The Citroën 2CV (French: deux chevaux or deux chevaux-vapeur, pronounced [dø ʃ(ə)vo (vapœʁ)], lit. "two steam horses", "two tax horsepower") is an air-cooled front-engine, front-wheel-drive, economy family car, introduced at the 1948 Paris Mondial de l'Automobile, and manufactured by Citroën for model years 1948–1990.
Conceived by Citroën Vice-President Pierre Boulanger to help motorise the large number of farmers still using horses and carts in 1930s France, the 2CV has a combination of innovative engineering and utilitarian, straightforward metal bodywork—initially corrugated for added strength without added weight. The 2CV featured low cost, simplicity of overall maintenance, an easily serviced air-cooled engine (originally offering 9 hp), low fuel consumption, and an extremely long-travel suspension offering a soft ride and light off-road capability.
Often called "an umbrella on wheels", the fixed-profile convertible bodywork featured a full-width, canvas, roll-back sunroof, which accommodated oversized loads, and until 1955 even stretched to cover the car's trunk, reaching almost down to the car's rear bumper.
Michelin introduced and first commercialised the revolutionary new radial tyre design with the introduction of the 2CV.
Manufactured between 1948 and 1990, more than 3.8 million 2CVs were produced, making it the world's first front-wheel drive car to become a million seller, after Citroën's own, more upscale Traction Avant was the first front-wheel drive car to sell in six-figure numbers. The 2CV platform spawned many variants, as detailed in the "Production numbers" section. The 2CV and its variants are collectively known as the A-Series. Notably these include the 2CV-based delivery vans known as fourgonnettes, the Ami, the Dyane, the Acadiane, and the Mehari. In total, Citroën manufactured over 9 million of the 2CVs and its derivative models.
A 1953 technical review in Autocar described "the extraordinary ingenuity of this design, which is undoubtedly the most original since the Model T Ford". In 2011, The Globe and Mail called it a "car like no other". The motoring writer L. J. K. Setright described the 2CV as "the most intelligent application of minimalism ever to succeed as a car", and a car of "remorseless rationality".
Both the design and the history of the 2CV mirror the Volkswagen Beetle in significant ways. Conceived in the 1930s, to make motorcars affordable to regular people for the first time in their countries, both went into large scale production in the late 1940s, featuring air-cooled boxer engines at the same end as their driven axle, omitting a length-wise drive shaft, riding on exactly the same 2,400 mm (94.5 in) wheelbase, and using a platform chassis to facilitate the production of derivative models. Just like the Beetle, the 2CV became not only a million seller, but also one of the few cars in history to continue a single generation in production for over four decades.
