I’ve been obsessed with the Citroën 2CV for as long as I’ve known of its existence, and a major part of why that is has to do with its intense, almost perverse austerity. This was a car built to an extremely specific set of criteria (eggs, field) and under some incredibly limiting restrictions. I think the result turned out to be genuinely elegant and delightfully strange. The limitations are what gave the 2CV its character, which is why this goofy 1974 experiment in making an up-market 2CV, called the 2CV Pop (sometimes 2CV Super), is so weird.
But don’t worry; they only made one.
The thinking seems to have been to rejuvenate interest in the 2CV by building a fancy, more powerful version, and the designers at Citroën did not let trivialities like good taste or restraint hold them back. Seriously, look at this thing:
There’s a new hood, new grille, new front bumper, new wheels, a new vinyl, non-opening hardtop with a freaking landau bar, for that hearse-like class, and a bigger trunk with a continental-style spare tire.
Design inspiration came from the 1930s Traction Avant:
…and compare that to a normal 2CV:
It wasn’t all show; under the hood, power was nearly doubled, and cylinder count definitely doubled, thanks to the installation of the flat-four from the Citroën GS. That would have bumped power from around 29 horsepower to about 55 hp, a pretty damn good jump.
The look was very ’70s “classy,” like a poster of a rose on a piano keyboard-grade classy, not that different than the strange baroque design trends going on in America at the time. Just for comparison, here’s the rear end of a mainstream 1978 German car and a 1978 American one:
That tire mount is even more over the top, and the 2CV Pop also has an interesting little chrome towel rail there, mounting a license plate bracket flanked by a pair of license plate lamps and what I believe were the only reverse lamps offered on a 2CV variant.
That new trunk lid would have expanded the cargo of the 2CV Pop, too, and was similar to aftermarket trunk lid expanders one could buy for the 2CV:
Like I said, Citroën decided against putting the 2CV into production. I’m wondering if the idea of a luxury car that somehow had flip-up (as opposed to roll-down) windows was too hard to comprehend? The austerity of the 2CV is quite baked into its fundamental design; dressing it up with chrome and landau bars and fancy grilles wasn’t really going to fool anyone.
That bigger engine, though, that would have been pretty fun.
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I would love a deep dive into euro/japanese versus American car designs in the 70s/80s. That Audi/Ford pic really hammers home how vast the design ocean was.
Jason, thanks for your article about the 2CV Pop.
The first time I saw a picture of a 2CV was in an encyclopedia article about European cars circa 1960. The first one I saw was in 1969 in NYC in a snowstorm.
After college, I bought a 2CV that I parted out. Later, I owned a rare 1969/1970 officially imported Mehari that I had for about a decade.
What I love about the 2CV and its derivatives is the way they’re complicated and elemental at the same time. Take the suspension for example. The springs are inside cans mounted along the frame rails and connected to the front leading arms and rear trailing arms by thin rods. This doesn’t seem something anyone would do on a low-priced car.
Regarding the eggs, they were part of the 2CV’s design criteria, which called for the car to cross a plowed field with a basket of eggs in it, with said eggs being unbroken at the end of the trip.
Jason you are 100% correct. I am sorry you can take a great popular car and start removing options and some luxury and sell the badge cheaper. But you can’t take a turd and polish it and sell it for more no matter what you do it still has the turd. It’s like Tesla shaving off options to sell the Cyber truck cheaper, not near enough che9yet, as opposed to Bozos supposed building a $25,000 EV Truck selling it for a loss and hoping people buy $30k in options. Can you imagine reselling a $25k truck with$30k in options and it is still a basic truck? It’s like selling a Yugo with a $4,500 sticker with a $1,000 stereo system.
Surprised you don’t mention the Ami Super (‘73-‘76?) – which paired the 1015cc flat four and floor-shifting transmission (and front brakes) from the original GS with the A-series (2CV-based) Ami – in both sedan and wagon forms (with tweaks to the suspension and chassis). This was the ‘sleeper’ performance A-series you hint at in the article, and they sold 42,000 of them.
Still looks better than the new Outback.
A bar so low you’d have to dig to find it.
A 2CV with only 29 hp looks like it is about to tip over in a normal turn, giving it another 26 hp would probably put it on its side.
Easily remedied by imploring all the witnesses to flip it upright. Witnesses also can help with a push start immediately following.
Probably don’t even need to speak the language of the witnesses – they should be able to understand what to do. However, knowing ‘please’, ‘push’, and ‘thank you’ would be helpful.
Just remember to go backwards forwards quickly and you’ll be fine.
I’m very amused by imagining some random casual reader seeing this with no context for the eggs and field. 🙂
The same random casual reader also reads 2CV as ‘two cee vee’ while the nonrandom formal readers such as you and I read ‘deux chevaux’
So I had to read up on this to gain some 2CV trivia. All the while I thought it was called the 2CV because of the CVs in its axles, got that corrected now in my head, no correlation after all
And of course you’ve already covered the most luxuriously sinister fictional 2CV, the stretch limos in The Triplets of Belleville.
I’m not entirely convinced of that. I drove my now-running Velorex to work yesterday and parked next to a colleague’s 2CV. The Citroën seemed pretty plush, what with its metal body, twin wipers, side and rear windows made of actual glass (some of which even open!), detachable one-piece wheels, and large four-stroke engine:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54460178414_3e9020dd85_c.jpg
Now that would be an amazing pair to see just parked like that.
Prelude for scale:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54458701166_a3c57a8f3d_c.jpg
What kind of office parking lot is that, and does the poor schmoe with the late model Ram pickup get mocked mercilessly for it?
That’s the underground Central Plaza Garage at the University of Washington. We’re generally pretty open-minded.
That face…like it’s wearing the old fake-nose-and-glasses disguise.
The Deux Ssangyong.
This looks like someone inherited Grand-père’s car and a pile of money but with the condition that money could only be spent on buying crap from the JC Whitney catalog.
This was a rather odd exercise, because Citroen had already been making an upmarket version of the 2CV for almost a decade in 1974 – the Dyane. It was supposed to replace the 2CV but never did, and the 2CV outlived it by a decade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_Dyane
They could have just put the 4-pot in that. I’m actually slightly surprised they never did.
My mom drove a Dyane, and the only upmarket thing about it was the colourful fabric on the seats. Everything else was as shitboxy as the OG deuche.
It looked a decade more modern. 🙂
I love them both – cheap and cheerful done correctly. Not that I would particularly want to drive one further than around town.
My family have a place in Spain and we had a Dyane there. Loved it. My uncle drove it back to the UK recently, it made it all the way through France without any issue, and promptly broke down in the ferry port in the UK. He’s got it back up and running now, it’s wonderful.
Not really upmarket though, more just a bigger 2CV.
I am hoping that is the ugliest thing I see today.
You know this is The Autopian, right? Your hopes are no doubt to be smashed.
It’s like Mitsuoka was contracted to make a DS2CV.
Getting strong JC Whitney Beetle body kit vibes off this.
It also reminds me, just a bit, of the Homer.
Needs more bubble domes
It’s sort of reminiscent of something out of an old timey cartoon they might show when you go to court mandated traffic school to avoid points on your license.
Reminds me of Michael Jackson’s makeover.
That Traction Avant is beautiful. This, not so much. The only way it could look stupider is if they mounted a Rolls Royce radiator up front. Oh and that Audi rear is timeless!
That Traction Avant picture looks lower and meaner, almost rat-rod, than the mental image I’ve held.
Tractions are very low, gangster-cool looking cars. Surprisingly low slung and badass.
A quick search mentions the bumpers were too low for U.S. regs.
Ha, yeah, in fact Tractions were popular with gangsters and bank robbers, partly because they made good getaway cars due to their exceptional roadhandling. And there was actually a gang named… Le Gang des Tractions Avants:
https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/postwar-frances-gang-des-tractions-avant-was-brazen-criminal-and-stylish/
There were different evolutions to the traction. Try googling “Traction Avant 7cv” and find a picture of one with the wave bumper and the old hood. Not as much gangster looking.
That might be the one you have on mind.
The pictured one must be a 15-6. That’s literally a gangster car. The french Police had to buy some because nothing could follow those on the road and the baddies figured that out.
Getting strong Mitsuoka vibes from this.
This is not the worst 2CV.
Have a look at the one created for “Revenge of the Pink Panther” – dubbed “Silver Hornet”
https://www.imcdb.org/v020728.html
(Poor Dyan Cannon)
Add the big engine, keep the original body style, lay a pair of stripes from front to back and BOOM!! Citroën 2CV SS!!
Cowl induction hood optional.
Citroen Shelby Edition…
It needed an engine from a 1970s muscle bike. The Kawasaki KZ1000 had an 83 horsepower engine that would have fit.
A few people installed a boxer engine from a BMW bike. I don’t remember which one, but it must have produced between 60 and 80 horsepower.
It’s not a Citroen SS unless the dipstick marks are well below the point of oil starvation.
I can only imagine the postwar TSB about that had to have been the greatest ever.