I’ve been on sort of a Citroën 2CV kick lately, allowing myself to indulge my usual obsessions with the famous French tin snail, and thankfully the internet is a pretty welcoming place for people who choose this path in life, providing wonderful deux chevaux treats like this little video shared by our pals at Hagerty UK.
It’s exciting to see a humble little 2CV scramble so tenaciously and determinedly up that dirt hill, a crude and clever little machine managing a feat that vastly more complex and expensive hardware would struggle with.
Still, this 2CV isn’t exactly stock; see if you can spot what may be different:
Send this to all of your friends with expensive, complicated 4x4s, who bought them for their off-road prowess… ????
Now THAT is impressive… ????
Via @2cv.clubbadajoz pic.twitter.com/lepUE1odBz
— Hagerty UK (@HagertyUK) April 30, 2025
Aside from the body modifications (the cutaway fenders, what seems to be a metal instead of canvas roof, removal of the trunklid, etc) this 2CV seems to have a 4WD system! Now, it does not appear to be Citroën’s only production 4×4 2CV, which used the clever method of shoving a second engine in the rear to get all those wheels driven:
No, there’s no second flat-twin at the rear of this one; I think what’s going on here is that it’s using the single-engine/transfer case 4WD setup as used on the 4×4 Mehari. They may also have the larger flat-four engine from the Citroën GS, too, but I can’t confirm that. Whatever engine is in there, I do like seeing that exhaust pipe peeking out from the side of the engine bay, too:
And here’s how the Mehari-type 4×4 setup looks; as you can see, there’s a transfer case and driveshaft to a rear differential, and note there are still inboard disc brakes at the rear:
I got to drive one of these 4×4 Meharis a few years back, though I didn’t attempt anything nearly as demanding as those kooks scrambling up that hill:
There’s something inspirational about watching that 2CV get up that hill, isn’t there? I think so.
This is what an off-roader should be. : D
That was fun. But other than additional ground clearance, I think my ’84 Tercel 4×4 station wagon, with its 4×4 only mode granny gear could have done that. I miss it.
OTH, I admire the work and spirit that went into the making of that car and video.
And I absolutely LOVED the (Belgian) Magritte reference!
Yup, it’s a fun watch, but not super impressive. It’s a beefed-up 2CV with a “big” engine and the transmission from a Mehari 4×4; of course it’s going to do well in offroad trails. My Renault 4 is FWD and I’ve done some crazy offroading in it that would’ve been more impressive than most of what we see in this video, if anyone had filmed it. And always in reverse, to have the weight of the car pushing the driven wheels down for traction.
Those videos, had they been shot, would have been both impressive and hilarious. I’m sad they weren’t. I do remember seeing a commercial for the R4, where the test driver sticks both hands out the window, nailing the brakes, on a watered-down test track, and it coming to a stop without any swerving. To adolescent me, the R16 was interesting.
I had a surfer chick friend (not a girlfriend but a friend who was a girl) in college who had a Peugeot 504 that I rode in oh, like five times. A few years later I bought one.
Designed to withstand the rigors of Africa, it held up very well until its backend got shoved in by an idiot in a Plymouth Fury SW.
RIP, Winnie the Peugeot.
Yo one of my saved ads right now is a 504 break for €700 that feels like the deal of the century – I wish I could fool my wife into beliving that as well. Love the 504, really an amazingly well engineered vehicle. One of the undisputed kings of African roads (well, African terrain in general), 100%. They made them well into the 2000s in Kenya and Nigeria.
I just realized the ad I was thinking of was for a Renault 10. I don’t know how I came up 4.
The 504 sounds like a great deal. You can tell your wife I said so.
The Renault 10 is pretty cool – I wish Renault hadn’t completely erased their RR legacy afterwards, they made some very fine rear engined cars. It wouldn’t be until the third generation Twingo that they’d have a non-Alpine model with RR layout, and even then, it was a rebadged Smart. Not saying they should be bringing it back in large scale, but I wish they’d retained it for cars like the 12 or the 16. But I get that they were trying to come up with more modern engineering, not keep an outdated layout alive.
I just mustered up the courage to show my wife the ad. Didn’t work, but thanks for enabling me.
You’re welcome, but I’m sorry it didn’t work. 🙂
One other thing I remember, since we’re talking about Renaults, is that the R16 had asymmetrical wheelbases, side to side. I don’t remember which side was longer than the other, or why.
One other thing about French cars I remember is that I had a friend whose boyfriend had a Citroen DS 21 and the long-lasting scent of the adhesives (I guess?) used in assembling them and the 504 gave both cabins a similar smell. Pretty pleasant, actually.
It’s not just the Renault 16, The Renault 4 also has different wheelbases, the passenger side is a bit longer. It’s due to the suspension setup, one trailing arm is slightly ahead of the other. The Renault 6 may have also used this setup, but I can’t say for sure.
More off road cred than any of these “adventure” lifestyle rolling-mayonaise-on-wonderbread crossovers the industry keeps turning out.
When the Fisker Karma first came out, I was impressed, until I saw where the exhaust was.
Jason, I think you’re right about the engine, it does not sound like the original 600cc 2 cylinder. It is possible to fit the 4 cylinder boxer from the GS, they installed this same engine for the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only. That movie is from the 80s, meaning that the stunts were filmed, not computer generated, and the regular 2CV was too slow for an action-packed pursuit.
While this doesn’t sound like a regular 2CV, it does sound like one that has been modified with more displacement and less muffler. There are kits to go from the stock 602cc to over 800cc. I can briefly see the white plastic engine cooling fan in a few frames also. The 2CV motor is preferred off road because of its tolerance to operating at extreme angles.
Interesting, I didn’t know there was a 800cc kit. Another mod that was relatively popular was to install a Boxer engine from a BMW bike. I don’t know which one, so I don’t know the displacement or how much horsepower, I think it’s probably twice as powerful as the original engine
Pretty sure “pipe” is French slang for blowjob, which makes the caption on that picture pretty funny
As a French I confirm
A Pipe : a tuyau
Une pipe : either a blowjob or an actual slicking pipe. (the context will tell)
Edit : the 2CV doesn’t seem to be a regular 2CV, not even a 2 engined 4WD one… I’md even doudting the engine comes from a 2CV of any kind.
The front suspension looks different from the normal leading arm setup of the 2CV.
It’s a normal 2CV suspension but with the arms reinforced with additional metal bracing.
I think young Otto meant mows grass when he said ‘lawns grass.’ Also, what’s that weird bird on the hood about… it’s not factory, is it? Did Citroen adopt him as a mascot for the Mehari? He reminds me of Drinky Crow. 😉
Never saw a Mehari before. Thanks Jason!
Cool. Let’s go 100 years back in time: https://youtu.be/jaNgYhvmtzA?si=xqlRJXThc8ntNNYf&t=79
When I was in college at UW Madison in the early 90s there was a big snow storm, 30″+ that basically shut down the city. While walking around campus a friend and I heard this strange “put, put, put” noise and soon saw a Ford Model-A making its way down the street. It was the only thing moving.
Halloween ’91, IIRC. I was in college four hours northwest at your rival university, also snowed in.
Ground clearance and really skinny, heavily weighted tires can do that.
We had a similar snow event north of Seattle (although I measured only 24″ of snow on our street) in late 1994 and our Jeep GC couldn’t make it very far down the road before it got high-centered underneath. I had to snow shovel a path to get it to a plowed road and then shuttle my in-laws to Portland so they could fly home to SoCal. They vowed to never fly back up during winter.
The newborn son they came up to visit (and us, I guess) ended up going to UW Madison for law school and we equipped him with a used ’95 AWD Escape (not easy to find during a gap year in New Orleans, the ’06 CR-V we already had during his undergraduate years might’ve been the better play), but he lived within walking distance and between the challenge and price of parking nearby, hiked the mile or so, to campus. A few years before COVID, when he could have just gone online to get the lecture.
Stuff like that builds character. He and his wife live in Milwaukee now and when it gets bad, they ordinally can dial it in from home. They still have the Escape, but also a 2024 Mazda MX-5 they usually use to get around. I won’t be surprised when they get rid of the Ford, but it might have some nostalgic value.
This could be SWG if he would shoot me a text and we get to work on his!
There was a kit (kit Voisin) homologated to transform your 2CV in 4×4.
https://2cv-legende.com/2cv-series-speciales/2cv-4×4-marc-voisin
This highlights one of the best parts of off roading is that it is a combination of hardware and skill. All the fancy hardware will help a bit but not if you have no skills and skills can take you far without fancy hardware, but you need a little bit of hardware.
And the eggs still didn’t crack!
Performance like this is why the Afrikar used 2CV running gear. Light and agile is an excellent formula for off reading. The Baja Bug is a related case
I bought the Afrikar book a couple years ago. It has pride of place in my garage bookshelf. I like building plywood composite boats and weird underpowered cars. Perfect combination.
the car is literally named “To Climb Verticals”. What did you think 2CV stood for?
I thought it meant Constant Velocity on whatever terrain
Ceci est une Franco-Jeep.
I 100% agree. Tres Magnifique!
We’ve neglected articulation for traction control in modern cars. This shows that while they are both effective, flex lets you do more with less.
That’s quite a flex, indeed.
I measured my 2cv flex recently – over 12 inches in the front without compressing the bump stops and around 15 inches in the back. I’ve seen even higher values claimed by some people too.
See: Ford Model T. Which was designed to drive off-road, because there weren’t many roads!
In this instance then, 2CV would stand for Deux Chèvres.
It’s the GOAT!
Nicely done, you two.