Vince's xm - 2.1TD daily driver

[Dieselman]

even glass scratch repair kits arent that great. i tried one a while back and didnt see much of a difference im afraid....the scratches were still present.

My Mandarin car had a football mark on the windscreen which was right in my line of sight. I used a glass kit and it completely disappeared, but took quite a bit of effort.

[Vince]

God its been ages since i posted up on here My main blog has continued on the FCF from the Xantia i had.

The xm is still doing awesome and served us very well on our recent holiday down south Never missed a beat and was outstanding on fuel

I just posted up on the FCF just exactly where this particular car has been in its life with its first owner? Here is the breakdown of its two european tours....this makes the car so much more interesting to me...and explains the high mileage somewhat

Ok so where exactly has it been?......

It all started on the 20/04/96 in the uk......the following is recorded as a continuous tour...the dates between each place record it as being in that place for that period of time
09/05/96 - Uk to holland (Incidentally would have been my birthday that day)
15/05/96 - holland
17/05/96 - germany
23/05/96 - Norway
10/06/96 - Finland
26/06/96 - Estonia
29/07/96 - Looks like Lithuania?
07/07/96 - Poland
18/07/96 - Slovakia
24/07/96 - Germany
27/07/96 - Belgium
24/08/96 - Uk

then on its next trip
31/08/96 - Uk to Egypt!
13/10/96 - Jordan
21/10/96 - Israel
21/11/96 - Cyprus
14/12/96 - Greece
01/01/97 - Italy
01/02/97 - Back to uk

Thats what you call a car thats been around some

Because of the itemisation of everything recorded...fuel costs, mileage, dates, gallons used etc im guessing he was a diplomat or something?.....Who knows...

There is also a batch of receipts and invoices from some of these places where it was serviced etc...some are naturally written in languages i cant understand...ie nearly all of them

Perhaps it was the pre cursor to National Lampoons European Vacation....?

[Dieselman]

That's really interesting history. Given the close dates of the trips, I would guess these were holiday tours. I reckon that adds up to about 35-40k miles.

[Vince]

You could be right "Will" is it? Its just strange why he would record such specific information for a holiday...the above is just a small proportion of the information listed in the book against these trips.

[Vince]

Well, here are some more modern pics of how the xm is coming along.....for anyone who didnt see it at the cxm rally Also as stated i started work on the engine bay today...it takes time but i quite fancy having a clean engine bay which doesnt look like its done 208.5K miles now

Ready for the trip down to the cxm




And down at the rally cuddling up to Jim's new xm




And so the engine bay work commences.....



Ive only done the drivers side so far....ill move over to the passenger side probably next weekend now




It will dull a bit once its done a few miles...then it will look more natural

[CitroJim]

Gosh Vince...

I thought how lovely she looked at CXM. Mind you it was parked next to mine

That engine bay, well... Words fail me really. It looks bloody gorgeous

[russ92xmsed]

Stop it now Vince, your putting ours to shame.
My goodness, absolutely amazing. You should see my engine bay, like a bomb has gone off in there. Got any tips?

[citroenxm]

The engine bay was stunning to me when I had the car, now the car is now ONE STEP UP again...

Amazing!

[Vince]

Still a way to go guys......thanks for the comments, it will look good once its done.

The eternal problem that remains is that on the outside it needs paint....so it won't reach the heady heights of some other xm's on here......

Still, gives me something to play with.....

[Vince]

Finally i have managed to learn everything about the xm i now own i just received a phone call from one of the past owners of the car who shed light on the whole car's history from new

A few days ago I wrote to a guy known only as Mr D Robinson at an address in Reading which was shown on an old receipt in the car's history, and which also matched a D Robinson on the electoral role on google. With the cars well travelled and detailed service history, i really wanted to know why it had travelled through europe and into the middle east, and anything else i could learn about it.

Dean Robinson (who called me) filled me in on the below info....some of which i might need to amend a bit if its wrong (i need to send him an email to varify everything i wrote down)

So......Firstly the car was bought new and used for a while by the Norfolk National Health Service (applause for getting something interesting as a company car). It was then at some point traded in, after which a guy called Roy Godwin bought it, solely to do a tour around Europe and the middle east. He was /is a South African guy and had a house in England. The trips were taken as holidays and on one of them it towed a caravan where it went.

When the trips were finished the car was sold to Dean's late father Donald Robinson (known as Robbie) who was an engineer for British Airways! Naturally being an engineer he appreciated the cars styling and technology and aparently they were bought and owned by many pilots at the time too He ran the car for years keeping on top of it with his Citroen mechanic Tony (i have his details but havent written to him yet) and it was during this time that the headgasket and top end rebuild were done. As Dean said "Dad being an engineer had to have everything done perfectly so it was a proper job"

Robbie got tired of banging his leg on the towbar when in the boot so had it removed as he never towed anything or had any intention of towing with it. At some stage in his ownership to the best of Dean's recollection, they were getting a sofa delivered and the delivery wagon reversed into the car whilst it was parked, damaging the front wing, drivers door and front nosecone. These were subsequently repaired hence why the paint isnt an exact match.

Sadly a few years back, Dean's dad died quite suddenly of pneumonia, and the car was kept for about a year for sentimental reasons after which Dean bought a C5 (which he still owns) and the XM was tasked to Tony to sell on to an enthusiast. That enthusiast turned out to be a friend of Tim Leech's called Simon in Bristol, who then sold it onto Paul when ti needed a clutch, who then sold it to me

Amazingly however Dean still has the original engine undertray for it in his dad's old garage and would love it to be reunited with its parent car so i will have to arrange for that to happen.

Naturally being one his childhood memory cars and obviously a link to his late father he was thrilled (and a tad emotional) to get the letter from me and wants to keep in touch to see how the car gets on on its journey. I have decided that it would be great if i could get down to see him at some point so he can see it again in the flesh, and id let him have a drive in it again, so im going to see if i can perhaps manage it on the weekend of the NEC classic car show.
In my mind that would add another great journey to the cars already fantastic history

Im really chuffed ive managed to get this information as i figured it woudl be lost in time and id never know why the car had been where it had been and still be in such good nick after all these years