I’ve just heard that the original Citroën 2CV could get up to 90 miles per gallon. I’ve also found that they were built until 1990. How many miles per gallon could the later models get?
AFAICT the original design was for it to go 100km on 3 liters of petrol, which is about 78 mpg. I doubt that the actual cars did better than that, but then under the right conditions (low speed, hyper-inflated tires, etc) one can often beat the label mileage. You do however see a lot of people with this odd glamourized obsession for these cars claim 100, or more mpg, but actual scientific tests are never presented. A person I knew who had a late model one (1980’s) claimed they got about 45-50 mpg in mixed city/highway driving, which is pretty damn crappy considering a CRX HF could get 51 city/59 highway at the time.
Don’t know about the fuel mileage, but IIRC correctly the early 2CV had a 10 HP engine. The seats also looked like lawn chairs (steel frame, with webbing stretched across.
Overall a very French car.
No, the original 2CV had a 2 horsepower engine. Hence the name - 2 Chevaux (SP?).
That was the horsepower for tax classification. The actually BHP rating was higher. From the Wiki article:
Addendum. The wiki articles on the 2CV (quoted above), and “tax horsepower”:
It was also started with a pull cord, which I can’t imagine folks today putting up with.
[Maxwell Smart]Missed by that much[/MS]
Additionally, even the later models could be started by hand, using the other end of the multipurpose crank tool supplied for removing wheel studs and operating the scissor jack - the end of the crank was inserted through a hole in the front grille (there was no radiator), where it would engage with a spiral fastening at the end of the crankshaft. On successfully turning the engine over, the crank would be ejected by the spiral fastening overtaking the rotation of the crank.
I started my 2CV more than once this way (back in the sweet days when I owned one).
Another car that I’d love to have, with that sardine can roll top roof. I believe that was the car that Richard Dreyfuss drove in American Graffiti.
One of the goofiest looking cars I ever saw. It reminded me of those devices that were made to roll your own cigarettes.