Two horses..

The design criteria:

• Cheap to make
• Cheap to fix
• Low Maintenance
• Must drive over a ploughed field at 40kph without breaking eggs placed neatly in a basket
• Have enough room to accommodate a medium sized pig or twenty chickens
• Removable seats such that the operator could stop and take lunch in style and comfort

Yes, it is the Citroen 2CV. Note the side windows which facilitate the easy ejection of Gauloises cigarette butts.

I don’t think that I had ever seen anything so ugly as the 2CV. The originals looked to have been constructed from surplus corrugated steel, and were even uglier than the 1966 model shown here. Every panel was removable, doors included, and the retractable roof rolled back to the top of the boot lid. The 2CV was a convertible with typical French attitude.

The two cylinder air-cooled engine did not give the car any sporting pretentions, and you wouldn’t want one of these if you lived in England’s Peak District because uphill performance is ‘bad to not going to make it’.

But wait. Fuel consumption is in the same league as a moped, and you really can take the doors off and the seats out. This is a car for the serious picnicers, the type who in 1963 would casually pull up on the centre reservation of the M1 and take tea and sandwiches while watching the MG’s, Triumphs and big Vauxhalls strut their stuff in the fast lanes.

It’s a shame that Brits didn’t have the courage to buy 2CV’s back then. They were a source of amusement for British holiday makers driving down the N7 in France in pursuit of sunshine and a bit of glamour. These were the quirky things that leapt out at one of the many ‘Passage Protegé’ side roads.

Don’t mock the 2CV. The suspension allows these cars to get over quite rough terrain, and there are few cars which can corner with all four wheels in contact with the road while the body lists over at an angle where, if it was a ship, you would have abandoned it hours ago.

Needless to say, it was not the ugliest car ever. There were two derivatives, one called the Dyane and the other called Ami 6.

Citroen brought the 2CV forwards with fancy colour schemes called Charleston and Dolly, and these did catch on in the UK.

For me, it is one of the motoring greats, and it made the roads more interesting than they ever are today.