Your Fellow 2cv Enthusiasts – Kenji & Marion Yoshino

 

French Parts Service was first started in 1986, by friend and fellow car club member Ben Morse. Ben began FPS with a mailing list from California 2cv Club President Richard Bonfond, and his own passion for the simplicity and practicality of the 2cv.

 

After fifteen years of ownership, Ben decided to retire and turn the company over to Marion and Kenji in 2002. Kenji, who is native Japanese, owned his first Citroen in Japan as a teenager. Kenji still remembers walking into the car dealership with only two thousand dollars in his pocket at age 19, asking what might be available in his price range. In the far back corner of the lot was an older red CX - it was love at first sight. “It was original, foreign, exotic – as a kid I thought that was just my style.” His love for Citroens has never died.

 

Marion met Kenji in Japan in 1987, while she was working for an advertising company. She remembers their first date in the CX, and the fun road trips that they took, touring Japan in the Citroen. She was impressed that Kenji maintained and repaired the car himself, even though the French language repair manual should have been completely indecipherable to him. “Sometimes it would break down, and my brother and his friend would shake their heads and say “He’ll never get it running,” but he always did. It was not a practical car, but it was a lot of fun.

 

 

Marion had studied and traveled in France while in college. Visiting foreign countries was high on Kenji’s wish list, and after a year of marriage, they decided to move to the U.S. Marion began graduate school, and Kenji got a job as an assistant manager of the Benihana restaurant in downtown Seattle in the year 1990.

 

 

One day, Kenji was surprised to see a DS for sale in the newspaper. They bought it and joined the Northwest Citroen Owners’ Club. Marion remembers Kenji spending hours and hours polishing up the car for the first club Rendezvous.

 

In 1994, Kenji began working for the car products catalog company Griot’s Garage. It was an introduction to the mail order business. In 2002, Ben Morse approached Marion with the idea of taking over FPS. For the next three years, Kenji continued his full-time job while Marion ran FPS from the large basement of their home in Seattle.

 

 

“The customers that we inherited from Ben were wonderful people, like a big family,” says Marion. Rather than taking credit cards, Ben sent out most of his parts orders on the honor system, and customers paid by check. Although today most customers prefer the convenience of a credit card, the friendly spirit of the Citroen family is still the mainstay of French Parts Service.

 

In August of 2007, Kenji was welding a taillight at the back of his 2cv when somehow gasoline vapors from the car started a fire. Sadly, his garage burned to the ground, with his lifetime collection of tools and automobilia. The DS and three 2cvs were destroyed -included Kenji’s first 2cv, a much-loved Dyane that he had bought from Ben. Kenji still keeps the burned remains of the Dyane in a carport tent today, and cannot be persuaded to part with it.

 

While the garage and top story of the house were badly damaged, it was fortunate that the car parts inventory in the basement was mostly spared from the fire. Helpful friends from the car club loaded the 2cv parts into boxes, and FPS was moved to a nearby rental house during the year that the Yoshino’s house was being rebuilt. In 2008 Marion & Kenji were able to return home and get back to business as usual.

 

Today, after 33 years, FPS continues a robust business. The company proudly offers the only complete inventory of 2cv parts outside of Europe, and supplies over 90% parts for 2cv owners in the United States (due to economies of freight cost from Europe, others selling 2cv parts in the US generally obtain their parts from FPS first, and then re-sell them). 

 

Kenji and Marion love their cars, their customers and the spirit of service that FPS represents. Passion for the modest and economical 2cv, whose 70-year-old technology continues to “step lightly” on Mother Earth, inspires us at French Parts Service to give you OUR best every day. Happy Driving!