Citroen looks set to join the retro-electric bandwagon by bringing back its most famous model.
The French manufacturer is reportedly in very early stages of working on a 21st century version of the 2CV – perhaps the most iconic French car of all time.
A senior source told Autocar that preliminary design work on a successor to the Deux Chevaux is underway as Citroen looks to join the car brands bringing legacy models back for the modern era.
It would be a change of tack for Citroen – the brand told Top Gear in 2021 it had no intention of bringing the 2CV back.
Former Citroen boss Vincent Cobée said that while it is a ‘privilege and honour’ to have ‘massive heritage’ it doesn’t mean ‘that the past answers are the right answers for the future.’ He added: ‘There’s a difference between character and solution.’
Autocar has been told by a source that the Citroen 2CV is coming back in an electric form to ride the wave of retro EVs…
The marque’s change of heart is likely due to some of its closest competitors resurrecting nameplates and designs to great success.
Renault is the most obvious example of the power of the comeback.
Recently has just relaunched not one but two of its icons in electric versions: the Renault 4 and 5.
The new Renault 5 – a cool subcompact EV made for stylish city life – went on sale at the end of last year.
While the French market isn’t enormous, the new R5 has been lapped up all over Europe from fans and press alike with retro design a clear hit with buyers.
By the end of November the new R5 was already the best-selling EV in France, surpassing the Tesla Model Y (which in 2023 was the world’s best-selling car).
The R5 EV surpassed all expectation – even though there was frenzied desire from the moment of its reveal – shifting 3,316 units compared to 3,175 for the Model Y.
The competitive price point of the new R5 is a huge draw with Renault offering the compact from just £22,995 in the UK.
But it’s pretty safe to say that the way French drivers have embraced the R5 E-Tech without qualms , despite the French being sticklers for legacy, shows that if you do a a chic comeback you can capture the market.
The Renault 5 is being lapped up in electric form and the sub-£23k price tag is a big reason
The Renault 4 was the mainstay of the French middle classes for three decades after its 1961 launch
The larger Renault 4 E-Tech – which is expected to arrive in the UK midway through this year and cost from around £28k – is another turn of nostalgia that buyers are waiting for with great excitement, and likely another cash cow for Renault that Citroen will want to compete with.
It’s unsurprising therefore that the source has confirmed Citroen’s change of heart to Autocar.
Speaking to Autocar at this year’s Brussels motor show, Citroën design boss Pierre Leclercq didn’t confirm the new 2CV, but he said the brand is ‘not closing the door’ on retro designs and that he ‘thinks the philosophy is important.’
It is fair to guess that any reincarnated 2CV would come in on the cheaper side of new EVs and try and corner that newly emerging market.
In doing so it will be able to stand ground against Renault as well as the Dacia Spring and the forthcoming Fiat Panda EV and VW ID.2.
Fiat’s revealed a new Grande Panda – the first of a new family of cars designed after the much-loved 1980s model
The production ID2 is set to costly roughly sub-£21,150 (€25,000) and will be bigger than the Polo
The Citroen 2CV: A brief history of an French ‘tin snail’
The legend goes that Citroen Vice-President and Chief of Engineering and Design of Citroën, Pierre-Jules Boulanger, wanted to offer French farmers a better mode of transport than a horse and cart.
It had to be cheap and reliable – a mechanical workhorse.
Boulanger wanted it to hit a number of very specific and (some strange) requirements: to transport four passengers, to carry a 50kg sack or a full wine cask (this is France after all) and most famously to cross a ploughed field without breaking a basket of eggs.
He also needed to manage three litres per kilometre or 95 miles to the British gallon, and be good for women to drive too. Maintenance needed to be minimal and easy with faults cheap to fix.
This was 1936.
The Citroen 2CV sold over five million units – it was France’s car that put the world on wheels
Fast-forward through setbacks, the Second World War and Boulanger’s death in car crash, and it wasn’t until 1948 that a post-war 2CV Type A was seen by the public at the Paris Motor Show.
The workhorse went on to be massively popular for 25 years – it was the utility car Boulanger envisioned it to be with farmers to French Post Office workers using it.
In 1988 the 2CV was retired in France, and produced elsewhere until 1990.
By this point over five million had been produced globally.
The ‘tin snail’ stands as a symbol of France still today.
Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.
