Put some effort in ...

Re Mellowyellow's french car, Wikipedia led me to Michel Irat and then that name led me to this, for the actual car.
Good quiz for a dreary Sunday afternoon.

http://www.wikiwirral.co.uk/forums/ubbt ... t_van.html

....... ten points to anyone who recognises one of these and can tell me the original purpose for which it was designed.

My understanding is that they were designed for French Farmers to drive across fields. The narrow tyres, and distance between the wheels was chosen so it could be driven in a ploughed field to collect produce for market, with the wheels in the furrows thus not destroying the crop..

Well done John for working that out. Yes, it is a Michel Irat. Michel was the son of French car builder George Irat and only built a very small number of vehicles in 1929/30.

It's a long story but the owner (who actually lives in Yorkshire, not London) is a rather interesting chap who owns an Elan +2 and also bought a lovely Lotus Excel off me. The car was brought to us for us to restore. One of our painters decided he would like to do the bodywork and paint it whilst looking after it in his workshop. I think he just loves having a talking point in there and we don't have the space. Our task is to get it running once the cosmetics are done. It will be interesting as getting parts for a rare car like that should be a challenge. I guess most things will have to be re-made by us if needed although everything is present apart from the rad cap but things like spark plugs will be difficult to find. It's all do-able though!

My understanding is that they were designed for French Farmers to drive across fields. The narrow tyres, and distance between the wheels was chosen so it could be driven in a ploughed field to collect produce for market, with the wheels in the furrows thus not destroying the crop..

Ah ha. Not that particular model John. It's a bit special....and slightly more complicated:

The clue's the extra fan on the back...

Our task is to get it running once the cosmetics are done. It will be interesting as getting parts for a rare car like that should be a challenge. I guess most things will have to be re-made by us if needed although everything is present apart from the rad cap but things like spark plugs will be difficult to find. It's all do-able though!

Should make an interesting, maybe long term project. I imagine that finding parts will be a challenge, for example, where would you start to look for a cylinder head gasket, etc. Good luck with it