From Daniel Wolf, San Diego

In rememberance of Jacques on the westside of Santa Cruz i was in need of repair you fixed up my Citroen and were honest and fair you taught me there was more than beauty and grace that everything must be perfect and in its right place but more than anyone i have yet met you taught me a lesson i will never forget that precision and perfection are good to persue but being kind and gentle are ingredients too that machines have to be perfect to work as designed but so should strive people not to get misaligned and though youre not here i can hear you say with those penetrating eyes God bless and good day david smith iv

from the Santa Cruz Sentinel March 25, 1986 Citroens/ The weird, underhood world of Jacques Abot   By JOAN RAYMOND Sentinel Staff Writer SANTA CRUZ For the owner of a French car that looks like a cross between a cootie and a hydroplane, driving up to Jacques Abot's garage is like coming home. Citroen car owners lead an isolated existence in America. The cars can be as finicky as their owners are eccentric and Citroen mechanics are about as common as soy sauce in quiche. That's why Citroen owners who don't know their carburetor from their radiator are so relieved to find Abot's French Car Service on Mansfield Street on the outskirts of Live Oak. At Jacques' place, they don't have to feel helpless. They don't have to feel like hungry, homesick American travelers in Paris desperately seeking a fast food restaurant with an English menu. They don't have to feel insecure, like a mental patient whose psychiatrist has just left for a six week vacation. Knowing the French Car Service is around, they can relax about the fact they own a weird car an automotive missile with an hydraulic suspension system that makes the car go up and down on its haunches like a merry go round horse and gives Citroen its famously smooth ride. A FEELING Of relief comes across the faces of mechanic starved Citroen owners upon getting their disabled cars to Jacques' place. It's a subtle kind of jubilation, the same kind of specialized glee that is experienced by nitpickers who have just discovered a terrific technicality. Consider the case of two Citroen owners from the Pacific Northwest who wheeled into Abot's shop recently. They were delighted to be there, because Abot was the closest authorized Citroen mechanic to their home in Tacoma, Wash., except for a repair shop in San Francisco. They said they were left without a "nearby" mechanic when the Citroen shop in Vancouver, British Columbia, moved to San Diego. However, Citroen owners need more than a good mechanic. They need money to pay high costs for maintenance, parts and repair. Luxury and high performance doesn't come cheap and Abot (pronounced Ay bo) is the first to admit it. But if people "appreciate" Citroen, "then they do what they have to do to own one," says Abot. Abot's French Car Service is easy to spot. It's the business on a side street off the freeway frontage road that is filled with all different models of Citroens sedans and stationwagons, suffering from various stages of vehicular illnesses. Some have obviously been owned by people who didn't do what they had to do. There are the newer, streamlined automotive missiles with aerodynamic bodies that would make Buck Rogers proud. There are older, gangster style models with running boards and mobster headlights that would be the envy of Elliott Ness. The gangster-style Citroens are examples of the worlds first massproduced, front wheel drive automobile -- the "traction avant" pioneered by Citroen in 1934. In one, giant design leap in 1955, Citroen went from A1 Capone to Spiderman and released a superaerodynamic, avant garde model at a time when other manufacturers were a long way off from building airflow features into body styles. In another surprise to the motoring world in 1949, Citroen started to mass produce its sardine can style 2CV -- a little car with a roll back top that was said to be too ugly for success. Citroen proved the critics wrong and within a few months had two years worth of back orders. The homely 2CV is still coming off the assembly line and holds the record for being in production longer than any other car in the world. In the early '70s, Citroen released the sleak and sexy SM. That's for Sports Maserati, not sadomasochism. However, the energy crunch proved to be a death blow to the SM. Then came the most current style, the elegant CX, billed as the "ultimate in hydropneumatic technology," featuring "varipower" safety steering for extra control, even when a tire blows out. SEVERAL WRENCH WIELDING, coverall clad mechanics work with Abot at the French Car Service. The underhood world of Jacques Abot is filled with more Citroen parts than goose liver in foie gras. Abot is the one with the calculator and the French accent. Born in France on the border near Geneva, Switzerland, Abot immigrated with his family to America in 1955. He once lived in Tennessee and is a former Mercedes Benz mechanic. He considers the Mercedes a "very refined, standard car." Citroen; on the other hand, is not standard, he says. "Citroen does things in a unique way," and few people would argue Abot on that point. Abot first became a Citroen mechanic several years ago in a shop at Harvey West industrial park owned by his former boss, Miles Potter. Potter is now a parts distributor and has moved to a location next door to Abot's garage. A photograph of company founder, Andre Citroen, hangs in Abot's office: His desk is scattered with toy models of Citroens. He believes in Citroens. He believes their design to be enduring, non compromising, functional, simple and beautiful. Even when they're old, Citroens are worth fixing, he says. Abot should know. He owns so many Citroens he has lost count "10, or something like that," he says. Some are parts only cars. He drives "three or four." "To keep up my Citroen habit, I have to have a shop, you see," says Abot, running his gaze over the garage filled with cars with their fenders off and their hoods up. The Abot family car -- for Jacques, his wife and three children -- is a 1966 Citroen stationwagon -- a roomier, even stranger looking model than the sedan, but less agile. They, like other owners, have had the privilege of enjoying what is referred to in the trade as the "Citroen motoring experience." Sometimes referred to as "French Cadillacs," Citroens are famous for their silken ride, comfort and safety features. The car is self leveling no matter what the load. If the rear right wheel is removed, it is still driveable. ABOT HASN'T tried threewheel driving, but there are three wheel Citroen car races sponsored by the Citroen Car Club. He gives the example of a friend who had a front tire blow out on a curve during a recent car rally. Despite the loss of the wheel, the car negotiated the curve -- at 80 mph. Santa Cruz County is Citroen country. There was a Citroen convention at UC Santa Cruz last Fourth of July. Abot estimates there are 40 or 50 Citroens here. It seems half of them are parked in front of his garage. Why so many Citroens in Santa Cruz? One thing that greases the car's popularity here is the fact there is a Citroen mechanic in town. Another reason, Abot agrees, is that Citroens fit into the Santa Cruz lifestyle. Santa Cruzans are something like Citroens, says Abot. "They're eccentric." It's rare to see a new Citroen on the road in the United States, especially in California. Citroen does not sell new models in America, but they can be bought through a distributing company in New Jersey called CX Automotive. Strict California smog requirements and other regulations prevent new cars from being sold in this state. Currently, the only way to legally own a new Citroen in California is to put 7,500 miles on the odometer and bring it into the state as a "used car." Proposed revisions would tighten controls by requiring the cars to be at least two years old in California. Other than meeting government regulations, the buyer needs only $30,000 to $40,000 for the experience of owning a new Citroen CX. An eccentric personality helps.