1959 Citroën 2CV AZ – Four Seats Under An Umbrella

We’ve had a lot of posts about the Immortal Tin Snail on CC – including some authored by yours truly. And it’s perfectly justified, as the 2CV is in the same category as the Beetle, the Mini or the Model T: it’s an automotive icon. Did Citroën manufacture them for over 40 years because it was an icon, or did it become one because of its long production life? To mull over this chicken-and-egg question, let’s take a look at a version of the 2CV we’ve not had much exposure to on CC: the base-model AZ from the little Cit’s early years.

Let’s get our bearings as to what makes this an earlier car, starting with the exterior. The most obvious characteristic is that bonnet/nose assembly, featuring a rather tall all-metal grille with horizontal slats, louvres on the sides and a corrugated top. This important piece of the 2CV’s personality was redesigned in January 1961, so any car you see with that fluted front end was made prior to that date (save for the ultra-rare 2CV Sahara).

Another easy way to tell an earlier 2CV is the front doors. Until MY 1965, they were of the suicide type. After that date, Citroën were able to reason with them, but it was a bit hairy for a good 15 years there. This car also features the lone turn signal that Citroën saw fit to install on these, up on the C-pillar there. That only arrived in 1955; prior cars were devoid of any indicators on the French market, but some countries (such as the UK) mandated items such as semaphores.

The 2CV famously has a canvas top that can be rolled up like a sardine tin. The original design also had a canvas trunk lid like our AZ, which is not something you see every day. (The net and floor carpeting seen here are later additions, obviously.) In 1958, Citroën launched the AZLP – the L stood for Luxe and the P for Porte, i.e. “door” – with a metal trunk lid that, importantly, could also be locked. The backlight almost doubled in size at this point as well.

The cheaper all-canvas AZ was produced in parallel with the AZLP until the 2CV got a nose job for 1961. At that point, the canvas rear end disappeared. Citroën didn’t add a metal door out of the kindness of their hearts. Like most changes they introduced on their little escargot, they did it because they had to. There was an entire cottage industry in France around aftermarket accessories for the 2CV: extra trim, mudguards, bigger bumpers, C-pillar windows and all that, but mainly metal trunk lids of various shapes and quality. There were at least six different companies manufacturing those throughout the ‘50s. Clearly, the 2CV’s clients were sending Citroën a message.

Citroën (or rather Michelin, their parent company at the time) were renowned cheapskates and only included the strict minimum that was legally required. Nowhere was this more evident than in the car’s lighting situation. The very first 2CVs (MY 1949) only had a single reflector on the left of the license plate and a license plate light. No stop light, no turn signals – those were not mandated.

From late 1954, the law changed and the 2CV got turn signals and what looked like two taillights. In fact, the only one that functioned as a stop light from the factory was the one on the left; the one on the right was only there as a newly legally-mandated reflector. There was a housing inside and a small hole in the body so that owners could install a light bulb and wiring linked to the left stop light, so that their 2CV’s right stop light could be operational.

This utter nonsense was legal (in France) and all but a few deluxe 2CVs rolled off the production line this way until the legislators, in their infinite wisdom, required two stop lights in 1970. That’s how Citroën kept costs in check, I guess…

Under the corrugated metal hood, we find a minuscule 425cc flat-twin providing a measly 12hp. When Citroën initially developed the 2CV in the late ‘30s, said twin was 375cc and water-cooled; when the finalized car was launched in late 1948, the cooling had switched to air, delivering a grand total of 9hp.

Once the 425 engine entered the fray in the mid-50s, demand for the 375 dried up very quickly – it ended up being dropped altogether by MY 1960. That extra 3hp made a world of difference, though the later 600cc models apparently feel like Ferraris by comparison.

These early 2CVs don’t really have dashboards per se. Behind the steering wheel is what the French called a platine – a narrow metal plate with a few necessities: a starter, a choke, a battery gauge and the running lights switch. The headlights and horn are actioned by the column-mounted stalk; the turn signal switch, which was not part of the original layout, was given its own little metal plate just beneath the air vent knob located in the middle of the base of the windscreen. The cue ball stuck on an umbrella handle is the gear lever.

Here’s a close-up of this zen-minimalist masterpiece we could (but won’t) call a “dash.” You’ll note that the 2CV has three gears plus an “S” for “super vitesse!” I’m not kidding, that’s how they called the 4^th gear on the 2CV. The flat black switch nearest to the steering column is the de-mister; the knob poking out from the bottom left of the dash is used to correct the angle of the headlights, in case anything heavy is put in the back. There are also a couple of small levers hiding under the dash to operate the primitive HVAC system. The very first cars used to have a starting pull-handle (like a lawn mower’s) on the right of the dash; this was mercifully replaced by an electric starter, coupled with a key, sometime in 1950.

We’re almost done with out little tour of the cabin here. The big ivory-coloured knob on the left-hand side controls the wipers, which are mechanically powered by the speedo’s cable, and thus only function on their own when the car is moving. If they are not going fast enough for you or the car is at a standstill, the knob can be used to operate the wipers directly, by hand.

Last, but not least, but still sort of an afterthought: the speedo. It lived up there, on its own, from the car’s inception until late 1962, when the austere platine gave was to a (marginally) more substantial still-not-quite-dash. Being able to tell how slow you were going was not necessarily all that important in a 425cc 2CV. For the record, max speed was about 80kph on level ground, wind permitting.

The back seat is surprisingly decent, for an economy car’s economy car. The windows don’t open, but there should be plenty of draughts to keep the air moving inside the cabin. Two people can sit comfortably back here. A third passenger, in the middle, could fit in theory, but in practice there is a metal bar there. Yes, I know this from personal experience. The tartan upholstery is absolutely correct for a mid-to-late ‘50s AZ.

The lone oddity on this otherwise very nicely-presented car is the colour of the headlamps. Those should be in the same shade of mouse grey as the rest of the car – pretty much all domestic market 2CVs wore that colour until 1959, when a blue became available, but only on the fancier AZLP.

Going back to the title of this post, the exact phrase, used in a 2CV brochure from the early ‘70s, was Quatre roues sous un parapluie (“Four wheels under an umbrella”). It’s a vivid image and an excellent PR slogan. But in my view, the key thing is more about the car being large enough to carry four adults. It’s such a rarity, at the lowest rung of the market.

Back in 1959, this 2CV AZ sold for FF420,000 and would have been pitted against the base trim Renault 4CV (FF419,400 – also a four-door car, but smaller in every dimension), the French-made Vespa 400 (FF350k, two seats only), the Fiat 500 and the Goggomobil 250 (both under FF500k, but good luck fitting in the back). By any measure, the Citroën was more liveable, intelligent and original than its rivals.

It also had a modicum of comfort usually absent from economy cars, thanks to its odd interconnected suspension (see this post for more details). That was baked in from the start: Michelin wanted to sell these to farmers at a time when French rural roads were largely unpaved. Soft springing was an imperative.

Citroën spent money where it counted – space, durability, comfort – and pinched every centime they could on the rest of the 2CV: cabin, trim, lighting, styling… Even down to denying their customers a proper trunk lid. They just extended the umbrella down to the rear bumper. Icons don’t like the rain.

 

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