75 years on four wheels and an umbrella
October 7, 2023 1:56 PM Subscribe
7 October, 1948: French automaker Citroën unveils a strange little car intended for rural farmers. Built to be cheap to buy, reliable, rugged, and easily maintained, its design spec was that it could carry up to four people wearing clogs and hats and 50kg of farm goods at speeds of at least 50kph, and be able to carry a basket of eggs across a plowed field without breaking any. 75 years later, the Citroën 2CV remains an enduring emblem of French culture and engineering.
The original project began in 1936, when the design chief at Citroën, Pierre-Jules Boulanger, proposed the Toute Petite Voiture ("Very Small Car"), or TPV project, in response to market research by Citroën’s parent company, Michelin, that showed that France had a large population of rural farmers that could not afford conventional cars, but needed transportation. Using the aforementioned design spec as a guide, Boulanger engaged aviation and automotive engineer André Lefèbvre, formerly employed by the luxury automaker Voisin, to lead the engineering of the new car.
By 1939, the final prototypes were ready and a test run of 250 cars was produced, brochures were printed, and Citroën readied the car for the 1939 Paris Auto Show…which was not to happen, as France declared war on Germany a month prior to the Salon. Following the invasion and occupation of France by Germany, Boulanger and the leadership of Michelin hid away or destroyed all of the TPVs to keep them out of German hands, despite the occupying forces' insistence that Citroën take on manufacture of the VW Beetle in their factories.
During the war, work secretly continued on the project, with the original TPV evolving into the 2CV, a name designating the car’s class of "2 steam horses," or "Deux Cheval Vapeur," in the arcane French system of taxing cars according to their engine displacement, and by 1948’s Paris Salon, the car developed from the TPV was unveiled. The motoring press was harsh in their response to the little grey car on display, mocking its apparent crudeness and austerity, but customers were more sanguine, and ordered as many as Citroën could produce, and within months of its initial introduction, the waiting list was three years long.
On the surface, the car was seen as starkly primitive, but the underlying technology was advanced, and appropriate to the tasks required of it. Engineer Walter Becchia’s air-cooled, two-cylinder engine, initially displacing 375cc (growing over the decades to 425, 435, and finally 602cc), with no distributor (the plugs fired on every stroke to save the complexity of a distributor) and precision milling that eliminated the need for gaskets, was rugged and reliable.
The car rode on a compliant, interlinked suspension that was like nothing else on the road (and remains so, except for later 2CV derivatives produced by Citroën), with a soft ride, extremely long suspension travel, exuberant body roll, and surprisingly good handling. In addition, it was the first car designed from the outset to ride on radial tires invented by Citroën’s parent company, Michelin, which vastly improved handling, durability, mileage, and safety over the traditional bias-ply tires that were still standard installations on cars until the seventies.
It looked like a shed, rode like a waterbed, and endured like a camel.
The 2CV changed (slightly) over the years, but remained true to its origins, albeit gaining a little speed and (modest) luxury over its 42-year lifespan. Citroën used the 2CV as the basis for a series of beloved light vans, the Fourgonette and Acadiane, and even a plastic bodied Jeep-styled vehicle, the Mehari (notably driven by Gonzo in The Muppet Movie, and an over-the-top four-wheel-drive variant on the 2CV, the Sahara, which achieved four-wheel-drive by putting an extra engine in the trunk.
The 2CV went upscale, in an attempt to close Citroën’s market gap between the humble 2CV and their luxurious and similarly indelible DS sedan (and later wagon) with the Ami line of middle-class sedans and wagons that were in production from 1961 to 1978.
As the 2CV aged, Citroën attempted to replace it with the Dyane, a model intended to add modern features to the 2CV, as designed by the engineering team from Panhard, a French automaker absorbed into Citroën in 1967, but while the Dyane was, in many ways, a more sophisticated and comfortable take on the 2CV, it never earned the cultural cachet of the original, and it went out of production in 1983, while the 2CV soldiered on until modern regulations on emissions and a general sense by then-Peugeot-owned Citroën that the 2CV was an embarrassing relic of the past brought the 2CV to an end, with the last one* being produced on 27 July, 1990.
In 2023, detailed history is abundant, from this detailed documentary delightfully narrated by Peter Jones (better known to some as the original voice of "the book" in the 1978 Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy radio series on the BBC) to a more concise take by Youtube’s Big Car. The car’s fans have built extensive and detailed archives of information on the model in many languages and cultures (like the Britain-based Citroënet), and active 2CV clubs around the world that gather annually for international meetings like this year's World Meeting of 2CV Friends in Switzerland celebrating the 75th anniversary of the model. The enthusiasm and dedication of the various clubs has ensured that parts are readily available, and often are improved over the originals (like the car's basic chassis) by modern materials engineering.
2CVs have been driven by cartoon dogs, James Bond, incautious nuns, comic actors, Playmobil figures, Hayao Miyazaki, BBC automotive journalists, snuck into the country by Americans, raced joyously on farm fields, run in 24-hour races, hit the ice track, bemused and delighted Mr. Regular, been beautifully showcased by Oliver Pickard, starred in silly fake commercials, rendered in wood, questionably rendered into a motorcycle, taken inspiration from Picasso and the Memphis-Milano design group, and occasionally used to transport 50kg of farm goods to the market or to carry a basket of eggs safely over a plowed field.
75 years on, the 2CV is that rare relic of bygone days that can nonetheless be used every day, and collecting a truly comprehensive set of links and resources to properly describe what a German auto magazine described in 1951 as a Häßlichkeit und Primitivität (ugly and primitive) car that was nonetheless hochinteressantes (highly interesting) would likely take until the car's 80th anniversary. It is, in a lot of ways, more a canvas for the art of living simply than solely a tool for transportation.
And still they endure, and the carbon-neutral future, it seems, has room for the humble 2CV.
* and while the last original 2CV came off the production line 33 years ago, a new firm is building completely new and fully electric 2CV Fourgonette delivery vans using readily available parts still in production, so "last" might not truly be the last word.
The original project began in 1936, when the design chief at Citroën, Pierre-Jules Boulanger, proposed the Toute Petite Voiture ("Very Small Car"), or TPV project, in response to market research by Citroën’s parent company, Michelin, that showed that France had a large population of rural farmers that could not afford conventional cars, but needed transportation. Using the aforementioned design spec as a guide, Boulanger engaged aviation and automotive engineer André Lefèbvre, formerly employed by the luxury automaker Voisin, to lead the engineering of the new car.
By 1939, the final prototypes were ready and a test run of 250 cars was produced, brochures were printed, and Citroën readied the car for the 1939 Paris Auto Show…which was not to happen, as France declared war on Germany a month prior to the Salon. Following the invasion and occupation of France by Germany, Boulanger and the leadership of Michelin hid away or destroyed all of the TPVs to keep them out of German hands, despite the occupying forces' insistence that Citroën take on manufacture of the VW Beetle in their factories.
During the war, work secretly continued on the project, with the original TPV evolving into the 2CV, a name designating the car’s class of "2 steam horses," or "Deux Cheval Vapeur," in the arcane French system of taxing cars according to their engine displacement, and by 1948’s Paris Salon, the car developed from the TPV was unveiled. The motoring press was harsh in their response to the little grey car on display, mocking its apparent crudeness and austerity, but customers were more sanguine, and ordered as many as Citroën could produce, and within months of its initial introduction, the waiting list was three years long.
On the surface, the car was seen as starkly primitive, but the underlying technology was advanced, and appropriate to the tasks required of it. Engineer Walter Becchia’s air-cooled, two-cylinder engine, initially displacing 375cc (growing over the decades to 425, 435, and finally 602cc), with no distributor (the plugs fired on every stroke to save the complexity of a distributor) and precision milling that eliminated the need for gaskets, was rugged and reliable.
The car rode on a compliant, interlinked suspension that was like nothing else on the road (and remains so, except for later 2CV derivatives produced by Citroën), with a soft ride, extremely long suspension travel, exuberant body roll, and surprisingly good handling. In addition, it was the first car designed from the outset to ride on radial tires invented by Citroën’s parent company, Michelin, which vastly improved handling, durability, mileage, and safety over the traditional bias-ply tires that were still standard installations on cars until the seventies.
It looked like a shed, rode like a waterbed, and endured like a camel.
The 2CV changed (slightly) over the years, but remained true to its origins, albeit gaining a little speed and (modest) luxury over its 42-year lifespan. Citroën used the 2CV as the basis for a series of beloved light vans, the Fourgonette and Acadiane, and even a plastic bodied Jeep-styled vehicle, the Mehari (notably driven by Gonzo in The Muppet Movie, and an over-the-top four-wheel-drive variant on the 2CV, the Sahara, which achieved four-wheel-drive by putting an extra engine in the trunk.
The 2CV went upscale, in an attempt to close Citroën’s market gap between the humble 2CV and their luxurious and similarly indelible DS sedan (and later wagon) with the Ami line of middle-class sedans and wagons that were in production from 1961 to 1978.
As the 2CV aged, Citroën attempted to replace it with the Dyane, a model intended to add modern features to the 2CV, as designed by the engineering team from Panhard, a French automaker absorbed into Citroën in 1967, but while the Dyane was, in many ways, a more sophisticated and comfortable take on the 2CV, it never earned the cultural cachet of the original, and it went out of production in 1983, while the 2CV soldiered on until modern regulations on emissions and a general sense by then-Peugeot-owned Citroën that the 2CV was an embarrassing relic of the past brought the 2CV to an end, with the last one* being produced on 27 July, 1990.
In 2023, detailed history is abundant, from this detailed documentary delightfully narrated by Peter Jones (better known to some as the original voice of "the book" in the 1978 Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy radio series on the BBC) to a more concise take by Youtube’s Big Car. The car’s fans have built extensive and detailed archives of information on the model in many languages and cultures (like the Britain-based Citroënet), and active 2CV clubs around the world that gather annually for international meetings like this year's World Meeting of 2CV Friends in Switzerland celebrating the 75th anniversary of the model. The enthusiasm and dedication of the various clubs has ensured that parts are readily available, and often are improved over the originals (like the car's basic chassis) by modern materials engineering.
2CVs have been driven by cartoon dogs, James Bond, incautious nuns, comic actors, Playmobil figures, Hayao Miyazaki, BBC automotive journalists, snuck into the country by Americans, raced joyously on farm fields, run in 24-hour races, hit the ice track, bemused and delighted Mr. Regular, been beautifully showcased by Oliver Pickard, starred in silly fake commercials, rendered in wood, questionably rendered into a motorcycle, taken inspiration from Picasso and the Memphis-Milano design group, and occasionally used to transport 50kg of farm goods to the market or to carry a basket of eggs safely over a plowed field.
75 years on, the 2CV is that rare relic of bygone days that can nonetheless be used every day, and collecting a truly comprehensive set of links and resources to properly describe what a German auto magazine described in 1951 as a Häßlichkeit und Primitivität (ugly and primitive) car that was nonetheless hochinteressantes (highly interesting) would likely take until the car's 80th anniversary. It is, in a lot of ways, more a canvas for the art of living simply than solely a tool for transportation.
And still they endure, and the carbon-neutral future, it seems, has room for the humble 2CV.
* and while the last original 2CV came off the production line 33 years ago, a new firm is building completely new and fully electric 2CV Fourgonette delivery vans using readily available parts still in production, so "last" might not truly be the last word.
Amazing post!!!
I have ridden in a 2CV and a vintage VW beetle, and I think I preferred the French car. A charming, rickety little buggy!
posted by wenestvedt at 2:15 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have ridden in a 2CV and a vintage VW beetle, and I think I preferred the French car. A charming, rickety little buggy!
posted by wenestvedt at 2:15 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
This brings back a lot of memories.
Our first family cars were 2CVs (two of them, both red). We drove to the french Atlantic coast in those for holidays.
There was also an ice-spin in one of them that ended up with the car flattened under a truck. This was the time before safety belts, so both me and mom flew out of the doors before that. It was also the time before trucks added panels to prevent cars from going under their sides.
And my first own personal car, much later when the family cars had been upgraded significantly, was once again a Citroen 2CV. My dad later told me he bought a really cheap one fully anticipating me totalling it.
Well. I spun it off the road after one week, on snowy roads. Total damage: One broken plastic radiator grill spoke. I wasn't going fast. I named it Rosinante, after Don Quixotes horse.
A little later we stuck a christmas tree through the open roof to bring it home, and discovered it was far harder to get out again that way.
There was a local club for 2CVs, too. I joined and was usually the last in any events, but I didn't care. I was just in it for fun.
We painted it all over with cartoon figures. Mine was beige, not red.
That same car made it into the magazine we printed for finishing school, having been pranked by my friendly class mates.
Anyway, it didn't make it through the first MOT test. Rusted through on 3 out of 4 of the steel frame bars. Amongst others.
But it was a very good car.
posted by flamewise at 2:17 PM on October 7, 2023 [32 favorites]
Our first family cars were 2CVs (two of them, both red). We drove to the french Atlantic coast in those for holidays.
There was also an ice-spin in one of them that ended up with the car flattened under a truck. This was the time before safety belts, so both me and mom flew out of the doors before that. It was also the time before trucks added panels to prevent cars from going under their sides.
And my first own personal car, much later when the family cars had been upgraded significantly, was once again a Citroen 2CV. My dad later told me he bought a really cheap one fully anticipating me totalling it.
Well. I spun it off the road after one week, on snowy roads. Total damage: One broken plastic radiator grill spoke. I wasn't going fast. I named it Rosinante, after Don Quixotes horse.
A little later we stuck a christmas tree through the open roof to bring it home, and discovered it was far harder to get out again that way.
There was a local club for 2CVs, too. I joined and was usually the last in any events, but I didn't care. I was just in it for fun.
We painted it all over with cartoon figures. Mine was beige, not red.
That same car made it into the magazine we printed for finishing school, having been pranked by my friendly class mates.
Anyway, it didn't make it through the first MOT test. Rusted through on 3 out of 4 of the steel frame bars. Amongst others.
But it was a very good car.
posted by flamewise at 2:17 PM on October 7, 2023 [32 favorites]
Gorgeous post. I have nothing to add except to say that my car-enthusiast father had a special appreciation for the 2CV as a 1950's and 1960's visitor to France to follow the European race circuit. When I was a kid he would wax lyrical about the "deux chevaux" and its design and on our first family trip to France in the 80's, 2CV appreciation was high on the list of sightseeing activities.
posted by amusebuche at 2:22 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by amusebuche at 2:22 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
When I was a teenager, three of us turned a 2CV sideways in someone's driveway as a prank. We just lifted one end, pivoted it around, then lifted the other end and did the same until it was wedged precisely sideways. We thought we were really funny but in hindsight I am sure the owner was pissed when they needed to go to work in the morning.
posted by Dip Flash at 2:35 PM on October 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Dip Flash at 2:35 PM on October 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
My boy scout troop did this to our beloved scout master's beloved Carmen Ghia in his garage, only we just got a crew of us and picked it up and turned it all at once.
He never mentioned it to us after we did it. That still feels a bit ominous to me even today while I type this over 40 years later.
posted by hippybear at 2:42 PM on October 7, 2023 [9 favorites]
He never mentioned it to us after we did it. That still feels a bit ominous to me even today while I type this over 40 years later.
posted by hippybear at 2:42 PM on October 7, 2023 [9 favorites]
The 2CV was also used by the BBC as an OB camera platform. That photo's from 1990, but they also show up in Doctor Who production stills from the 1980s.
posted by offog at 2:48 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by offog at 2:48 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
I have no interest in owning a vintage car, with the exception of a 2cv. And maybe a Ferrari 275.
posted by Keith Talent at 2:52 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Keith Talent at 2:52 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
precision milling that eliminated the need for gaskets
!!! dang.
Apart from this post, everything I know about the 2CV I learned from Gilbert Shelton.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:58 PM on October 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
!!! dang.
Apart from this post, everything I know about the 2CV I learned from Gilbert Shelton.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:58 PM on October 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
When I was a teenager, three of us turned a 2CV sideways in someone's driveway as a prank.
In high school, we picked up a guy's VW Beetle and carried it to the other parking lot.
posted by Foosnark at 3:01 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
In high school, we picked up a guy's VW Beetle and carried it to the other parking lot.
posted by Foosnark at 3:01 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Amazing post! I haven't been through all the links yet, but now I would really like a 2CV EV for my next car.
One of my professors at university had a 2CV, and she would sometimes lend it to me for study trips. The gears were a struggle, but I learnt right away that I couldn't really break them. Just fight back. On the other hand, it's amazing that people were traveling all over the world in these, they weren't really built for distances, except in the sense that they were unbreakable*. But they were noisy, leaky, wobbly and scary in bad weather because you couldn't really see a lot out of the tiny front screen.
My mother eventually had the Renault 4, the direct competitor, which was much more comfortable and safer, something she was aware of after two crashes in her original Morris Mini. But the Renault 4 wasn't sexy in the way both the Mini and the 2CV were.
* actually they weren't unbreakable but they were endlessly reparable, which applied to many of the low-budget cars of that day, from the FIAT 500 to the Beetle over the 2CV.
posted by mumimor at 3:05 PM on October 7, 2023
One of my professors at university had a 2CV, and she would sometimes lend it to me for study trips. The gears were a struggle, but I learnt right away that I couldn't really break them. Just fight back. On the other hand, it's amazing that people were traveling all over the world in these, they weren't really built for distances, except in the sense that they were unbreakable*. But they were noisy, leaky, wobbly and scary in bad weather because you couldn't really see a lot out of the tiny front screen.
My mother eventually had the Renault 4, the direct competitor, which was much more comfortable and safer, something she was aware of after two crashes in her original Morris Mini. But the Renault 4 wasn't sexy in the way both the Mini and the 2CV were.
* actually they weren't unbreakable but they were endlessly reparable, which applied to many of the low-budget cars of that day, from the FIAT 500 to the Beetle over the 2CV.
posted by mumimor at 3:05 PM on October 7, 2023
Ah bless. We bought a sky blue Dyane in 1977 and three of us (M23 F22 M1.5) lived in it for about 2 months as we tooled around the UK looking for a place where work intersected with a bricks&mortar home to live. We could strip out the back seat, put it under the car and sleep - on a slight incline - in the back; the chap slept on the front seats, feet under the steering wheel. It was a convertible! the rubberized canvas roof rolled back and could be tied down over the back hatch door. We did eventually find a place to live and a job. The following year we up-stakes and drove pootle pootle from Dublin to Sicily via Glasgow, Measles, Dover, Paris and Rome; then back to the Netherlands for another job. "Bliss was it in that dyane to be alive, but to be young was very heaven".
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:07 PM on October 7, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:07 PM on October 7, 2023 [12 favorites]
Wonderful car for the time, but I wouldn't drive one on modern roads full of SUVs, I once saw one that had been rear-ended, the passenger compartment had folded up like a tin can and the rear wheels were only a couple of feet from the front wheels. I don't know if anyone was inside, but that did not look remotely survivable.
posted by Lanark at 3:33 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Lanark at 3:33 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
We were hitching north out of York in the UK. Within minutes a 2CV pulled up with a driver and two kids one in front and one in back. We were two adults with two full size backpacks. We looked in the car and then looked at the driver, will we fit? She said yes and told the kid in the back to squeeze into the front with his sister. After he got out the two of us and the backpacks squeezed into the back seat. And we fit and surprisingly comfortable. We rode north to somewhere past Newcastle before we had to get another ride. While riding along we learned that in the UK it is called a Duck, a horrible mispronunciation of Deux. Supposedly back in the 90’s, these cars couldn’t pass customs to get into the US because of various specs and safety issues. So somebody packaged up the cars as kits to get them into the US. I really thought about getting one. Though I’ve owned and maintained two Bugs, the Duck had a weird personality all it’s own. So I bought a Duck kit at a local hobby store and now it’s sitting behind me on a bookcase shelf. Close enough…
posted by njohnson23 at 4:46 PM on October 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 4:46 PM on October 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
There is an apocryphal story that the Citroen 2CV was used to originally classify mountains in the Tour de France.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:49 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:49 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
I wonder if we'll ever see another era where a car (or equivalent, I guess!) stays on sale for four decades with only relatively minor changes. The idea that you could walk into a dealership today and buy, say, a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla (or a K-car, *shudder*) that has been essentially unchanged since the 1980s, is unfathomable to me. The closest example I can think of in modern North America was when Volkswagen continued to sell their previous-generation Golf alongside the new Golf in Canada for a few years, and I'm sure there are other such examples stretching a generation or two, but 42 years is amazing. And somehow not even the longest, given that the Beetle and the original Mini both outlived it and had at least comparable production lives.
posted by chrominance at 5:16 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by chrominance at 5:16 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
It's the car the little group drives in José Saramago's "A Jangada de Pedra / The Stone Raft" as the Iberian peninsula breaks off from Europe and floats out to sea.
posted by chavenet at 5:16 PM on October 7, 2023
posted by chavenet at 5:16 PM on October 7, 2023
I hope there’s one of these in Gran Turismo. Off to check…
posted by slogger at 5:27 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by slogger at 5:27 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Sometimes "best of the web" includes the post itself. I'm not a car person, but this is exactly why I love Metafilter. Thanks, sonascope, and everyone sharing their memories.
posted by mollweide at 5:59 PM on October 7, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by mollweide at 5:59 PM on October 7, 2023 [10 favorites]
I watched the last video linked, the one about the custom-built EV version, and man is that guy a good salesman. I want that car so bad.
posted by zompist at 6:23 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by zompist at 6:23 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have memories of photos of a camping trip in north England with my parents in a 2CV, top down. I was only three at the time, but I remember how beautiful the car was in the photos.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 6:51 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 6:51 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
What I was just thinking about this morning is that I would love a cheap EV mini truck like we had in the 1980s.
Those had a very long life and were sort of a version of the deux minus the pinot + a single coors light.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 7:18 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
Those had a very long life and were sort of a version of the deux minus the pinot + a single coors light.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 7:18 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
Oh man, we had a Ford Courier. It was one of the best vehicles ever, except for being so light in the back end that any amount of speed with water on the road could lead to the rear tires hydroplaning and losing traction. But wow, we drove that thing into the ground. Like, to the point where you didn't need to use the clutch to shift gears and you didn't need a key to turn the ignition switch. It was all worn down to a fine tuned machine.
I wonder what happened to that truck? My father probably sold it or my sister wrecked it. So long ago. Not my favorite vehicle from my youth, that would be the Gold Duster, but certainly the vehicle I got to use the most and probably have mechanically known the most intimately.
Get your minds out of the gutter.
posted by hippybear at 7:25 PM on October 7, 2023
I wonder what happened to that truck? My father probably sold it or my sister wrecked it. So long ago. Not my favorite vehicle from my youth, that would be the Gold Duster, but certainly the vehicle I got to use the most and probably have mechanically known the most intimately.
Get your minds out of the gutter.
posted by hippybear at 7:25 PM on October 7, 2023
I wonder if we'll ever see another era where a car (or equivalent, I guess!) stays on sale for four decades with only relatively minor changes.A new Ford E-series you could buy today has a design that's fundamentally unchanged from over thirty years ago.
posted by kickingtheground at 7:38 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
The Deux Chevaux is the only car I've ever really really wanted, starting in about 1983. I'm sad it's never gonna happen, because I live in Minnesota and it would be trés stupide.
posted by RedEmma at 9:19 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by RedEmma at 9:19 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
Great post!
posted by brundlefly at 10:56 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by brundlefly at 10:56 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
The short-lived series Chris Harris on Cars had an absolute love letter of a segment in episode 4 about Chris Harris' own personal Citroën 2CV. I looked everywhere for a copy online and unfortunately could only find this one on Facebook. Highly recommended.
posted by fairmettle at 12:19 AM on October 8, 2023
posted by fairmettle at 12:19 AM on October 8, 2023
So I bought a Duck kit at a local hobby store and now it’s sitting behind me on a bookcase shelf.
Oh, like Airfix? I misread that and . . .
For full over-sharing Citroën family disclosure, my father's lesbian-golfing-poet Cousin Periwinkle imported a Dyane in a crate to late-60s Co Cork.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:29 AM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Oh, like Airfix? I misread that and . . .
For full over-sharing Citroën family disclosure, my father's lesbian-golfing-poet Cousin Periwinkle imported a Dyane in a crate to late-60s Co Cork.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:29 AM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
I got to know when in Germany in the Eighties as the "Ente" ["duck" in German]
This was something I never understood and no one here (in Germany) was ever able to explain to me - "I guess because they kind of ...look? like a duck?"
in the UK it is called a Duck, a horrible mispronunciation of Deux.
...ooohhhh man is that satisfying...
posted by From Bklyn at 1:09 AM on October 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
This was something I never understood and no one here (in Germany) was ever able to explain to me - "I guess because they kind of ...look? like a duck?"
in the UK it is called a Duck, a horrible mispronunciation of Deux.
...ooohhhh man is that satisfying...
posted by From Bklyn at 1:09 AM on October 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
The Deux Chevaux is the only car I've ever really really wanted, starting in about 1983.
I'm an incurable romantic when it comes to cute old cars. 2CV, original Beetle, Morris Minor, Hindustan Ambassador, Trabant... If I had the $$$ my toybox would be filled to the brim with these guys.
Closest I came in real life was my beloved 1966 Dodge Fargo van, long long gone.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:45 AM on October 8, 2023
I'm an incurable romantic when it comes to cute old cars. 2CV, original Beetle, Morris Minor, Hindustan Ambassador, Trabant... If I had the $$$ my toybox would be filled to the brim with these guys.
Closest I came in real life was my beloved 1966 Dodge Fargo van, long long gone.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:45 AM on October 8, 2023
Fantastic post! Loved the WWII details, and that prototype! So great.
posted by Alex Voyd at 8:15 AM on October 8, 2023
posted by Alex Voyd at 8:15 AM on October 8, 2023
The car probably got its nickname ‘Ente’ (duck), which is widespread especially in German-speaking countries, from the statement of a Dutch journalist who called the car an ‘ugly duckling’ on his first contact - secret-classics.com
In the UK it was always marketed as 2CV, no mention of the French "Deux" anywhere.
posted by Lanark at 9:05 AM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
In the UK it was always marketed as 2CV, no mention of the French "Deux" anywhere.
posted by Lanark at 9:05 AM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
Today is the first day I'd ever heard that 2CVs were allegedly called "ducks" in the UK, and I grew up as a car-obsessed kid in the 70s. It may not be evenly applied everywhere, and I hadn't heard anything apart from "Too See Vee"
posted by scruss at 11:09 AM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by scruss at 11:09 AM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
A new Ford E-series you could buy today has a design that's fundamentally unchanged from over thirty years ago.
Per Chilton, Ford stopped making Econolines in 2014 for the consumer market (the E-450 and up are still available as incompletes for cutaways (RVs, ambulances, etc) and stepvans. For other applications the E-series has been replaced with the Transit. (Not the Transit Connect, which looks similar but is mechanically very different).
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 12:10 PM on October 8, 2023
Per Chilton, Ford stopped making Econolines in 2014 for the consumer market (the E-450 and up are still available as incompletes for cutaways (RVs, ambulances, etc) and stepvans. For other applications the E-series has been replaced with the Transit. (Not the Transit Connect, which looks similar but is mechanically very different).
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 12:10 PM on October 8, 2023
My only in person exposure to Citroëns is that a Physics professor I worked for back in the 80s drove one of their sports cars. This was in Birmingham, Alabama, and I have no idea where he got it.
posted by Spike Glee at 2:18 PM on October 8, 2023
posted by Spike Glee at 2:18 PM on October 8, 2023
Mod note: [btw, this post has been added to the sidebar and Best Of blog]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:16 AM on October 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:16 AM on October 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
A new Ford E-series you could buy today has a design that's fundamentally unchanged from over thirty years ago.
And if you told me they took the 1990s Ford Explorer designs, put in a modern engine and a different skin and called it the Ford Bronco, I'd believe you.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:07 AM on October 9, 2023
And if you told me they took the 1990s Ford Explorer designs, put in a modern engine and a different skin and called it the Ford Bronco, I'd believe you.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:07 AM on October 9, 2023
Lanark: In the UK it was always marketed as 2CV, no mention of the French "Deux" anywhere.
In the Netherlands, 2CV was widely understood as shorthand for Deux Cheveaux.
When I was around 20, my boyfriend and I got an Acadiane. It was sky blue and I painted my company's logo on the sides (I'm a signwriter). It looked lovely and was a joy to ride.
One year, we drove to Chzechoslovakia for a holiday and during our stay, the Acadiane had some stutters that were a bit worrying so we took it to a garage. The mechanics quickly found the source of the stuttering (it was as simple of a vapour lock meaning that the car did not get enough fuel), but then they wanted to overhaul the entire engine because the performance was so far below their expectations for a Western European car that it couldn't be right and something just had to be badly broken.
We managed to pry it out of their eager hands, paid for the time they had spent on it and hightailed it out of there. For very modest values of 'hightailing'.
posted by Too-Ticky at 10:27 AM on October 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
In the Netherlands, 2CV was widely understood as shorthand for Deux Cheveaux.
When I was around 20, my boyfriend and I got an Acadiane. It was sky blue and I painted my company's logo on the sides (I'm a signwriter). It looked lovely and was a joy to ride.
One year, we drove to Chzechoslovakia for a holiday and during our stay, the Acadiane had some stutters that were a bit worrying so we took it to a garage. The mechanics quickly found the source of the stuttering (it was as simple of a vapour lock meaning that the car did not get enough fuel), but then they wanted to overhaul the entire engine because the performance was so far below their expectations for a Western European car that it couldn't be right and something just had to be badly broken.
We managed to pry it out of their eager hands, paid for the time they had spent on it and hightailed it out of there. For very modest values of 'hightailing'.
posted by Too-Ticky at 10:27 AM on October 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
And about the 'duck' thing: they were, and are, commonly known as Eend (duck) here in the Netherlands. Also 'lelijk eendje' (ugly duckling). I've always though that the fact that you can make them waddle, because of the soft suspension, is a factor. Citroën seemed to like the nickname well enough, and soon started using it in their marketing. They even had a song written and performed.
A practical joke that may or may not have actually happened:
A 2CV driver is driving on the highway, and wants to pass a truck. But the trucker speeds up a bit as he's being passed, just enough so the humble duckling can't keep up, and slows down and falls back behind the truck. The truck driver then slows down, so the 2CV driver decides to try again. With the same result.
This cycle repeats a few times, and then the 2CV driver sees the trucker open his window as the two vehicles are next to each other... he proceeds to stick his arm out and dangle a slice of bread in front of the 2CV. Feeding the duck, as it were.
(In Dutch, a word for teasing or winding up is 'voeren', litterally 'feeding'.)
posted by Too-Ticky at 10:48 AM on October 9, 2023
A practical joke that may or may not have actually happened:
A 2CV driver is driving on the highway, and wants to pass a truck. But the trucker speeds up a bit as he's being passed, just enough so the humble duckling can't keep up, and slows down and falls back behind the truck. The truck driver then slows down, so the 2CV driver decides to try again. With the same result.
This cycle repeats a few times, and then the 2CV driver sees the trucker open his window as the two vehicles are next to each other... he proceeds to stick his arm out and dangle a slice of bread in front of the 2CV. Feeding the duck, as it were.
(In Dutch, a word for teasing or winding up is 'voeren', litterally 'feeding'.)
posted by Too-Ticky at 10:48 AM on October 9, 2023
Foosnark: In high school, we picked up a guy's VW Beetle and carried it to the other parking lot.
One teacher's Renault 4 got put lengthwise between two trees, with maybe a decimeter to spare both ends.
It took him a while to get it out again.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:09 AM on October 9, 2023
One teacher's Renault 4 got put lengthwise between two trees, with maybe a decimeter to spare both ends.
It took him a while to get it out again.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:09 AM on October 9, 2023
Spike Glee: My only in person exposure to Citroëns is that a Physics professor I worked for back in the 80s drove one of their sports cars.
A DS (convertible) or SM then? A fair number of them were legally imported into the US, and ones from the warmer and dryer regions are much sought after because of their lack of corrosion.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:33 AM on October 9, 2023
A DS (convertible) or SM then? A fair number of them were legally imported into the US, and ones from the warmer and dryer regions are much sought after because of their lack of corrosion.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:33 AM on October 9, 2023
And from that 2CV motorcycle MeFi post, via a link that's gone to the Great Bitbucket in the Sky: the Tryane II.
A friend of mine had a Citroën Dyane while in Uni . When I got my first motorcycle, a BMW R80ST, he saw fit to mention it had the same boxer twin engine configuration.
"Yes, but this one takes half a minute less to reach its top speed."
posted by Stoneshop at 12:23 PM on October 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
A friend of mine had a Citroën Dyane while in Uni . When I got my first motorcycle, a BMW R80ST, he saw fit to mention it had the same boxer twin engine configuration.
"Yes, but this one takes half a minute less to reach its top speed."
posted by Stoneshop at 12:23 PM on October 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
"It will do 0 - 60 in...theory"
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:48 PM on October 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:48 PM on October 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
Those are adorable!
The Polish equivalent would definitely be the Fiat 126p, the evolution of the Fiat 500. My family had one when I was too young to remember, but I recall the manual because it actually instructed you to use pantyhose for some roadside repairs. I'm under 6 feet and I definitely don't fit comfortably behind the wheel. 28 years of production, but then we started later...
posted by I claim sanctuary at 4:37 AM on October 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
The Polish equivalent would definitely be the Fiat 126p, the evolution of the Fiat 500. My family had one when I was too young to remember, but I recall the manual because it actually instructed you to use pantyhose for some roadside repairs. I'm under 6 feet and I definitely don't fit comfortably behind the wheel. 28 years of production, but then we started later...
posted by I claim sanctuary at 4:37 AM on October 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Fantastic post. There were a couple of these around Austin until very recently- probably someone associated with the university, because I always saw them in proximity. I hope they’re still chugging along.
The bigger DS’s seemed far more popular for a while in the states, and I would spot them all the time, but it’s been a while now.I went from “so ugly” to “so ugly it’s cute,” to “hey, beautiful” slowly over a span of years.
I was a Chevy based gearhead in my early days of ignorance, and slowly came around to European cars, eventually marrying a woman with an infinitely practical 1984 Volvo 240 wagon that could hold more stuff than my Chevy K-10 pickup. We drove it to Big Ben the first year we were together, and I have memories. Memories of rattling, trying and failing to accurate, memories of cold drafts, and of love.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:12 PM on October 10, 2023
The bigger DS’s seemed far more popular for a while in the states, and I would spot them all the time, but it’s been a while now.I went from “so ugly” to “so ugly it’s cute,” to “hey, beautiful” slowly over a span of years.
I was a Chevy based gearhead in my early days of ignorance, and slowly came around to European cars, eventually marrying a woman with an infinitely practical 1984 Volvo 240 wagon that could hold more stuff than my Chevy K-10 pickup. We drove it to Big Ben the first year we were together, and I have memories. Memories of rattling, trying and failing to accurate, memories of cold drafts, and of love.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:12 PM on October 10, 2023
Another person here who has very little knowledge of this bit of automotive history and culture and richly appreciates this post and comment thread!
posted by brainwane at 11:59 PM on October 10, 2023
posted by brainwane at 11:59 PM on October 10, 2023
To be fair, it's barely a car. This one, the one that usually sits under a sun-toasted tabby cat in the driveway outside the window in the room where I work most days, is generally nicer than any of its precedessors.
In my foolish youth, there was Voltaire, a '68 Dyane that had previously belonged to the head of White House security under Nixon and, for some inexplicable reason, had roughly ten pounds of Iranian coins under the lining of the parcel tray, and was found abandoned in the back parking lot of a dentist's office with a largeish tree growing through the engine compartment, where I bought it from an older gentleman with the glorious name of Dick Spitz for a sum that I likely should have haggled down.
I'd dismantled it down to a heap of parts and put it back together, but it was ruinous even with all the love and energy I'd put into it. I was so overeager to get it on the road that I just duct-taped the windshield in while I was waiting for the gasket to arrive from the Netherlands, and if I hit the brakes too hard, the entire windshield would flop out, slide down the hood, and land, impossibly unbroken, on the ground in front of me. Parts were hard to find here in the States thirty years ago, before the internet and 3D printing created a realm of infinite obtanium, so when the plastic striker plate for the door broke, I replaced it with a Boy Scout belt that held the door closed, but without grace, and the back door latch wasn't entirely reliable either, as I once whipped into a suddenly available parking spot at gay pride and my three backseat passengers slid out in a trio like a Supremes drag act being abruptly tossed out of a bar.
I'd also been lax with actually putting on the bolts and clamp holding the steering column to the steering rack, so on a trip North on the Taconic State Parkway, where the expansion joints in one of the last concrete roads around beat out a thump thump thump that one heard, but never felt, I leaned back for a moment to take in the beautiful summer sky through the rolled-back roof and the rusty frame of my seat snapped, pitching me nearly into the back seat, and as I scrambled to back to the now-backless driver's seat, I found that, in my lurch, I'd yanked the steering column out of the rack so it just spun there, connected to nothing, while my little multicolored mess of a Citroën plowed along a mountain road at an otherwise comfortable 100kph.
I found myself screaming while passing cars took in a Clouseau-grade bit of street theater, but I managed to get the column back in place, and paused at a diner along the way to rig up a temporary clamp. As for the seat? I just slid it out, then slid the passenger seat into its place, which meant every hitchhiker I might be inclined to pick up on the trip would be required to ride in the back like Mamie Eisenhower in a limo.
Voltaire was my daily driver for years, but the fact that I proved to be insufficient at welding made more and more parts lose their connection to the rest of the car, and I parked him behind my house to wait for better days. A couple other Citroëns came, from my entirely not-legal-in-the-US '83 GSA that came with Paris plates so I'd just hide my real license plates in the trunk whilst in DC because all the cops assumed it was a diplomatic car to my '70 DS21, named Endora after the best character on Bewitched, which I'll write about when a significant anniversary for that model arrives. In the end, the money was failing me, and my fiscally unambitious life caught up to me whilst I was trying to live like the subject of a Roland Barthes essay, followed, appropriately, by my father's sudden death, the collapse of our family business, and a grim realization that I just needed to grow up and be a person like everyone else if it killed me.
And so Voltaire sat in the back yard behind my house that wasn't really my house anymore, after the bank sold it off and I became a renter, and Endora sat in front, baking in the sun, both hopeless reminders that I'd once believed in absurd gestures. I bought a small three-year-old four-door economy sedan in 2003 and I had to tentatively admit that I was pleased with modern touches like air conditioning and doors that locked and a nice stereo where I could hear myself singing the soft parts of "I'm Still Here."
I sold Endora in 2010 because I wanted someone else to save her while there was something left to save, but the vines kept growing over my poor Dyane, to the point that I'd walk around the other side of the house to get the trash cans to assauge the guilt.
Several careers came and went. I got headhunted for a job with a large university that was so unclear to me that it took them a year of trying to explain the job before I had a clue what they wanted me to do. The money, though? Oh my, is this what what good jobs pay? I had a little buzz of impracticality when I figured out that the reason there was money in my bank account wasn't a payment I'd forgotten to make, but the weird side effect of being in a middle class bracket after a lifetime in the blue collar realms, and I decided that I needed a more practical car than my 13mpg aging work truck. I'd dated my way into a family, with two dads, one kid, two dogs, a barn cat, a goldfish pond, and a driveway where a person could comfortably work on a car.
I looked at Honda Fits, Toyota Yarises, and the Fiat 500. Bought the latter, used of course, and it's been a stalwart little commuter with a little zhoosh. Besides, where the 2CV had been a long-overlooked underdog, by this century, they're pricier, and buying a car that was once the cheapest car on the overseas market for an average of $12-20k seemed ridiculous.
Then, a lovely old cousin who'd made it to 102 left me a little consideration in her will and after I'd set aside most of the modest sum I'd inherited I considered, reconsidered, considered, rejected, pondered, considered again and eventually came to a little math: the average price of a new car in the US is something ridiculous, like $30k, and I had my old work truck ($1500, paid for), my Fiat ($5500, paid for), and I could be sensible and just stick with what I have, but if I bought a car that's barely a car because of a faded memory of the joy my old Dyane gave me, and all three vehicles still only totalled $22k, would that be so bad? Would it?
I got in touch with an old friend from my Citroën years, an interesting Dutch gentleman who lives in a honest-to-gosh château in rural Maryland and who has a hobby of working with a 2CV garage in the Netherlands to bring a couple shipping crates full of vintage French goodness over here a couple times a year, and suddenly I was writing a check, and suddenly I was in the nearby Motor Vehicle Administration with my friend to smooth out the various complexities, and suddenly I had another Citroën on the road and my heart was in my throat.
To be fair, it's barely a car. It's poetry in a language I don't fully understand, a paean to rustic simplicity from a time I never inhabited, and an emotional painting made of the scents of long-lost continental industries, and I feel like I'm freed from the rigors of the world when I'm driving, suspended in that curious little plastic horsie of a thing, so busy with the gearshift and the management of 29 horsepower and the task of driving a car rendered to carry potatoes, eggs, and casks of wine around the roads, streets, highways, and country lanes where Sister Joanne, who get her name from another near-centenarian in my circles, reminds me what's important.
You drive as hard as you should love, with the force that should be behind your voice as you belt out your favorite songs, or the way a dog greets you every time you enter the front door. It's a silly, stupid relic of a world that doesn't even exist anymore in the place where it came from, but for a car as black and shiny as a pair of little girls' hard church shoes, it radiates something golden that people pick up immediately, like a Emergency Broadcast System alert calling out to wake us from a dreamless, lifeless sleep, so we can see clearly what's all around us.
A 2CV is slow, but I spend my time on the highways here with the speedo pinned on 120kph, my eyes, ears, and senses undistracted, and the mission clear—this is a twelve hundred pound car in a sea of bloated, heavy cars hauling dead-eyed suburbanites, but it handles better than almost all of them, and I drive to live a long life and maybe leave it to my kid, twenty or thirty years from now. On the fast roads, I find myself passing other cars and look over with a pitying look that Europeans of a certain age would recognize as the right gesture to say "I can't believe you've been overtaken by a 2CV," despite the fact that it is very, very noisy at speed and my smart watch insists on informing me that I'm in a dangerously loud environment.
"What's its safety number?" my mother asked on her first ride. I shrugged. "No, I mean what's it rated for in accidents?"
"It's best to avoid those. In fact, if you believe we're about to crash, you might want to step out."
"Out of the car?"
"Yeah. Would you want to be inside this car when it's crashing?"
"Joseph."
"I drive it like its a Fabergé egg and I want to keep it intact despite all the savages out on the road in their Chevrolets. Plus, it's protected by the ghosts of all those nuns from the Madeline books." My mother pursed her lips skeptically.
"They're dead?"
"Yeah, that book came out decades ago."
Technically, I'm not supposed to drive it as much as I do on historic license plates, and technically, I'm not supposed to have yellow headlights like French cars had before the EU banned them, and technically, I have no cultural connection to this car other than the fact that I've watched French films for my teen and adult life and created a little magical away place in a sort of Le ballon rouge and Jacques Tati space in my head where this all makes sense.
I pull into the local Southern States farm supply store for a fifty pound bag of pellet feed for my chickens and the guy who works the loading dock yells, as always, "Monsieur Deux Chevaux!" as I climb out, with the car rocking as it sheds my weight, and I bask in the cutesy pleasure of using the car for its original purpose, even as I know I'm fairly close to becoming intolerably twee.
I head out, pellet feed in the trunk, and carry on. Sister Joanna may be fooling me, but I feel like I can always count on her, and I have such a hard time being unhappy when I'm behind that big oversized wheel.
It's barely a car, possibly a song, occasionally a skit, often a refuge, or even a companion unto itself, and somehow still serves as a wellspring for so much joy. Maybe being barely a car sums up how it's something else entirely.
I finally gave Voltaire away a few months ago. A nice older fellow in my area was on the Citroën group I frequent on social media and was looking for a valid title for a '68 Dyane. Poor Voltaire was in bad shape, and it took a lot of work to extricate him from his burial vault of brambles, but once out, it turned out that there were more than enough intact parts for the fellow to finish his project on his own Dyane and get it on the road. I asked to keep two things—the front grille (I had a spare that I gave him) and the knob off the gearshift. I hung the grille in my living room, and screwed the old knob onto my 2CV's gear lever, and went out for a drive to nowhere in particular, which is the perfect place to find whatever it is I'm still looking for.
The kilometers roll out, my wristwatch complains, and I sing a little Sondheim.
posted by sonascope at 3:23 PM on October 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
In my foolish youth, there was Voltaire, a '68 Dyane that had previously belonged to the head of White House security under Nixon and, for some inexplicable reason, had roughly ten pounds of Iranian coins under the lining of the parcel tray, and was found abandoned in the back parking lot of a dentist's office with a largeish tree growing through the engine compartment, where I bought it from an older gentleman with the glorious name of Dick Spitz for a sum that I likely should have haggled down.
I'd dismantled it down to a heap of parts and put it back together, but it was ruinous even with all the love and energy I'd put into it. I was so overeager to get it on the road that I just duct-taped the windshield in while I was waiting for the gasket to arrive from the Netherlands, and if I hit the brakes too hard, the entire windshield would flop out, slide down the hood, and land, impossibly unbroken, on the ground in front of me. Parts were hard to find here in the States thirty years ago, before the internet and 3D printing created a realm of infinite obtanium, so when the plastic striker plate for the door broke, I replaced it with a Boy Scout belt that held the door closed, but without grace, and the back door latch wasn't entirely reliable either, as I once whipped into a suddenly available parking spot at gay pride and my three backseat passengers slid out in a trio like a Supremes drag act being abruptly tossed out of a bar.
I'd also been lax with actually putting on the bolts and clamp holding the steering column to the steering rack, so on a trip North on the Taconic State Parkway, where the expansion joints in one of the last concrete roads around beat out a thump thump thump that one heard, but never felt, I leaned back for a moment to take in the beautiful summer sky through the rolled-back roof and the rusty frame of my seat snapped, pitching me nearly into the back seat, and as I scrambled to back to the now-backless driver's seat, I found that, in my lurch, I'd yanked the steering column out of the rack so it just spun there, connected to nothing, while my little multicolored mess of a Citroën plowed along a mountain road at an otherwise comfortable 100kph.
I found myself screaming while passing cars took in a Clouseau-grade bit of street theater, but I managed to get the column back in place, and paused at a diner along the way to rig up a temporary clamp. As for the seat? I just slid it out, then slid the passenger seat into its place, which meant every hitchhiker I might be inclined to pick up on the trip would be required to ride in the back like Mamie Eisenhower in a limo.
Voltaire was my daily driver for years, but the fact that I proved to be insufficient at welding made more and more parts lose their connection to the rest of the car, and I parked him behind my house to wait for better days. A couple other Citroëns came, from my entirely not-legal-in-the-US '83 GSA that came with Paris plates so I'd just hide my real license plates in the trunk whilst in DC because all the cops assumed it was a diplomatic car to my '70 DS21, named Endora after the best character on Bewitched, which I'll write about when a significant anniversary for that model arrives. In the end, the money was failing me, and my fiscally unambitious life caught up to me whilst I was trying to live like the subject of a Roland Barthes essay, followed, appropriately, by my father's sudden death, the collapse of our family business, and a grim realization that I just needed to grow up and be a person like everyone else if it killed me.
And so Voltaire sat in the back yard behind my house that wasn't really my house anymore, after the bank sold it off and I became a renter, and Endora sat in front, baking in the sun, both hopeless reminders that I'd once believed in absurd gestures. I bought a small three-year-old four-door economy sedan in 2003 and I had to tentatively admit that I was pleased with modern touches like air conditioning and doors that locked and a nice stereo where I could hear myself singing the soft parts of "I'm Still Here."
I sold Endora in 2010 because I wanted someone else to save her while there was something left to save, but the vines kept growing over my poor Dyane, to the point that I'd walk around the other side of the house to get the trash cans to assauge the guilt.
Several careers came and went. I got headhunted for a job with a large university that was so unclear to me that it took them a year of trying to explain the job before I had a clue what they wanted me to do. The money, though? Oh my, is this what what good jobs pay? I had a little buzz of impracticality when I figured out that the reason there was money in my bank account wasn't a payment I'd forgotten to make, but the weird side effect of being in a middle class bracket after a lifetime in the blue collar realms, and I decided that I needed a more practical car than my 13mpg aging work truck. I'd dated my way into a family, with two dads, one kid, two dogs, a barn cat, a goldfish pond, and a driveway where a person could comfortably work on a car.
I looked at Honda Fits, Toyota Yarises, and the Fiat 500. Bought the latter, used of course, and it's been a stalwart little commuter with a little zhoosh. Besides, where the 2CV had been a long-overlooked underdog, by this century, they're pricier, and buying a car that was once the cheapest car on the overseas market for an average of $12-20k seemed ridiculous.
Then, a lovely old cousin who'd made it to 102 left me a little consideration in her will and after I'd set aside most of the modest sum I'd inherited I considered, reconsidered, considered, rejected, pondered, considered again and eventually came to a little math: the average price of a new car in the US is something ridiculous, like $30k, and I had my old work truck ($1500, paid for), my Fiat ($5500, paid for), and I could be sensible and just stick with what I have, but if I bought a car that's barely a car because of a faded memory of the joy my old Dyane gave me, and all three vehicles still only totalled $22k, would that be so bad? Would it?
I got in touch with an old friend from my Citroën years, an interesting Dutch gentleman who lives in a honest-to-gosh château in rural Maryland and who has a hobby of working with a 2CV garage in the Netherlands to bring a couple shipping crates full of vintage French goodness over here a couple times a year, and suddenly I was writing a check, and suddenly I was in the nearby Motor Vehicle Administration with my friend to smooth out the various complexities, and suddenly I had another Citroën on the road and my heart was in my throat.
To be fair, it's barely a car. It's poetry in a language I don't fully understand, a paean to rustic simplicity from a time I never inhabited, and an emotional painting made of the scents of long-lost continental industries, and I feel like I'm freed from the rigors of the world when I'm driving, suspended in that curious little plastic horsie of a thing, so busy with the gearshift and the management of 29 horsepower and the task of driving a car rendered to carry potatoes, eggs, and casks of wine around the roads, streets, highways, and country lanes where Sister Joanne, who get her name from another near-centenarian in my circles, reminds me what's important.
You drive as hard as you should love, with the force that should be behind your voice as you belt out your favorite songs, or the way a dog greets you every time you enter the front door. It's a silly, stupid relic of a world that doesn't even exist anymore in the place where it came from, but for a car as black and shiny as a pair of little girls' hard church shoes, it radiates something golden that people pick up immediately, like a Emergency Broadcast System alert calling out to wake us from a dreamless, lifeless sleep, so we can see clearly what's all around us.
A 2CV is slow, but I spend my time on the highways here with the speedo pinned on 120kph, my eyes, ears, and senses undistracted, and the mission clear—this is a twelve hundred pound car in a sea of bloated, heavy cars hauling dead-eyed suburbanites, but it handles better than almost all of them, and I drive to live a long life and maybe leave it to my kid, twenty or thirty years from now. On the fast roads, I find myself passing other cars and look over with a pitying look that Europeans of a certain age would recognize as the right gesture to say "I can't believe you've been overtaken by a 2CV," despite the fact that it is very, very noisy at speed and my smart watch insists on informing me that I'm in a dangerously loud environment.
"What's its safety number?" my mother asked on her first ride. I shrugged. "No, I mean what's it rated for in accidents?"
"It's best to avoid those. In fact, if you believe we're about to crash, you might want to step out."
"Out of the car?"
"Yeah. Would you want to be inside this car when it's crashing?"
"Joseph."
"I drive it like its a Fabergé egg and I want to keep it intact despite all the savages out on the road in their Chevrolets. Plus, it's protected by the ghosts of all those nuns from the Madeline books." My mother pursed her lips skeptically.
"They're dead?"
"Yeah, that book came out decades ago."
Technically, I'm not supposed to drive it as much as I do on historic license plates, and technically, I'm not supposed to have yellow headlights like French cars had before the EU banned them, and technically, I have no cultural connection to this car other than the fact that I've watched French films for my teen and adult life and created a little magical away place in a sort of Le ballon rouge and Jacques Tati space in my head where this all makes sense.
I pull into the local Southern States farm supply store for a fifty pound bag of pellet feed for my chickens and the guy who works the loading dock yells, as always, "Monsieur Deux Chevaux!" as I climb out, with the car rocking as it sheds my weight, and I bask in the cutesy pleasure of using the car for its original purpose, even as I know I'm fairly close to becoming intolerably twee.
I head out, pellet feed in the trunk, and carry on. Sister Joanna may be fooling me, but I feel like I can always count on her, and I have such a hard time being unhappy when I'm behind that big oversized wheel.
It's barely a car, possibly a song, occasionally a skit, often a refuge, or even a companion unto itself, and somehow still serves as a wellspring for so much joy. Maybe being barely a car sums up how it's something else entirely.
I finally gave Voltaire away a few months ago. A nice older fellow in my area was on the Citroën group I frequent on social media and was looking for a valid title for a '68 Dyane. Poor Voltaire was in bad shape, and it took a lot of work to extricate him from his burial vault of brambles, but once out, it turned out that there were more than enough intact parts for the fellow to finish his project on his own Dyane and get it on the road. I asked to keep two things—the front grille (I had a spare that I gave him) and the knob off the gearshift. I hung the grille in my living room, and screwed the old knob onto my 2CV's gear lever, and went out for a drive to nowhere in particular, which is the perfect place to find whatever it is I'm still looking for.
The kilometers roll out, my wristwatch complains, and I sing a little Sondheim.
posted by sonascope at 3:23 PM on October 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
sonascope, when I read a comment by you I feel, inarticulately, like it's all worth it. Like this whole mess we're in has a meaning and a beauty to it. Maybe MetaFilter is a little like a Citroën 2CV, too.
posted by brainwane at 8:46 PM on October 11, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by brainwane at 8:46 PM on October 11, 2023 [4 favorites]
sonascope: and I drive to live a long life
Someone near my place of work adorned his Besteleend (2CV Fourgonette) with a sticker: "Speed kills. Drive a 2CV and live forever."
posted by Stoneshop at 1:55 PM on October 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
Someone near my place of work adorned his Besteleend (2CV Fourgonette) with a sticker: "Speed kills. Drive a 2CV and live forever."
posted by Stoneshop at 1:55 PM on October 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
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