This Citroën Dyane Concept Art Reminds Us How Much They Were Actually Holding Back

Have I been writing too many Citroën-based Cold Starts? I probably have. I think this year I’ve had full Citroëmania, and it’s not really abating. This may be one of those sorry-not-sorry types of situations, but I guess it’s at least worth noting that I’m at least aware of what’s happening, even if I feel powerless to stop it. With that in mind, I have to confess I’ve been sort of fascinated by these early concept drawings for what would become the Citroën Dyane, and that means I’m going to show you stuff. So let’s go.

The Dyane is an interesting car, in that it’s a sort of semi-phoned-in attempt to make a somewhat more updated and upmarket 2CV, but without really having to do all that much. The target car was the Renualt 4, which itself was really what Citroën was trying to do: take the 2CV concept and refine it and update it a bit.

In a lot of ways, the Dyane represented Citroën’s perpetual confusion about the “middle” of the market; the 2CV was the low end, the DS was the high end, and they never really seemed to settle on what they wanted in between. They made the Ami from the 2CV mechanicals and a more upmarket, if delightfully peculiar body, but for some reason that wasn’t enough. So, they wanted the Dyane to fit in between the 2CV and Ami, in the same way they originally wanted the Ami between the 2CV and the DS.

The Dyane ended up being pretty literally a somewhat updated 2cv; it retained the basic 2CV proportions and mechanicals and overall dynamic, but smoothed some of the rough edges.

The windows now slid open and closed instead of being hinged flaps. The headlights were now integrated into the fenders, there was more of a real dashboard, the windows were bigger (but still flat glass), the roof could be easily opened and closed from the inside, there was a full hatchback, all that good stuff. But it really just felt like a warmed-over 2CV.

Part of the reason for this is that it is speculated that, originally, the Dyane was going to be a badge-engineered 2CV that would be sold under the Panhard marque, which had been taken over by Citroën in 1965, when the Dyane was being developed. In fact, it was Panhard’s designers tasked with transforming the 2CV into the Dyane (even the name feels related to Panhard names, like Dyna) and you can see the Panhard influence in what the Dyane became. Look at this Panhard, for example:

If you think about that design vocabulary applied to a 2CV’s form, I think you actually would get something like the Dyane.

Of course, before they got to this point, they tried a lot of other stuff, which is what got me excited to talk about all of this in the first place. These early Dyane design sketches are incredible, I think. Look at this really early concept model, which was very much just tweaking the shapes of a 2CV to be more rectilinear and mid-’60s modern:

That, though, wasn’t exciting enough for Panhard’s designers, who then really let themselves go wild:

This one is similar to the top image, just more exuberantly colored. The grille is very much a Panhard-type shape, and that boomerang-shaped front bumper is a bold choice. I love the early-aircraft type of triangular A-pillar windows to give the windshield a more wraparound shape, and note that the diagonal window line continues to the driver’s window, which either slides or folds on that diagonal line.

There’s a whole seven speed holes or maybe some other jewelry above the front wheel, bold grooved side moldings with red inserts, a C-pillar with what looks like double wing elements, a sharp wraparound taillight – the whole thing is so jet-age exuberant and unhinged, I love it.

I suspect Citroën felt this was too far and edging into Ami territory, so later drawings dialed it back a lot.

This one is actually quite close to what the final form would end up, though the front fenders would regress back to a less-integrated 2CV style, but what I really appreciate is how deep that inset section of the sides goes. In the production Dyane, there is an inset intaglio shape to the doors, but it’s nowhere near as dramatic as this. I suppose that inner bulge could become an armrest of sorts? It’s quite odd.

I love seeing how ideas evolve like this; in the end, the Dyane sold okay, but not nearly as well as expected, and in the end the old, archaic 2CV design outlasted it. There’s probably a lesson there. Mostly, though, I really like the idea of a badge-engineered 2CV. For a car so idiosyncratic, it’s hard to imagine it under another name, a Panhard Dyane or whatever. It’s like if Audi sold a Beetle in the ’70s called the Audi 10 or something like that?