The Citroen "Deux Cheveaux" - funny looking, but ahead of its time

This is a Deux Chaveux. When my brother was stationed in Europe for a short time, he drove one and he hated it. He said every time he hit a bump, the driver's door window would come down.

 

That is the coolest car ever made, and the reason I bought my Ram ecodiesel, it has air suspension and goes up and down 5”, also heated and cooled seats and a heated steering wheel, so it’s cooler


Wait, when I posted the picture below the post was listed, not the ugly red thing, the beautiful blue thing, ( not the blue two below my post) err, is this a political situation?

 

Fugly! (IMO)

 

The DS was a truly unique automobile. Loved the one spoke steering wheel and suspension. However, I still prefer the 2CV as mentioned by El Dobro. Let's see if I can show a pic...



Not very comfortable, but cool nonetheless...

 

You misspelled "FUNKY."

 

If I'm getting my Citroën lore right, "Deux Chevaux" refers to the 2CV, whereas the Inc. article in the OP is all about the DS, a/k/a The Goddess.

That DS is a cool car. Jay Leno likes his, too:

-Chap

 

Hydropneumatic suspension, thankyouverymuch!

-Chap

 

I think you're referring to the Citroen DS 21 - check youtube
citroen ds-21 - YouTube

Totally gorgeous car! Now the Deux-Chevaux was something quite different!
deux chevaux - YouTube

Apols. to all those who posted - I guess I should have read the whole thread! …but I didn't! (…so bite me!!!)

 

I am old enough I remember seeing those as a kid. Even as a kid it made you turn your head because it was different. People made fun of them. It's been my experience that little kids notice things adults don't.

 

G'day (Bonjour),

Citroens were always ahead of the game in design and engineering innovation - if only they also had Toyota reliability and durability. If you want mostly clever and always different, think Citroen.

[Nostalgia mode 'ON'] I had a Citroen GS1220 in the 70's, hydropneumatic suspension with three height settings, air-cooled flat four engine, in-board front disc-brakes (sitting above the engine block and beneath the spare tyre, if I recall correctly), digital speedo(?), single spoke steering wheel, very low drag coefficient, and with everything in the front, a massive boot (trunk).
Alas, here in Oz, the maintenance was very expensive, so when the twins arrived, it had to go, even though I could just about squeeze three child seats across the back. [Nostalgia mode 'OFF']

In my opinion, the truly mould-breaking (innovative) Citroen was the Traction Avant from the 1930s, although the Citroen DS is just about the greatest car ever made en-masse, so if style = 'coolness', I for one would agree with the original item.

Au revoir,
David S.

 

Thanks for starting the conversation. But yes, as @El Dobro , @ChapmanF , @Tideland Prius and @WilDavis said, we're on two different cars here.

• The 2CV was basically France's answer to the Beetle. Its name tells you how powerful it was (2CV is about 9bhp, so prepare for some serious speed). It was designed to be as cheap as possible, and as easy to maintain as possible.
  
• The DS was an incredibly-futuristic (look at @KennyGS ' picture and remember that this was 1955) and incredibly-complicated (swinging lights, hydropneumatic suspension, etc) luxury car.

Both were very cool in their own way.

In Britain when I was at university, the 2CV was the choice of the cool hippieish students (hippieish and alternative and anti-establishment, except THEY COULD AFFORD CARS WHEN THEY WERE AT UNIVERSITY, obviously). Citroen didn't stop making them until 1990.

When we lived in Hong Kong, there was someone who lived on The Peak (the big mountain on Hong Kong Island where you won't find an apartment for under US$10m) who had one. The road up there is steep and winding and narrow, and this thing would wheeze up the mountain at about 10mph, with a huge queue of Rolls-Royces and Bugattis and Ferraris and Bentleys crawling along behind it.

In Australia and Britain, I think the DS is compulsory if you are an architect or the Creative Director of an advertising company. When you qualify as an architect or are promoted to Creative Director of your ad agency, you get a special kit which includes a DS, some small steel-rimmed glasses, a lifetime's supply of Gauloises, a black polo-neck jumper and a goatee-beard comb.

And yet I want one. I know they're appallingly complicated and hideously unreliable, but they're just brilliant. The later ones - like Jay Leno's - look especially cool, I think.

 

A convertible DS21 is particularly sought-after!

 

After spending part of New Year's Eve directing a drunk French kid to RPA Hospital in Sydney, I think I can say categorically that the term is "B'jour". Probably.

 

When I was a kid in Britain, our friends had one of those. And it was nice. Terrible 70s beige, but otherwise good.



This was a 70s car. And yet, in profile, it doesn't look wildly different to a car quite a lot of people on this forum have now.

My best friend at secondary school's dad had the DS' replacement, the CX. It looked like a shark.

Just as I said that it was important to bear in mind that the DS was launched in 1955 to understand how futuristic it was, you need to know that the CX was launched in 1974.

 

Like the 2CV, which had as much power as its name suggests, the Traction Avant had exactly what its name suggested. I do wonder why they don't stick with the same thing now, and have the Citroen Mal Construit and the Citroen Ne Marche Plus. Perhaps a Citroen C'est Foutu - I think that's what my Dad got in 1989.

I actually went in a Traction Avant a couple of years ago. There's a vintage car company in Napier, in New Zealand, that lets you rent cars, with or without a driver. We were doing a vineyard tour which involved a lot of drinking wine, so we got a driver. It was a really lovely car - this is the very one, from the company's website.

 

I'd love one of them.