MY FARE LANDAULET

This fastidiously restored 1926 Citroën could be the last-surviving link to the working streets of Paris

- JACK PHILLIPS

Lily James (as Linda Radlett) desperately betrays her Englishness in the BBC’s acclaimed adaptation of The Pursuit of Love. Because, of course: “French ladies never, never sit crying on their suitcases at the Gare du Nord in the very early morning.” She was supposed to have been coerced into a suitably Parisian carriage to “luncheon” by the suave Fabrice de Sauveterre. Instead, the line-up on the cobbled street is of somewhat nondescript taxis, awash with flimsy black roofs and bereft of noticeable details.

She should have been coaxed into a Citroën: the capitalising André had spotted the gap in the market and was hastily attempting to fill it with specialised B12s. All 2000 or so were handmade in Levallois-Perret in northern Paris rather than pressed out of steel like the standard B12. But the BBC purportedly couldn’t find enough of them to fill the French ranks. In fact, the production team could find only one Citroën and no other. They found this car.

“There used to be one in Belgium,” says Martin de Little, the man who finished its restoration around five years ago. “It is no competition for this taxi; it has missed all the nuances.”

The same could not be said of this landaulet. The detail finish is painstaking, the extra mile stretching far through its thin, letterbox rear window. This was the final passion project of marque aficionado Maurice Bailey, who died before it first returned to the road completed. It was quite literally his parting gift to the world.