas please let me know.

Marchal Amplilux headlamps

Marchal Ampliliux, reflector turned brown

On closer examination of my headlights I noted that words were stamped on the front of them which read, "Marchal Amplilux". After some time researching I discovered that not all D series had them and those that did were privileged since they were an expensive optional extra and gave the best light output at the time. Daniel Stern of Daniel Stern lighting in the US is a wealth of information when it comes to bulbs and headlamps and after dropping him an email I was by far the wiser, I quote his correspondence below:

"The Amplilux wasn't just one specific lamp. It was Marchal's name for their twin-bulb/single-lens headlamp range. These existed because the world's first halogen headlight bulb, the H1, arrived in 1962 (with H2 and H3 following in the next few years) but it wasn't until 1972 that the worlds first two-filament halogen headlight bulb (H4) came to be. In the meantime, the only way to have halogen dip and main beam from one headlamp was two single-filament bulbs each with its own reflector in the common housing behind a common lens. All the major makers had lamps like this. Cibie called theirs "Biode".

Various Amplilux models used different bulb combinations in accord with the packaging

constraints of the particular lamp in question. In almost every case an H1 was used for the dip beam. Main beam was usually H1, sometimes H3, occasionally H2."

Mine happen to be H1/H1 and the dual reflector and dual bubs engineered into each light assembly made these lights very expensive to manufacture but the Marchal lights were the very best solution until dual filament halogen bubs were available in the mid 70s. The high manufacturing cost and the dual filament halogen bubs (H4) eventually killed the production of these lights.

As you can see my lower reflector has turned brown and at first I wasn't sure why but on speaking to a couple of people it was confirmed that the reflectors have turned rusty over the years. Sadly this is an all too common occurence for this type of lamp. I will look into getting a good second hand set or new old stock if I am lucky. There is also the option of rechroming which will be my last resort. Brighter lighting options are available but I'd rather keep Celia as true as possible as when she left the Javel Factory in Paris 1971.