  In a recent paper [M. A. J. H. Ossendrijver, A&A {\bf 359}, 364 (2000)]
numerical simulations of a 2D mean--field model where shown to produce grand
minima, typical of the long-term behavior of solar magnetic activity. The model
consisted of dynamo that features an $\alpha$ effect based on the buoyancy
instability of magnetic fluxtubes, which gives rise to the switching back and
forth from grand minima to ``regular'' solar behavior. In this Letter, we
report evidence from a time-series analysis of the model for the presence of
crisis--induced intermittency due to attractor--widening. We support this
finding by showing that the average duration of the minima, $<\tau>$, follows
the theoretically predicted scaling $<\tau> \sim
(C_{\delta\alpha}-C_{\delta\alpha}^*)^{-\gamma}$, where $C_{\delta\alpha}$ is
the bifurcation parameter of interest, together with other statistical
evidence. As far as we are aware, this is the first time concrete and detailed
evidence has been produced for the occurrence of this type of crisis--induced
intermittency -- due to attractor widening -- for such dynamo models.
