The great Amilcar jigsaw: how a pile of parts was transformed into a supercharged grand sport

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Among Amilcar enthusiasts, the lesser-spotted C6 might be viewed as something of an Holy Grail. Only 50 were originally built, providing a few lucky enthusiasts with an opportunity to acquire a road-prepared version of the racing C0 model, with its lusty supercharged d.o.h.c. six. Today, some 20 C6s are known to survive, but the car seen here was not among them until very recently.

How it all came together is rather a long story, but it started with a collection of parts assembled by a father and son in England. It was their intention to one day restore it, until they managed to acquire a unique C6 from Switzerland, and then the parts were offered for sale on PreWarCar.com in 2015. They found a buyer in serial restorer Peter White of New Zealand, who duly made plans to have the car shipped from England.

The parts assembled were almost sufficient for the building of a complete chassis, but they were without a body. Fortune, however, smiled on Peter; another C6 owner, Michael Gluckman, got in touch with him to let him know that he had succeeded in locating the remains of the original body for his car, chassis 11014, and he would be restoring it. He therefore had no further use for the non-original body with which it had been restored, and Peter was welcome to it.

The chassis was a reproduction made by respected father-and-son chassis-builders Jean-Luc and Cyrille Grosselin in France, but almost everything else was original, including the engine. The gearbox, axles, radiator, steering box, springs, shock absorbers and petrol tank were all present, so it was like a giant jigsaw. However, the oil tank, wheels and certain small parts had to be made from scratch. Needless to say, it all added up in terms of cost and time, especially when one considers that much of the labour was outsourced to Australia and the wheels were made in England.

Peter made steady progress until 2017, when disaster struck. While cycling downhill on holiday in France, a driver pulled into his path and left him with no opportunity to avert a collision; he was comatose for five and a half weeks. It took two years for him to make a full recovery, after which he decided that he was not physically able to complete the restoration himself, so he entrusted it to the well-respected firm of Auto Restorations in Christchurch, New Zealand, which is able to expertly tackle almost any job in house. With the engine in a bad way A.R. manufactured all the internal parts and created a new oil tank.  All the worn original parts were rebuilt.

The project finally reached completion in April, 2023, and the result is here for all to see, a rakish and beautifully-finished grand sport which every enthusiast would love to hustle along a twisting country road. In the two years that have followed, chassis 99 (the post-production number awarded to it by the Amilcar-Salmson Register) has been greatly enjoyed on Antipodean drives, with the Australian Amilcar Club taking a keen interest, but its crowning glory was undoubtedly being awarded the 2023 Bob Porter Trophy by the Amilcar-Salmson Register, which is given for the most meritorious rebuild of an Amilcar.

Now, the globe-trotting Amilcar is set to return to its homeland. Chassis 99 is set to be one of the star exhibits at Salon Rétromobile, where it will be displayed on the PreWarCar.com stand(1R022) alongside some other outstanding motor cars, including a remarkable unrestored 1934 Bugatti Type 57 Stelvio, and a marvellously historic, oily-rag 1902 Peugeot Bébé.

Salon Rétromobile takes place from February 5-9th at Expo Porte de Versailles in Paris. For more information and to buy tickets, visit www.retromobile.com.

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