When Bernard Laborde moved to Canada 19 years ago from France he brought over this 1930 C6.
But a Faux Cabriolet is in essence a 2 door coupe you say? And this is a truck. How can it be called a Faux Cabriolet?
When the C6 was introduced in 1928 in order to meet the demand of a wealthy clientele wishing to travel comfortably, and sometimes to stand out in society (during elegance competitions for example), Citroën offered ten elegant bodies, produced in its factories. It was also possible to order a bare chassis and entrust it to a bodybuilder. The C6 Faux Cabriolet was a rare model offered from the Citroën factory.
The reason for Bernard’s C6 being configured as a truck pertains to the second World War. When the German army invaded France, soldiers commandeered all the available cars and especially sought out the nice ones. The only way for a Frenchman to keep a car was to say that he needed it for business. So a lot of cars were modified to be utility vehicles as was the case with this C6. (And with this C6 – restored to be a Faux Cabriolet again and auctioned by Aguttes on September 27, 2020.
Bernard recalls that a beautiful “Avion Voisin”, one of the most expensive cars in the world, was transformed as a pick up truck in the same area where he found his C6.
After the war, Bernard’s C6 became famous as a tow-truck in the town of Cahors and the surrounding area. It appears in a few pictures in a book of the biggest car accidents in the region. The place was famous for accidents because the N20 highway that passed through there was very dangerous at this time.
Bernard claims that very few C6 originally registered as Faux Cabriolets have survived. One known to still exist (and pictured below) resides in the Citroën Conservatoire near Paris.
Hello, The Faux Cabriolet was produced as a 4-cylinder C4 and as a 6-cylinder C6. This version was available in a 4-person and a 2-person model. The 2 person had a spider for a third person or children. With the 4 person room there were a maximum of 4 people inside.
This model was also called Coach, these were also 2 models, namely with a window for the rear passengers or blinded and that is called a Faux Cabriolet sans custode. We ourselves have a C6F 1930, a 2-person version, under restoration. The white one below is thus a C6 Coach sans custode. If Bernard wishes, he can always contact me. we live in the Netherlands.