Plathon

For a few years now, "2CV rides" have been flourishing in France. Every year, thousands of tourists of all nationalities smiling, looking amazed, and with visible delight, squeeze into the back of this narrow, uncomfortable, slow and noisy vehicle through the cities and countryside of France. So where does this worldwide fascination for one of the least equipped and lowest-performing vehicles ever designed come from?

The basket of eggs must arrive intact !

In 1934, an atypical project was born: that of a simple and inexpensive "very small car", solid and practical, designed above all for rural populations. Its specifications, written by André Boulanger, then director of Citroën, were in a dozen lines and remain to this day the simplest ever designed. Here is the substance: "a car capable of transporting two farmers in clogs, fifty kilos of potatoes or a barrel at a maximum speed of 60 km/h [...]  This vehicle must be able to pass on the worst roads [and] the baskets of eggs carried in the back must arrive intact."

The war having put the project on hold, it was in 1948 that this small, robust, peasant, cheap, spartan machine was finally unveiled to the public, which did not care much about aesthetics. "In the unanimous opinion, the 2CV is ugly. Its old and simplistic lines shock the eye from all angles" wrote the Auto-Journal of September 15, 1950. This is a far cry from the DS sung by Roland Barthes in Mythologies as "a superlative object [...], the fairly exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals." And, in fact, this country car, designed to allow field workers to move from farm to farm, does not really seem to be a legendary object... At least not yet.

The context worked in its favor: in these post-war times when resources were limited, the 2CV rapidly expanded its customer base beyond the restricted circle of an exclusively rural public. And soon became the car of choice (admittedly constrained) for workers with little money. A strange transition, by which the peasants' carriage becomes... that of the workers. Workers finally able to afford the dream of mobility and discovery that the family car represents. To go see the sea, at last! This was the time of the extension of paid holidays initiated about ten years earlier by the Popular Front, and the gradual discovery by the working classes of the very idea of "leisure". The 2CV quickly found itself associated with this newly discovered freedom: the emerging era of free time, leisure time, and goodwill.

This lasts ten years. But at the dawn of the 1960s, the 2CV, a low-end model designed nearly thirty years earlier, was aging. Its success is eroding. Its old lines, its non-existent equipment, its comfort from another age and its sluggish engine are no longer in line with the expectations of the customers of the Glorious Thirty.

The revival

Citroën then made a fundamental shift in image. A stroke of genius, really, and the beginning of the myth: gone are the practical and solid cars of workers, here comes the time of the friendly car of friends and lovers. Slight redesign of the bodywork and particularly the bonnet, small improvements in performance and comfort, and the launch of a colorful range. Leaving behind its two unique and sober shades of the 1950s (grey and ice blue), the 2CV is now available in bright colors: yellow, red, green... And, by skillful communication, brings about a truly miraculous transformation of its defects into qualities. Thus its canvas roof, designed because of the lack of metal after the war and to lower production costs, is no longer a necessity but an asset: what a joy indeed to have a convertible for walks in good weather! Who can say the same, if not the owners of overpriced convertibles? The 2CV thus succeeds in the impossible combination of the practical and the attractive, the cheap and the desirable.

At a time when the car was a rare, precious and serious commodity, which displayed, even more than today, social status and professional success (as Jacques Tati wonderfully illustrates in his movie "Mon oncle"), this small, round, convertible, colorful and very simple car became the first "funny" car - a unique idea that would not be reborn until thirty years later with the first Twingo. With this thumbing of its nose at seriousness and dark-colored limousines driven by well-to-do and gentrified fathers, Citroën is taking the extraordinarily daring gamble of positioning itself in a new market: that of young people and students.

It is a new life for the 2CV, whose image goes from necessity to desire, from constraint to covetousness. The May 1968 movement came at the right time: this context of revolt against the "old world", and in particular against the symbols and values of the bourgeoisie, contributed to the iconification of the rebellious little car. The liberation of morals that accompanies it reinforces this effect. Thus, from the 1960s onwards, advertisements flourished showing young women (often), young couples (sometimes), flourishing in their little "insolent" car, red, yellow or apple green. At the beginning of the 1970s, the 2CV reached the peak of its symbolic success: the car for happy, liberated, carefree young people. Discovering the freedom of movement as the embodiment of all freedom. This freedom that they touch with their fingers for the first time, just entering the majority and suddenly freeing themselves from the tutelage of their parents. It's not every day that you're 20 years old!

All good things must come to an end... but legens don't die

The stroke of genius of 1960 revived the success of the 2CV for almost thirty more years. Unrivalled longevity in the automotive world. But everything must come to an end: in the 1980s, the proliferation of ever more playful and colorful limited series was no longer enough to hide the terrible obsolescence of a vehicle designed sixty years earlier. Its production finally stopped in 1989.

More than just a means of transport, a car is a piece of imagination: a piece of autobiography to which emotional memories are attached, but also a piece of history that reflects and revives the society in which it was produced. In an astonishing and unique syncretism, the collective imagination of the 2CV today combines that of the "peasant" models (48-63) and that of the "student" models (63-89).

First of all, it is the dream of a certain world where everything was simpler, more authentic, more tranquil, that of a lost golden age "beret and baguette" that was largely phantasmagorical. A time when we had and took our time, before high-speed travel, and permanent interconnection via the Internet or smartphones. In the hyper-connected world that is now ours, the 2CV, whose sluggishness is legendary, seems to symbolize the perfect opportunity to escape for a brief moment from the constraints of competitiveness and efficiency, and to "find one's inner turtle", in the words of Carl Honoré in L'Éloge de la lenteur.

Mixed with this is a neo-romantic idealization of the countryside, the morning mist on the small departmental road crisscrossing between twisted trees, and birds that fly away at the approach of the backfiring vehicle. The 2CV is also the fantasy of the city dweller fixated on the crowing of the rooster, the bales of straw and the cheerful and friendly farmer women humming "Douce France".

But it is also the dream of a certain self. The fantasy of returning to one's 20s, of rediscovering life, of living one's first friendships and first loves. The 2CV is the automotive incarnation of the fountain of youth. A little corner of paradise where, for a few moments, you can dream of being rejuvenated, rebellious, and reliving carefreeness, infinite freedom, and this feeling that everything is open, everything is to be built, everything is possible again.

This bubbling of diffuse feelings, of intertwined memories, of superimposed images, this dream of another self in another world without the need for a virtual avatar, this is what constitutes the imagination and symbolism of the 2CV. And which inspires these bursts of pure and refreshing happiness in the contemporary passengers of this little condensed imagination, this immortal little vehicle.

Romain Leroy-Castillo