This Slide-In Citroën Pickup-To-Some-Other-Kind-Of-Truck Is Deeply Cool

You know that strange, satisfied feeling that comes from when two objects fit together well? The way you feel when two things in your hands just snik into place, making a satisfying noise and just the right kind of tactile feeling? Usually that feeling involves some kind of tension and release, pushing over a point of resistance that suddenly snaps into accommodation. It’s a viscerally pleasurable thing, and I can’t exactly explain why, but I know it when I feel it or even see it, and I see it in this remarkable Citroën truck and trailer setup.

The truck in question is a Citroën H-van, but not just any H-van, as you can see. As I’ve written before, the H-van is a remarkable example of un-styling, a vehicle that seems to have shunned any sort of attempt at aesthetic design, yet became an iconic design despite that. This particular variant of the H-van does have some attempts made to be stylish, as it was designed by Heuliez, a French coachbuilder that made a number of H-van-based (and other Citroëns, too) special editions like ambulances and other sorts of vehicles.

Here, you can really see the differences in Heuliez’ designs for the H-van in the cab, which has been totally re-designed (above) compared to the stock H-van (bottom):

That’s a pretty significant difference. The Heuliez design is far more modern and sleek, and while I love the corrugated shed look of the original, I have to give Heuliez credit for making this old workhorse look far more refined.

But that’s not what I want to focus on here. What I want to focus on is this:

Specifically, the way the pickup slides, drawer-like, into the “trailer” unit there, which has its own unpowered rear axle, with the H-truck’s own (also unpowered, remember, this is a FWD machine) rear axle becoming the middle axle (or forwardmost rear axle, whatever, it’s a six-wheeler) when connected to the rear module.

I’m hesitant to call it a trailer because it integrates so tightly with the truck; you’re not really towing anything, it’s more like a module that snaps onto the truck, making one coherent unit.

Look how the rear module’s U-shaped channel just allows the truck bed to slide right in, all tight and satisfyingly. And look how the open-backed cab has that six-sided, peaked metal panel that mates right to the rear module, which has a door with a window to allow access from the cab into the rear.

Look how freaking cool this is! I want to back one of these into the rear module part, it just seems like such a rewarding process. It’s sort of like one of those slide-in campers for pickup trucks but even better, mostly because of the way it has its own axle and isn’t just something that goes in the truck bed, but rather the truck bed slides inside the rear module. It’s different.

It also appears that the areas that accept the sides of the truck bed are, on the inside, made into benches, which is pretty clever.

I’ve only really seen ambulance versions of this, and perhaps all that it was used for, which feels like a shame, because this would have made an incredible RV. You’d have all the convenience factors of a one-unit motor home but with the ability to detach and use the part with the motor independently, like you could if you were towing a trailer.

Why haven’t we seen more of this? Is it because most pickup trucks aren’t really shaped to accommodate this as well as the idiosyncratic shape of an H-van? There have been slide in campers with extra “tag” axles, but they’re not really the same.

Like I said, there’s something just deeply satisfying about these things.