About 2CV
The Citroen 2CV is the purest example of a car designed around a brief. In the 1930s Citroen's boss Pierre-Jules Boulanger asked for an umbrella on four wheels that could carry two farmers, a hundredweight of goods and a basket of eggs across a ploughed field without breaking any. The result, delayed by war and finally shown at the 1948 Paris Motor Show, was a featherweight with an air-cooled two-cylinder engine, a canvas roof and suspension so soft that the car leaned extravagantly but kept going over almost anything.
The 2CV stayed in production until 1990, with nearly four million built, plus many more of its derivatives such as the Dyane, Mehari and the Fourgonnette van. It became a symbol of postwar France, a student car, a hippie car, and a staple of rallies and raids across Africa. Its simplicity made it easy to repair and its character made it beloved; a James Bond film even put one through a famous chase. Today clean examples command strong prices, and clubs around the world keep thousands on the road.
Citroen has revealed a modern 2CV concept as an affordable electric car, with a production version planned for later this decade and talk of building it in India for global markets, sharing a platform with a related Fiat. Coverage gathers news on that revival, collector-car auctions, restorations, rallies, museums and the cultural history of a car that proved simplicity could be a design philosophy rather than a compromise. Few cars have aged into such universal affection.