The 2CV Club of Australia is a web-based club for all 2CV enthusiasts, and on the website you will find information about meetings, parts, service, restoration or rebuild jobs and more.

The Citroën 2CV, along with the Citroën DS and Citroën Traction Avant, are seen as quintessentially French cars, as much a part of French culture and the world wide image of France as the Eiffel Tower, the baguette and no French street scene is complete without at least one of these distinctive and unique cars!

A bit of history about the classic Deux Chevaux

The Citroën 2CV was unveiled to the public on 7 October 2008 at the Paris Motor Show. The car was not just a spectacular success in its own right, but also set the layout for generations of small cars to follow - monocoque construction, front-engined, front wheel drive, a light use of materials and fuel and excellent space utilisation - unlike other small cars of the same era.

The rise of mass car ownership in France, as with the rest of Europe, in the mid-1930s made the time ripe for a "vehicle for the people". Designers in engineering offices across the continent were working on a light and economical model that would be cheaper than the other cars of the period.

At Citroën, Pierre Boulanger was working on a project called TPV (for "Tres Petite Voiture" or very small car). Citroën wanted to develop a car that was economical to manufacture, use and maintain - and sold at unrivalled low prices. The idea was to offer customers automotive essentials: four seats, a top speed of 50 kmh, 100 km on 5 litres of petrol, and low production and maintenance costs.

The vehicle was homologated by the French government vehicle testing service on 23 August 1939 under the 2CV A name. But the advent of World War II just several days later, on 3 September, put the car's future on hold. The 2CV A was hidden away during the war, especially from the prying eyes of the Germans, who were developing their own "people's car", the Volkswagen Beetle.

The original production 2CV A was so well hidden, in fact, that it was only rediscovered by chance in 1968, when work was being done at Citroën's La Ferte Vidame test track. The car they found was a real production model, not a prototype. Out of the 100 models that went into pre-war production, only four are left today, including another one found buried under a tree. 

The public, meanwhile, had to wait another ten years for the 2CV. Citroën finally pulled off the wraps at the 1948 Paris Motor Show. The delay mainly resulted from the war and the subsequent shortage in raw materials, but also from obsolescent post-war machinery and the system of government planning that ascribed a specific vehicle category to each manufacturer. So 1948 was the real kick-off year for the 2CV. And despite the mockery of journalists, who found its performance and finish wanting, the post-war public couldn't get enough of this economical vehicle - to the point that waiting lists were as long as five years.

Citroën went on to organise several 2CV rally raids, including the famous Paris-Kabul event. In 1981, it launched the Charleston, the best known of all the "starlets" and still perhaps the best remembered 2CV model, along with the high performance version that featured in a James Bond film with Bond evading his pursuers thanks to the little Citroën. But in the end, regulatory constraints, anti-pollution standards and crash-testing tolled the bell for the 2CV. Production in France ended in February 1989 and at 4 pm on 27 July 1990, the last new 2CV rolled off the production line, at the Mangualde plant in Portugal. A total 5,114,959 2CVs were produced worldwide.