1948 Citroen 2CV Type A
In 1939, when Michelin bought Citroen, Pierre-Jules Boulanger created the Citroen Toute Petite Voiture (Very Small Car) or TPV as a small “Umbrella On Four Wheels” and the design motive was to make it so the car could drive across a freshly plowed field with a basket of eggs and none of them would break. They successfully made prototypes of the car and introduced it to the public, but then Germany invaded France, so to avoid the Nazis from using the TPV for military purposes, the french buried some of the prototypes and the rest were destroyed. After WWII, France was war ravaged. Roads were destroyed, pre-war cars were wrecked, people lost their lives, and others were poor or homeless. Citroen wanted to fix this. They relaunched the TPV project, renaming it the Citroen Deux Chevaux Vapeur (Two Steam Horses) or 2CV, as a cheap car for the french people. As a budget car, the 2CV had fold-up windows instead of wind-down windows, instead of a standard trunk they instead replaced the sheet metal with a canvas trunk, and to save even more sheet metal, they used a convertible canvas top. The car also had hammock seats and the whole car was a nice car, and the car also featured suicide doors. The car was very cheap and a lot of French people ended up buying it. However, it was slow. The wheezy 2-Cylinder 375cc engine could barely go up to 70 km/h.
Statistics
Year of production: 1948
Top speed 65 km/h (40 mph)
Price: around the $3000 price range (estimate when new in 1948)
Displacement: 375cc
Weight: 600 kg (1323 lb)
Drivetrain: FWD
Let’s hope this gets added in the name of Pierre-Jules Boulanger