The M35 body was made at Heuliez in Cerizay. They were very proud of it, judging the prominent pictures in their company-presentation at the time. M. Heuliez himself wanted to drive one himself as well ofcourse, he had No. 39.
A friend recently visited Heuliez and made several (detail)pictures. Nobody could tell him much about the history, but with some details on the car and some that we already had, a bit of the early history can be traced.
The Carte Grise shows the car was first allowed at the 27th of february '70 registered as VN Vehicule Neuf. On the windscreen the Tax-sticker shows tax has been paid for the season '72/'73. Probably it did it's 87.000km in that period. The body-shells went from Heuliez to the Citroën-factory at Rennes, where the Ami was build as well. Here the M35's were sprayed Gris Nacré and assembled. This car was originally grey as well and was at one moment resprayed blue, M. Heuliez' favorite color.
This picture shows the early grey paint.
No. 39 has known better times. At the moment the front end is loose and it's not driveable. On the pictures below you can see it's stored quite narrow, together with several other cars of the collection, in the place where until recently Opel Tigra Twintops were painted.
Because Heuliez is mainly aiming at survival in the future at the moment, they soon will part from their past. A large part of the collection will be auctioned in July 2012. As soon as more is known we will let you know.
More pictures of the collection can be found at; http://thisisnotamethod.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/heuliezenphotos/
More info about the auction at; http://www.artcurial.com/fr/departements/automobiles_et_automobilia/lmc2012.asp
