The Tin Snail and the Art of Not Having to Impress Anyone

In the mid-1930s, Citroën’s chief executive, Pierre-Jules Boulanger, drew up one of the finest sets of specifications in automotive history. The brief called for a ‘Toute Petite Voiture’, a very small car. Four wheels under an umbrella. It was to carry two farmers, plus a hundredweight of potatoes. It was to reach 60 km/h and manage on three litres per hundred kilometres. And it was to transport a basket of eggs across a freshly ploughed field without a single one breaking.

There is no mention of prestige in the specifications.

On 7 October 1948, the result was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show. It went on to be built more than five million times. Citroën called it the 2CV. Everyone else called it the ‘Tin Snail’.

Now it’s back. At the Mondial de l’Auto, Citroën is showcasing a concept car which, according to the brand, is around 90 per cent identical to the future production model. It is due to arrive at the end of 2028: electric, built in Europe, with a target price of around 15,000 euros and a target weight of one tonne. A car for people who simply want to get somewhere and don’t need a rolling technology showcase to do so.

Good manners

From the outside, the new 2CV bears its heritage with great composure. The cabin curves like a bubble, whilst the windscreen stands almost vertically. The round headlights sit freely in front of the bodywork. The bonnet hovers in a V-shape over the front end and bears the grooves of the old TPV prototype; beneath it lie air intakes just like on the original. The bumpers and windscreen wipers remain clearly visible, at a time when many cars look as though they’ve been given too many growth hormones during puberty.

What’s missing

Inside, there is a welcome absence of all those things that tend to make modern cars complicated. There is no traditional dashboard. In front of the driver sits a cylinder housing the most important controls. Added to this is a single-spoke steering wheel, a single column-mounted lever and a gear selector whose knob looks like the gear knobs of yesteryear. The necessary information is displayed via a reflection in a narrow strip, as seen in the C3, supplemented by a square touchscreen measuring around eight inches. That’s all there is to the screen.

The door panels are hollowed out to leave more room for your elbows. The seats are wide and feature a yellow chequered pattern. Where others would fit a centre console, there is a removable basket. Beige elements are reminiscent of Bakelite. Above it all is a fabric sunroof.

And then there’s the radio. The small radio can be removed and used as a speaker outside. Whilst other manufacturers market their sound systems by wattage and the number of speakers, Citroën has thought about what you actually do with music once you’ve arrived.

One can’t help but wonder when cars started to regard such ideas as less important than the third menu level of a seat massage.

The old idea

Citroën says it didn’t set out to recreate the 2CV. The aim was to reimagine the small electric car of the future. Any design studio can produce round headlights and a familiar silhouette. The mindset behind it is harder to replicate.

There have been several attempts to revive the 2CV. This time, the impetus came from the very top. Xavier Chardon revived the project in the summer of 2025, shortly after taking over as head of Citroën, and explicitly referred to the TPV. In March 2026, the project was given the green light, and a first teaser was released in May.

Delivery now

For now, the new 2CV is still just a promise. 15,000 euros, one tonne, production to start in 2028: it sounds tempting. It remains to be seen what will be left of it once the engineers, financial controllers and type-approval experts have had their say.

But once again, someone has dared to conceive of a car in this way. Small, light, simple, affordable. With a personality that needs no 500 PS, no three-square-metre screen and no aggressive front end to stand out.

If this succeeds, Citroën would have achieved something that would be almost revolutionary in today’s car market: a small, affordable car that people simply must have. Not because of its specifications. But because it’s a 2CV.

As far back as 1948, its great-grandmother knew how to go a long way on very little. Whether its great-granddaughter can carry a basket of eggs safely across a ploughed field remains to be seen from this concept car.

We’ll be putting it to the test.