Earlier this year, George Klein heard about a 1972 SM that was languishing in a garage near Miami, Florida. The body looked pretty good. It was repainted once in a close colour. There were slight rust bubbles on the bottom of the right front fender and some deterioration on the frame edge of the right front fender. It barely ran and wouldn’t rise. All the spheres were leaking. There were some dents in the stainless steel bumper but they appeared fixable. The interior was very good – no rips or tears in the leather. The top of the back seat looked good. The dash had no cracks and all the glass seemed OK. The odometer showed 99,000 miles. And although the car was in Florida, it sported a California license plate. Overall, the condition of the car looked promising for someone that was prepared to invest time and dollars to put it back on the road.
Here are photos showing the condition “as found”:
With his previous experience restoring SMs, (George already owned three, including one that he was in the final stage of completion), he figured “what the heck
In anticipation of the purchase, George brought 4 sphere plugs with him, which when jacking a non-running hydraulic Citroën, can be inserted so the car is high enough to be moved about. In this case, loaded onto an auto transporter for importation into Canada.
George also removed the front glass headlight covers and the rear tail lenses to avoid any damage to them in transit.
Transport arrangements to trailer it were made with TFX International and within 30 days, the car arrived.
The fact this SM had European lights in good condition, and they survived the trip to Toronto, encouraged George to proceed with a full teardown.
George is quite the SM enthusiast and even at 67, he’s raring to restore another one!
The pictures in this photo gallery show his progress so far.