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Description
Gent (Belgium), October 30th 2021

When building his collection, Ghislain Mahy worked with a network of 'spotters' and informants who tipped him to the location of rare and abandoned cars. Once they were located though, getting them to Belgium was a whole other adventure...

At the end of the 1950s, after yet another trip that ended in near-disaster, Mahy purchased a used Renault truck, a 1954 Renault R2165. Introduced in 1947 as the Renault 2T5, the truck was built under the Renault brand for 10 years before production moved to Saviem in 1957, where it continued to be built as the Saviem Galion until 1965.

On the back of his truck, Mahy put a flatbed. As if that wasn't enough, using a converted bomb chart from war surplus stock, Mahy's Renault would often carry as many as four cars in a single trip - two in the freight bed, and two in tow. As such it served him for a couple of years, until a more powerful Ford truck took its place. Unusually for a car collector, Mahy sold his worn-out Renault to a scrap dealer without second thought.

A decade later, while at a car meeting, a man approached Mahy. It turned out to be the scrap dealer - it turned out he had never gotten around to scrapping the Renault truck. Out of pure nostalgy, Mahy, at the spot, bought his old Renault back for the same price he had sold it so many years earlier.

Mahy's Renault is shown as it would have been during one of his many trips - carrying a 1922 Le Zèbre D8 on its back, and with a 1913 Renault DM in tow.

Description
Gent (Belgium), October 30th 2021

When building his collection, Ghislain Mahy worked with a network of 'spotters' and informants who tipped him to the location of rare and abandoned cars. Once they were located though, getting them to Belgium was a whole other adventure...

At the end of the 1950s, after yet another trip that ended in near-disaster, Mahy purchased a used Renault truck, a 1954 Renault R2165. Introduced in 1947 as the Renault 2T5, the truck was built under the Renault brand for 10 years before production moved to Saviem in 1957, where it continued to be built as the Saviem Galion until 1965.

On the back of his truck, Mahy put a flatbed. As if that wasn't enough, using a converted bomb chart from war surplus stock, Mahy's Renault would often carry as many as four cars in a single trip - two in the freight bed, and two in tow. As such it served him for a couple of years, until a more powerful Ford truck took its place. Unusually for a car collector, Mahy sold his worn-out Renault to a scrap dealer without second thought.

A decade later, while at a car meeting, a man approached Mahy. It turned out to be the scrap dealer - it turned out he had never gotten around to scrapping the Renault truck. Out of pure nostalgy, Mahy, at the spot, bought his old Renault back for the same price he had sold it so many years earlier.

Mahy's Renault is shown as it would have been during one of his many trips - carrying a 1922 Le Zèbre D8 on its back, and with a 1913 Renault DM in tow.