All’s well that ends well

In 1898, the Automobile Club de France hosted the very first international motor show in the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris. There was one catch, however: only those who had previously managed to complete the journey from Paris to Versailles and back without breaking down were allowed to exhibit. Fortunately, the conditions for participation are less strict these days; every two years, manufacturers showcase their most important new models at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre.

Eagerly awaited: the comeback of the 2CV. In 1948, the Citroën 2CV made its debut in Paris. Almost eighty years later, the brand is offering a glimpse of what the 2CV of the future might look like. Will it be able to hold its own against the original? We’ll have to wait and see. Until then, we’ll enjoy the classic.

There is a marvellous illustration by the French cartoonist Sempé, showing the driver of a 2CV leaning out of the car window to pick up his glasses from the tarmac, which had fallen out whilst he was braking. The car tilts so far towards the road that it’s no trouble at all to reach the glasses with his hand. That pretty much says it all about the adventurous tilt of this rather special vehicle.

The 2CV was meant to be practical; that’s how it all began. “An affordable set of wheels designed to carry two farmers in boots, a hundredweight of potatoes or a small barrel of wine at a maximum speed of 60” – that was the development brief set by Pierre-Jules Boulanger, head of Citroën in the 1930s. The project was named TPV – Toute Petite Voiture, meaning ‘very small car’. Prototypes were tested from 1936 onwards, but were then scrapped due to the Second World War; the Germans were not to be allowed to get their hands on them.

On 6 October 1948, the moment had finally arrived, Citroën unveiled the 2CV at the Paris Motor Show – an abbreviation for ‘Deux Chevaux Vapeur’, literally ‘two steam horses’, and a reference to the corresponding tax bracket in France. The air-cooled two-cylinder boxer engine produced nine PS, had a fuel capacity of five litres, and could reach a top speed of 70 kilometres per hour. The press dubbed the ‘Duck’ a ‘tin can’, and at the presentation, a journalist in attendance asked whether a tin opener was included. He could have spared himself the irony, given the 2CV’s subsequent triumphant success. Production began in 1949, and delivery times soon rose to as much as six years; at peak times, Citroën built more than 150,000 2CVs a year.

Incidentally, the front doors were only fitted with front hinges from 1964 onwards; a third rear side window was added in 1966, and from 1970 there were even seat belts. And to say something positive about the underpowered two-cylinder engine: over time, its power increased from the aforementioned 9 PS to as much as 29 PS in the 1980 2CV6.

In total, over five million 2CVs were produced worldwide; including the van version, the figure was over 8.8 million vehicles. What ultimately proved the 2CV’s undoing were stricter safety and emissions regulations. The last models rolled off the production line in Mangualde, Portugal, in July 1990.

What will Citroën do with this for the future? We’ll find out from 12 October in Paris. And the French are going one better: there’ll be a second concept car – about which absolutely nothing is known until the unveiling.

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You can read this and other stories in the new ramp #71 ‘Yabba Dabba Doo!’.

(Now available in German)