Solo Road Trip Heroism: San Diego To Miami In a Caged $500 Citron
Readers of On The Road gush about the incredible asphalt journeys taken by the book’s protagonists, but they did most of their driving in a brand-new Hudson and a brand-new Cadillac limousine. Here is a truly heroic road trip: a solo San Diego-to-Miami drive in a basket-case Citroën ID19 that ran for the first time in 25 years when it clanked a single lap around the Sears Point paddock and then headed onto the track.
Meet Mike Spangler, the man behind the Lunar Rover Mini Moke and turbocharged ’62 Austin Mini race cars. He decided that it would be fun to drive the Citroën— veteran of two incredibly punishing 24 Hours of LeMons races— nearly 3,000 miles to the season-ender LeMons race in Miami.
A single LeMons race generally kills most cars. Honda Civics? Toast. Fox Mustangs? Crusher bait. The Citroën hadn’t even had an oil change since 1985, so Mike decided he’d do some routine maintenance before leaving on his lunatic journey. You know, tune-up, adjust the valves, that kind of thing. Whoops, busted rocker pedestal!
After much thrashing, the car was ready to go this morning at 7:30 PST.
He’s been rolling east for two hours now and the Déesse appears to be running well; he’s made it across the mountains and out of the wet weather. Text message from a minute ago: “4k @ 70mph. climbed into mtns over 4k elevation gain in the rain no prob. Babying throttle because clutch slipped under uphill throttle test last night b4 departure.”
I hope to see the man and the car when I show up in Miami to judge the race. Wish him luck!
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Way to go..........wish I could be there with the Zippys in our Honda # 613. Had a great time at Chicago. Baby that Citro........24 hours at this track will be the ultimate TEST for car and drivers. Good Luck.
That crosscountry trip was nothing for a DS - they're a lot more rugged than most people know. The later (66-75) 5 main engines are bulletproof and could easily be supercharged as did the French cops doing nothing to the bottom end. In 1994 my son and I drove my '67 DS21 convertible, restored by putting an entire good chassis under the bodywork, from Detroit to Vancouver to join a group of 26 Deaux Chevaux from all over the world who'd gathered for a 3 week rally/camping trip around the Pacific Northwest. Vancouver, Banff, Glacier, Yellowstone, all thru Wash State & Oregon, way out in the boonies, arriving at the finish in SF after 3500 miles of backroad. Then headed into the N. end of Death Valley (in August!) on the way home, driving a very rough gravel road 70 miles at 65 mph avg, no AC, arriving in Furnace Creek at 118 F in the shade - steering wheel black vinyl wrapping was so hot I had to wear gloves, but the car never overheated. The famous DS hydropneumatic suspension just ate up the road - who needs 4WD with a FWD DS - they'll go damn near anywhere. Kudos to Mike for having the guts to make the trip in what most people would've written off as scrap - just another "old" DS come back to live and impress again, and still look like it's 50 yrs ahead of everything else - hah!