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1975 Citroën Méhari
Price on Application
Description
There are very few classics capable of making even the most serious collector smile before they have even turned the key.
The Citroën Méhari is one of them.
Registered in 1975, this Méhari has been owned by Ray Hillier since August 2017. Ray was trained by Rolls-Royce at its Hythe Road works in London, and cut his teeth before that building Aston Martins and Lagondas at Newport Pagnell. In 1985 he teamed up with Tony Hill to found Hillier Hill in Olney, Buckinghamshire, now one of the UK's most respected independent Rolls-Royce and Bentley specialists, known for its servicing and repair work as much as for nut-and-bolt restorations of cars including the Bentley Continental R and S-type Continentals. Ray remains one of the leading figures within the Rolls-Royce and Bentley Specialists' Association.
By his own account, Ray had been deciding between this car and an Audi RS2 (then priced around £8,000 to £9,000) and chose the Citroën instead, as he told Martin Buckley of Classic & Sports Car in March 2025, “for the sheer lunatic value.” True to form, he bought it sight unseen from Spain, paying by bank transfer and travelling out for a family holiday to collect it.
It did not go entirely to plan. “Suffice to say, the description didn't quite match up to the reality,” Ray recalled. “Yes, it drove, after a fashion, but the floor was clearly an optional extra that wasn't included.” Undeterred, he spent the rest of the holiday driving the car around La Manga before having it shipped home to Buckinghamshire, admitting he then “sat with a furrowed brow, wondering what the bloody hell I had done.”
A close look under the bonnet confirms the car's Spanish origins more precisely still. The engine's identification tag is stamped “Citroën Vigo,” placing its birth at Citroën's plant in Vigo, in Galicia, one of only a handful of factories worldwide entrusted with building the Méhari.
Restoration
Back at Hillier Hill, the little Citroën became something of a labour of love. In 2018, two of the firm's craftsmen, Chris and Conor, took the project on and, using a comprehensive range of new components, including a complete replacement ABS body and interior supplied by the well-known Citroën and 2CV specialists The 2CV Shop, rebuilt what had arrived as an ambitious, and rather optimistic, Spanish import into the car offered today.
The car had originally been finished in red. For the new body, Ray chose Beige Hoggar, and paired it with new seats trimmed in blue vinyl, giving the car the colour combination it wears today.
The steel chassis, as distinct from the ABS bodywork, was found to be in good condition and was tidied up as part of the 2018 rebuild. By Ray's account it has not been used in wet weather since.
The rear bench is the standard folding arrangement, converting between two extra seats and a flat load bed exactly as Citroën designed it. The car is currently pictured in its open, load-bed configuration for summer, with the bolt-on doors removed. Both the doors and the Méhari's full weather equipment, including the infill panels for the blue canopy top, are included in the sale.
Ray is quick to play down his own involvement, giving full credit instead to Chris and Conor. He describes the finished car simply as “a very decent Méhari”: modest praise, perhaps, but from someone who has spent a career restoring Rolls-Royce and Bentley motor cars to the highest standards, it carries real weight.
Ownership & History
Ray Hillier has owned the Méhari since 1 August 2017, the date on which the car's UK V5C was first issued, matching the story of its import.
The speedometer fitted to the car is not original. It was changed, by Ray's account, to convert the display from kilometres to miles, and its accuracy cannot be confirmed.
The Total Car Check vehicle history report also flags a mileage “warning,” arising from a 2012 MOT entered in kilometres rather than miles. For both reasons, this Méhari is offered with its mileage, currently displayed as a little over 64,000, not warranted. What can be said with confidence, from the MOT record itself, is that very little distance was covered between tests during Ray's ownership: 139 miles between the 2017 and 2018 MOTs, and 263 miles between 2018 and 2019, consistent with light, occasional use rather than any claim about the car's total mileage over its life.
The vehicle history also confirms no outstanding finance, no insurance loss, no recorded colour changes and no plate changes during its time on UK roads. Ray is the first and only keeper recorded since the car's import.
The Méhari is correctly registered in the DVLA's tax and MOT exempt Historic Vehicle class, as confirmed on the V5C. Its last MOT, in July 2019, was an easy pass, with only minor advisories recorded regarding wear in the front swivel pins and bushes, unremarkable for the type.
Model History
Revealed at the Deauville golf course on 16 May 1968, and sold initially under the name Dyane 6 Méhari, the car borrowed its mechanical layout from the Citroën Dyane, itself a lightly updated 2CV, and was clothed in a body moulded from ABS plastic, a world first for a production car. It was conceived as a vehicle that could work during the week and play at the weekend: carrying produce across a French vineyard, transporting holidaymakers along the Mediterranean coast, or simply providing uncomplicated open-air motoring.
Its usefulness went well beyond leisure. Between 1972 and 1987 the French army alone ordered 11,457 examples, and the model found its way into popular culture too, appearing alongside Louis de Funès in Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez. More than half a century on, the Méhari remains every bit as unconventional as Citroën intended. It is impossible to mistake for anything else, and even harder not to like.
Citroën's own records put total production at 144,953 units built between 1968 and 1987, including 1,213 examples of the later 4x4 version. Production was centred on the Citroën factory at Forest, in Belgium, though seven other plants across France, Spain and Portugal also built the car. It was in Spain, on a family holiday, that Ray Hillier found this one for sale.
Specification
• 1975 Citroën Méhari
• 602cc air-cooled flat-twin petrol engine (approx. 29bhp)
• Four-speed manual transmission
• Four-wheel drum brakes
• Beige 'Hoggar' (complete replacement ABS body and interior fitted in 2018)
• Left-hand drive
• Folding windscreen
• Removable bolt-on doors (included, not currently fitted)
• Blue canopy top, with full weather equipment included
• Folding rear bench, converts to a flat load bed
Our Thoughts
Every now and again a car arrives that reminds us classic motoring is not always about horsepower, rarity or outright value. Sometimes it is simply about the way a car makes you feel.
The Méhari has been making people smile since 1968, and this one has an especially good story to tell: not a polished one, but an honest one, floor and speedometer included. From an impulse purchase in Spain to a painstaking rebuild by craftsmen more accustomed to Rolls-Royces and Bentleys, it has enjoyed a second life that few examples can claim, and every part of that story, warts included, is there in the paperwork for anyone who wants to check it.
It is charming, delightfully uncomplicated, and likely to attract more conversations than cars costing many times as much.
Some classics are bought with the head.
We suspect this one will be bought entirely with the heart.
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1975 Citroën Méhari
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