Car hidden from Nazis in garden shed goes on display

A 1926 Trojan Tourer that was hidden from the Nazis during World War II has gone on display in a museum in the Channel Islands.

As the story goes, in 1940 the Nazis were seizing all private automobiles after invading the Channel Islands — located about 20 miles west of the northern tip of France in the English Channel — and shipping them back to continental Europe, reported Fox News.

The Nazis had public records about which residents owned vehicles but, when they went to seize the Trojan Tourer from Helene Gacon, they left empty-handed. The recently widowed Gacon did not want to give up the vehicle and hid it in a garden shed near Les Nicolles.

She obviously did a good job, as the car remained there until the end of Nazi occupation in 1945. Gacon took the car to the Liberation Day parade held after the end of the war.

“She was a very defiant woman who kept, at least, three crystal radio sets throughout the war to keep herself and her neighbors up to date on allied progress,” Fox News quoted Richard Heaume, the curator of the German Occupation Museum where the car is on display. He added that he knew Gacon personally before she died.

Gacon sold the car in 1958 to Owen Le Tissier. He kept it for one year before selling it to Michael Marshall, whose daughters still own the vehicle.
The car has not been in the public eye for three decades because it stopped running. Heaume hopes his mechanics can have it up and running in short order.

“The hope is to be able to get the Trojan running again in time for next year’s 75th Liberation Day celebrations and, mechanically, that shouldn’t be too difficult — the engine only has seven moving parts,” he said.