CarBrandLogos archive · Citroën · 1948

Citroën2CV

Built to cross a ploughed field without breaking the eggs in the back.

Photo: Alexander Migl · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in Citroën history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Citroën 2CV, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

In 1935 Pierre-Jules Boulanger, running Citroën for Michelin, commissioned a car for rural France, where most people still moved goods by horse. The brief was famously specific: it had to carry four people and fifty kilograms of load at 60km/h, use minimal fuel, be driveable by an inexperienced farmer, and cross a ploughed field carrying a basket of eggs without breaking one. Comfort mattered only in that sense.

Citroen2CV prototype · Ton1~commonswiki · CC BY-SA 3.0

Design and engineering

The prototypes, designated TPV, were ready in 1939 with aluminium bodies, one headlamp and hammock seats. War intervened, and Citroën hid the cars rather than let the German occupiers find them; several were buried or dismantled and only rediscovered decades later. The finished 2CV appeared at the Paris Salon in October 1948 and was ridiculed by journalists — a corrugated tin shed with a 375cc air-cooled flat-twin producing single-figure horsepower.

1952Citroen Cogolin · dave_7 · CC BY 2.0

In production

The engineering was serious. The suspension used long-travel leading and trailing arms connected front-to-rear by horizontal springs, so that a bump at the front pre-loaded the rear, keeping the body level and the wheels on the ground over surfaces that would ground anything else. The brakes were inboard at the front to reduce unsprung weight. The roof rolled back, the seats lifted out, and every panel was made to be repaired by a village mechanic.

1961 Citroneta Azam 13hp pickup · papurojugarpool;Cropped and minor alterations by uploader Mr.choppers · CC BY-SA 2.0

Legacy

Waiting lists ran to years. The 2CV motorised rural France, then became student transport, then a political statement, and the van, four-wheel-drive Sahara and Dyane derivatives extended it further. Close to four million were built before production ended at Mangualde in Portugal in July 1990 — a car conceived for peasant farmers that outlived almost everything designed to replace it.

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

1948–1990

Engine

375 cc Air-cooled engine

Designer

André Lefèbvre

Body

4-door Sedan

Technical specification

The 2CV, in detail.

Production: 1948–1990
Class: Economy car
Body style: 4-door Sedan (automobile); saloon ; 5-door hatchback (3CV) ; 2-door van; panel van ; 2-door pickup truck; pick-up ; 2-door coupé utility
Layout: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout; Front-engine, front-wheel-drive ; Dual-motor, four-wheel-drive layout; Dual-engine, four-wheel-drive
Engine: 375 cc Air-cooled engine; air-cooled Flat-2; H2 ; 425 cc air-cooled H2 ; 435 cc air-cooled H2 ; 602 cc air-cooled H2sfnp; Willson; 1995; p=69
Transmission: 4-speed manual
Designer: André Lefèbvre ; Flaminio Bertoni ; Walter Becchia ; Marcel Chinon
Assembly: France: Levallois-Perret ; Argentina: Jeppener, Buenos Aires; Jeppener (1960–1962) ; Argentina: Buenos Aires (1962–1980) ; Belgium: Forest, Belgium; Forest/Vorst ; Belgium: Liège ; Chile: Arica ; Portugal: Mangualde (Ste
Manufacturer: Citroën