Citroen sold 65 rarities from the storerooms of the factory museum. We published photos and descriptions of most of these cars on November 27th. The auction, as planned, took place on December 10.
Citroen made about 630,000 euros from the sale. This money will be used to purchase rarer cars for the factory museum ahead of the company's 100th anniversary celebrations in 2019.
The cheapest copy was the 1996 Citroen Xantia Break Expo station wagon model, which was sold for 400 euros. The most expensive is the layout of the 2010 Citroen Tubik concept minibus, which brought 33,000 euros.
The Citroen press service notes that the sale of 65 cars did not cause any damage to the heritage of the factory museum, since the company sold only those cars that are stored in several copies. Many of the cars sold are pre-series and do not have a VIN, meaning they cannot be registered and driven on the roads.
Citroen sold these cars involuntarily as part of the reform of the museum complex. The largest repository of the factory museum since 2001 has been located in Aulnay-sous-Bois (a northeastern suburb of Paris) and has more than 700 cars produced from 1919 to the present. Citroen recently decided to move the entire collection to the PSA Peugeot-Citroen corporate museum in Sochaux. During the audit, it turned out that some of the rarities would be more profitable to sell than to transport to a new place. So, in fact, they decided to get rid of 65 cars.
In addition to cars, the December 10 auction sold many other things from the automaker's storerooms - advertising posters, clothes, photographs, scale models, brochures and even body parts.
Citroen sold 65 rarities from stock
