ENDURANCE RACING
“ The novelty of doing the Grand Prix circuit for 24 hours for an entry fee, at that time, of around £ 3,000, in a car you could get for very little money, was really appealing. There were more than 200 cars around at that point, competing on and off in the endurance Championship and the 24-Hour races, so the grid at Silverstone was huge.”
“ We do everything from the track time and logistics right through to running and organising the membership side,” he explains.“ I make all the parts of the cars now too, and I run the web shop, so we are very busy! We also organise and run the C1s in the 2CV 24-hour race and the 12-hour Race of Remembrance.
Simply fun to drive
The C1 cars are pretty much standard spec apart from the addition of a roll cage, racing harness and wishbone extension kit for greater caster. Since taking over, Welsh has also specified the addition of two Powerflex suspension bushes to improve stability and banned the use of the original steel wheels, because the cornering forces caused them to crack.
Building a car is very simple and quick to do, as Welsh explains:“ You unbolt the interior, weld the roll cage feet into the car, fit our standard bolt-in roll cage, add a set of lowering springs on the standard shocks and racing brake pads and off you go. You can build one in a couple of days on your driveway at home – and that was a big part of the appeal.”
Similar can be said of the 2CVs, which also remain fundamentally standard cars.“ We have standard suspension, gearbox and braking system,” says Bull.“ The engines are the original 602cc flat-twin, but they now push out around 50hp, double the original, because of tuning and a few permitted modifications to the engines.
“ We are keen to maintain the original appearance of the cars as much as we can, so we do still use the steel rims, with standard Toyo 310, 135 / 15 profile tyres. There is the occasional failure, but I am on the technical committee, and we always advise people of where they can fail and make sure they check them regularly.”
The basic nature of the two different cars makes them unique to drive compared to most racing machines and means they cannot compete in other series. As a result, many of the teams that compete in the 24-Hour races also take part in the respective endurance Championships, which involve a calendar of races lasting up to three hours.
“ We try and do most of the races because it is good fun and good practice,” says Drinkwater.“ The C1 cars are unique in the way they drive. Having road tyres and no race suspension, there is a bit of roll, and you slide around. It is weird to explain. You drive it as hard as you can and it will just keep on going.”
There is now a healthy second-hand market of C1 machines and on average people will pay around £ 4,000 for a fully built car. That can drop as low as £ 2,000 for a well-used one and rise up to £ 12,000 for a known winner that has been looked after well. Things are a little more expensive with the 2CVs, due to their age, but not astronomically so.
As a 40-year-old classic, good donor 2CVs are not around anymore so to build one from scratch requires a bit of a project. A car with four tyres, ready to hit the track can range from £ 4,000 and £ 10,000, depending on the number of spares involved. Three years ago, for example, Bull paid £ 7,500 for a car that had not run for several years and needed a bit of attention, but it did come with a full set of spares and a trailer thrown in.
These machines, be it a C1 or a 2CV, are built to last and, if raced sympathetically and kept out of trouble, they can be used time and again with minimal maintenance costs. Drinkwater’ s car, for example, ran its original engine and gearbox for five 24-Hour races, as well as track days and testing, without requiring a change.
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The 2CV Championship startline grid Everyone chips in to get the cars ready to race
Revolution- June 2025
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