A Paris found 1965 Neckar-Osi

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Tony Hillyard writes: "It’s a small world... During last summer, a French friend of mine was on holiday on the West Coast of France. Over lunch, he started talking to an elderly lady at the next table. The conversation turned to hobbies and my friend mentioned he was very interested in old vehicles. The elderly lady, who lives in Paris, mentioned that she had an old car and perhaps it might be of interest to him. After the holidays, a visit to Paris was arranged and it turned out that the lady’s old car was a 1965 Neckar/OSI 1200 cabriolet. This lady had purchased the Neckar in 1966 and was the second owner from new. The speedo showed the original 69,000 kms with all the service records.

The 5th November was the date set for collection. This turned out to be everyone’s nightmare scenario. The lady’s house was located in a narrow road in Paris, with cars parked on each side. There was just enough room for my VW van and car trailer to pass down the road in a straight line. To add to our woes, when we opened the garage doors we found that the car had been parked there, unused since 1992, with the hand brake firmly on and all the brakes locked solid! We managed to uncouple the car trailer, push it into the narrow driveway then reverse my van up to the trailer, using the plug underneath the van to connect my electric winch. After inflating the tyres and a great deal of effort by my trusty “Superwinch” we managed to load the car on to the trailer. Sadly we did not have room to turn the car round so she was loaded the wrong way, with the engine towards the back of the trailer, making high speed driving on the return 300 km journey home impossible. Once the car was loaded we then faced a maelstrom of angry Parisian drivers as we blocked the road while we attempted to exit the narrow driveway. I discovered you have to be really zen about that!!! Getting the car off the trailer when we arrived home was another challenge! I don’t know if anyone has ever tried to unload a car from a trailer with all the car brakes locked-on solid?

I wonder, do any of the Post War Classic readers know of a good club for all Neckar/OSI issues and plus a spares supplier? We managed to finally get the brake drums off and we now need to buy some brake parts, including brake linings, wheel cylinders and master cylinder. Any help or information would be much appreciated." 

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