Retro cars usually arrive wearing an old badge, three pieces of chrome and the faint whiff of a marketing meeting. Citroën’s 2CV Concept has a much better idea. It borrows the original car’s grin, certainly, but its real target is the philosophy underneath: make a small car light, useful, cheap and cheerful enough that people actually want it.
That sounds obvious. Look around the current market and it is practically revolutionary. Small cars have been retreating while everything else grows heavier, pricier and more complicated. The 2CV Concept points the other way. It is electric, just 3.76 metres long and aims to weigh about one tonne. Citroën is targeting a European starting price of roughly €15,000 for the production model it plans to reveal by 2028.
There is no confirmed UK price or specification yet, so put the calculator away. The important bit is the intent. Citroën wants to build this in Europe, position it between the tiny Ami and the C3, and make it comply with the proposed European E-Car rules. If that framework delivers charming, affordable machines rather than miserable penalty boxes, it might earn the right to exist.
It copies the joke, not the punchline
The styling is unmistakably 2CV without becoming a costume. Separate round lamps sit beside a curved bonnet, the windscreen stands nearly upright and the roof flows into rounded wings. There are exposed wipers, a fabric sunroof and steel wheels, although at 18 inches those rims have clearly been at the modern-car buffet.
Citroën has resisted the temptation to trace a 1948 silhouette and fit an electric skateboard beneath it. The surfaces are tauter, the lighting is contemporary and the Infra Red paint is closer to a fizzy orange sweet than French agricultural machinery. Even the removable bumpers and flatter panels have a purpose: Citroën says they were designed with mass production and easier repair in mind.
That is where the concept becomes interesting. A proper successor to the 2CV does not need to wobble around corners or recreate an air-cooled engine. It needs to treat material, weight and money as things worth saving. A smaller battery can cost less because it is not being asked to drag two tonnes of car through traffic. Efficiency by subtraction may be less glamorous than a four-second sprint time, but it is far more useful at this end of the market.
The cabin has jokes, baskets and one screen too many
Inside, Citroën has mostly kept its nerve. There is no conventional dashboard. Instead, a horizontal cylinder carries a single-spoke wheel, one control stalk, the selector and essential driver information. Soft straps replace heavy door handles, a removable basket replaces the centre console and the front seat can be pulled out when the car is parked. Yellow tartan upholstery and touches of Bakelite-like beige supply exactly the right amount of eccentricity.
The wonderfully named Radioën can leave the car and work as a portable speaker. Door pockets are shaped to hold eggs, a nod to the original 2CV’s famously practical design brief. The brake pedal wears a tortoise and the accelerator a rabbit. It is silly, but small cars need silliness. Nobody ever formed an emotional bond with a grey touch-sensitive heating slider.
There is, inevitably, an eight-inch square touchscreen. Citroën calls it ‘phygital’, which is the sort of word that should be stopped at customs. If the production car is serious about simplicity, the screen must remain modest and the physical controls must survive. Affordable should mean easy to understand, not cheap hardware buried under software.
The brave part comes next
Citroën says the concept is shorter than the original 2CV and that its eventual range will be tailored to everyday use. It has not announced battery capacity, motor output or a mileage figure. That restraint is refreshing. The world does not need another urban EV carrying enough battery for an imaginary weekly dash to Marseille.
The risk is that the best ideas evaporate on the route to production. Target prices climb, concept weights swell and charming steel wheels acquire costly alloy covers. Europe’s proposed E-Car regulations may also change before this reaches showrooms. Most crucially for British buyers, Citroën has not yet promised that the production model will come here.
Still, this is the first retro revival in ages that understands nostalgia should be used as a compass, not tracing paper. Keep it close to one tonne, keep the controls human and keep the price honest. Do that, Citroën, and the new 2CV will not merely remind people of an old favourite. It could remind the entire industry how to build a genuinely small car.
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