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Morocco Overland

Morocco Overland

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2CV Bike


2CV Bike | Contents List | Introduction | When to go | Where to go | What can I do in...


In July 2012, a couple of years before fake news became a thing, online media tripped over itself to syndicate a compelling Saharan survival story evoking the 1965 film, The Flight of the Phoenix. Details were patchy, but the full story goes that in March 1993, 43-year-old Frenchman Emile Leray set off from Tan-Tan to drive his Citroen 2CV to Zagora (more or less MA3, followed by MS8 from Tata).

With the Polisario ceasefire only 18 months old, at Tilemsen the army turned him back to Tan-Tan. Determined to continue east, Leray claims he decided to skirt offroad round the checkpoint to the north (see MW1 KM22) but 10km up the piste, one of the 2CV’s suspension arms broke. With a generous ten days’ provisions on board, and ‘unable’ to easily walk out, he decided to strip and rebuild his crippled Citroen into a rudimentary motorcycle, and ride out as if nothing much happened. The unusual powertrain and suspension set-up of a 2CV makes such a conversion plausible.

The way the story was reported in English – with reconstructions shot in a French quarry – made many sceptical. But reading his original account with pictures, based on an article from a 2CV magazine a decade after the events, a faint ring of plausibility does come through. One interpretation might be that Leray did indeed perform the conversion as, when and where he said he had, but he set out with the very intention to do so. The checkpoint yarn helped explain why he was up on the piste. As the TV show Mythbusters went on to prove, the Frankenbike proved to be barely rideable, and he was soon caught and ended up paying a fine for his unorthodox trackside conversion.

In 2006 Leray went on to convert another 2CV into a trimaran on a river in Mali, only this time he made a dvd about it, to sell.

Morocco Overland

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