2CV had to carry four farmers and 50kg of potatoes; successor will have a more modern remit
French firm to modernise famous 2CV brief in bid to revive Europe’s endangered cheap car market
Citroën’s upcoming sub-£15,000 electric car will have “exactly the same purpose as the 2CV did in the late 1940s” in reigniting buyer demand in a stagnant European car market.
The French brand’s new city EV – expected to be previewed by a concept at the Paris motor show in October – will channel the spirit of the iconic rural runaround in being cheap to build and cheap to buy, as part of a drive to give “buying power” to a large portion of the population that has been priced out of the new car market.
CEO Xavier Chardon last week confirmed Citroën was “working on” proposals for a new A-segment EV priced under €15,000 – as previously reported by Autocar – and said such a model would be “absolutely key” to driving the brand’s market share in a market where growth is being stifled by the increasing average price of new cars.
Indeed, car sales in Europe are still lagging well behind pre-pandemic rates, and the average age of the European car parc is increasing rapidly as a result of people holding on to their existing cars rather than trading up to more costly replacements.
“The European market is the only one that has not recovered after Covid,” Chardon said. “The United States is back, China is back, even South America is back – and we are still missing three million people buying new cars each year in Europe. And I would say 60% of that is driven by the simple fact that you don’t have any cars any more below €15,000 or £15,000.
“It’s quite a sad story that the average age of cars has increased by more than two years in the last five years. We are above 12 years now in average in Europe. So that’s why you need to motivate people to buy new cars, and to be affordable.”
Chardon compared the European market landscape to that of the late 1940s, when super-affordable and utilitarian ‘people’s cars’ like the 2CV, Fiat 500, Volkswagen Beetle and Austin Mini helped to reinvigorate an automotive industry – and wider economy – that had been decimated by World War II.
Citroën’s modern-era solution to similarly downbeat trading conditions is an electric microcar being developed in line with Europe’s impending E-car legislation, designed to make production of such cars more profitable for manufacturers.
Effectively an indirect replacement for the old petrol-powered Citroën C1, this new model could be one of the cheapest full-sized EVs on the market when it lands in the next couple of years, costing several thousand pounds less than even the ë-C3 supermini, which is already among the more affordable.
That focus on affordability, Chardon said, will help to give “buying power to customers that today are not willing to buy new cars”, with the target result being an increase in both Citroën’s European market share, and – crucially – its EV sales mix.
However, even if it adheres to the ethos and plays a similar role to the 2CV in this context, the new car won’t necessarily be designed in tribute to its forebear, nor overtly pitched as a spiritual successor.
“What is more important than the 2CV is to understand the purpose of the car at that time,” Chardon said.
“It was to bring mobility to the masses after World War II, even if it started before. It was to carry four farmers under one roof and be able to carry 50kg of potatoes. I’m not sure that this brief can translate 100% to today – especially because we have less and less farmers in Europe.”
Chardon said the brief for the new car could “replace the farmer with a nurse”, alluding to the increased importance today of making cheap cars appeal to young professionals in urban areas.
The legacy of the 2CV remains hugely influential to Citroën as it plots a new entry-level car, Chardon said, but it won’t necessarily be designed to look like the original, as retro is not always the answer.
“When you look at people that are visiting Paris, they don’t want to be transported in a Rolls-Royce. Or when they are getting married, they want to get married in a 2CV. When you’re at the shopping mall in the duty-free, you will see 2CVs, because it’s part of France. So this is something that we are analysing.
“But ‘nostalgia for nostalgia’ is not a silver bullet. [There are some] very good examples – like the Mini or Fiat 500, and most likely the Renault 5 will also join the club – but at the same time, we all have in mind a lot of revivals that didn’t follow this path.”
