Peugeot 505 GR Wagon Year Unknown

It is hard to describe the affection we developed for this machine during our travels in Europe. She wasn't just transportation and lodging. She was home.

The Peug, as she was affectionately called, was purchased a couple of years ago by ICONS professor Jim Tolisano to facilitate the CSF Italy program. Comfortably seating 7 (9 in a pinch), she was perfect for hauling students around the winding back roads of Tuscany. She had two hard years of service (both by ICONS and by the Pollino Wolf Project crew) which managed to cover the body with dents, knock out one headlight, strip the rear tires bald, blow an exhaust gasket, produce a slow gasoline leak, disable the power steering, break the front right tie rod, flatten the springs and a plethora of minor quirks and failures. Although she still ran great, instead of investing in continually needed repairs, ICONS decided to give up the vehicle and bestowed her upon us, with the likely expectation that she would end up in a junk yard sometime during our journey.

Our relationship with the Peug started off a little rough. Before leaving Siena we had to purchase a new set of rear tires. Already we were doubting the financial intelligence of taking on the car. But, we resisted the temptation to leave her and possible future problems and their related costs in Tuscany, with the sure knowledge that if anything too expensive did go wrong, we would simply have her towed to a junk yard. Besides, the engine ran great. However, it also soon became apparent that the fumes billowing from said "great running engine" were very unpleasant. We later learned from a mechanic in southern Italy, that there was a bad exhaust gasket on the engine, which, combined with fumes from a never located gas leak, were creating the hostile atmosphere inside.

Open sesame, with a little help

And the problems could not be fixed, because the Peug was "too old," and parts would be unavailable. Hmmm. Jeff decided this seemingly unsolvable problem called for duct tape. After covering all possible exhaust entry routes, the problem was solved! Other minor inconveniences occurred, including the necessity of purchasing alternate support to keep the back hatch open. But it didn't keep the car from running, so no big deal.

Peug set up for bed

The Peug not only allowed us to explore places otherwise unavailable to us, but also became a very comfortable bed at night, after we wisely did some reconstruction in the back that involved foam padding and duct tape. With our flannel sheets and new light-weight sleeping bags, and of course, pillows, we were extremely cozy in our little Peugeot nest, and spent many nights camping in amazing and out of the way places.

We also spent some nights in not so out of the places, and enjoyed privacy from our homemade curtains, kept up with duct tape and velcro. Keeping the bugs out became a necessity, but air-flow was also important, so Jeff constructed removable insect screens for the windows, using screening, duct tape, velcro and super glue. They worked marvelously. Other little alterations, such as Jeff's eye glasses and watch hooks on the window, helped make the Peug our little home-sweet-home-on-the-road.

Minor repairs were necessary along the way, and mostly involved jury-rigging, including the surgery needed to make the passenger's side headlight point the right direction and keep the driver's side headlight from blinding oncoming traffic. Both repair jobs involved duct tape, of course. We were free of any major, "car won't go" problems until the ignition switch broke, but that was our only need of a mechanic, who (thank goodness!) was able to replace it at a reasonable price.

Repair job #114

Even the three hour drive on the world's worst road didn't stop her (but it did cause her to start making an uncomfortable "clunking" noise).

Jeff's bedside hooks

And so we made our meandering way in the Peugeot through Italy, Switzerland, France, Spain and Portugal, to finally return the the car to be "cubed" at the junk yard in Rome. It was a very sad good-bye when we left the Peug with Luigi Boitani, wolf biologist and professor at the University of Rome, and actual registered owner, who was surprised to see the Peug return in one piece.