Citroën has unveiled a new 2CV, with a 2028 launch anticipated. We celebrate the French motoring icon that became one of 007’s most memorable co-stars.
By David Mason
The 2026 Citroën 2CV Prototype
Credit: Citroën / Stellantis
Britain had the Mini. Germany had the Volkswagen Beetle. Italy had the Fiat 500. And France had the Citroën 2CV.
Four extraordinary little cars that put their respective nations on wheels, becoming cultural icons in the process.
Each was inexpensive, practical and utterly distinctive. But only one became a Bond car.
The story of the Citroën 2CV began not in a design studio, but in the muddy fields of rural France.
A scene from rural France in the 1930s, where horse-drawn carts and oxen still provided essential transport for farmers.
Credit: Chronicle
In the mid-1930s, Pierre-Jules Boulanger, the formidable executive who would eventually become head of Citroën, set his engineers an apparently impossible task: to create an automobile so inexpensive, simple and robust that it could replace the horse and cart as the principal means of transport for the French farmer.
The project was christened Toute Petite Voiture — quite literally, Very Small Car.
The design brief was wonderfully eccentric.
Pierre-Jules Boulanger, the visionary Citroën executive who conceived the 2CV in the 1930s as an affordable alternative to the horse and cart for rural France.
Credit: Automobile Citroën
The car had to accommodate four people, including farmers wearing heavy boots, and carry 50 kilograms of produce. It had to be economical enough for a modest rural household to operate, simple enough to maintain without specialist equipment, and comfortable enough to negotiate France's notoriously uneven country roads.
There was even a requirement that its occupants should have sufficient headroom to drive while wearing a hat.
But Boulanger's most celebrated stipulation concerned a basket of eggs.
The suspension had to be sufficiently supple for the car to cross a freshly ploughed field without breaking a single one.
Fresh eggs — the inspiration behind the 2CV’s extraordinary suspension.
Credit: ClassicStock / H Armstrong Roberts
For the engineers charged with fulfilling these demands, conventional automotive thinking was clearly going to be of little use.
Their solution was a masterpiece of ingenious simplicity. Lightweight construction, exceptionally long-travel suspension, a tiny engine and an interior stripped of almost every conceivable luxury.
Early prototypes were so basic that they possessed just one headlight.
1939 Prototype Citroen T.P.V. (Toute Petite Voiture)
Credit: Lebrecht Music & Arts
By 1939, Citroën had constructed 250 pre-production examples, ready for the car's eagerly anticipated debut at the Paris Motor Show.
Then, on 1 September, Germany invaded Poland.
The outbreak of the Second World War brought the project to an abrupt halt. Rather than allow their revolutionary little car to fall into German hands, Citroën destroyed most of the prototypes, secretly concealing a handful at its testing facility at La Ferté-Vidame.
The project remained dormant throughout the Occupation.
When the 2CV finally emerged into the public gaze at the Paris Motor Show on 7 October 1948, it was greeted with a mixture of astonishment and ridicule.
The launch of the Citroën 2CV at the Paris Motor Show (1948)
Credit: Shawshots
The motoring press was distinctly unimpressed. Its ungainly appearance earned comparisons with a sardine tin and an umbrella on wheels.
The public, however, saw things rather differently.
Here was an automobile that ordinary people could afford, capable of transporting an entire family, their luggage and the occasional agricultural commodity in relative comfort.
Its roll-back canvas roof could accommodate oversized loads, its windows hinged upwards rather than winding down, and its unconventional dashboard-mounted gear lever resembled the handle of an umbrella.
A vintage Citroën advertisement celebrates the 2CV’s remarkable capacity to accommodate the whole family.
Credit: Shawshots
The original engine produced a magnificent nine horsepower.
Even the name was a modest boast. Deux Chevaux — two horses — referred not to the engine's actual output, but to its classification under the French taxation system.
Demand was extraordinary. Waiting lists eventually stretched to six years, and the car remained in production until 1990, by which time more than five million examples, including commercial variants, had been built.
The 2CV had become a French national institution.
Paris, France (1954).
Credit: Cuchi White / L'AVO / Photo12
And now, more than three decades after the last 2CV rolled off the production line, Citroën is preparing to bring its most beloved creation back to life.
Unveiled at the Paris Motor Show earlier this month, the new electric 2CV is a thoroughly modern interpretation of the original, retaining its unmistakable silhouette, cheerful personality and delightfully unconventional approach to motoring.
The new Citroën 2CV, unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in October 2026.
Credit: Citroën / Stellantis
A production version is being considered for 2028, with a proposed starting price of around €15,000.
But it is the wonderfully eccentric details that really capture the spirit of its predecessor.
The panoramic roll-back fabric roof recalls one of the original 2CV's most distinctive features.
How to drive en plein air.
Credit: Citroën / Stellantis
Inside, the bright yellow upholstery and minimalist dashboard conceal some wonderfully unconventional thinking.
The traditional centre console has been replaced by a removable wicker basket, equally at home carrying groceries from the market or a picnic into the countryside. The cleverly named Radioën can be detached from the dashboard and used as a portable wireless speaker, while the front and rear bench seats can be lifted out entirely and transformed into outdoor seating.
Clearly, Citroën's designers haven't lost their sense of practicality — or humour.
Less is more.
Credit: Citroën / Stellantis
And then there's one final cracking detail:
In a delightful tribute to Boulanger's most celebrated design requirement, the new car incorporates a specially designed door compartment to accommodate half a dozen eggs.
Nearly ninety years after the original brief was conceived, Citroën clearly hasn't forgotten the importance of getting them home in one piece.
Satisfying the original design brief.
Credit: Citroën / Stellantis
Whether the new 2CV will ever reach production in precisely this form remains to be seen. But in an automotive world increasingly preoccupied with horsepower, technology and performance, its return is a wonderfully refreshing proposition.
And it reminds us of a rather remarkable moment in cinematic history when the world's most famous secret agent abandoned his usual taste for expensive machinery and climbed behind the wheel of one of the slowest cars in Europe.
The film was For Your Eyes Only (1981). And the car was a bright yellow Citroën 2CV.
Roger Moore returns as 007 in For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Credit: ZUMA Press Inc.
By 1981, James Bond had driven some of the world's most desirable automobiles, from the gadget-laden Aston Martin DB5 to the submarine Lotus Esprit. A humble French economy car was hardly the obvious next addition to his collection.
But director John Glen had other ideas.
Following the extravagance of Moonraker (1979), which had taken Bond into outer space, Glen was determined to bring 007 back down to earth, favouring traditional espionage, spectacular stunts and a healthy dose of humour.
Following Moonraker, it was time to bring 007 back down to earth.
Credit: Collection Chrostophel
Nowhere was this philosophy better demonstrated than in the film's celebrated car chase.
The sequence begins at the Spanish villa of assassin Hector Gonzales, where Bond and Melina Havelock, played by Carole Bouquet, are attempting to escape from armed henchmen.
Unfortunately, Bond's Lotus Esprit Turbo is destroyed when one of the villains triggers its elaborate anti-theft system.
With his sophisticated sports car reduced to a smoking wreck, Bond has little choice but to escape in Melina's battered yellow Citroën 2CV.
Bond brought back down to earth.
Credit: © 1981 Danjaq, LLC and United Artists Corporation / EON Productions
The contrast could scarcely be greater. Where the Lotus offered exotic styling, formidable performance and sophisticated technology, the Citroën possessed a modest two-cylinder engine, a canvas roof and precious little else.
Pursued by two considerably more powerful Peugeot 504s, packed with armed villains, Bond embarks on one of the most gloriously improbable car chases in cinema history.
The extraordinary sequence was orchestrated by legendary French stunt driver Rémy Julienne, who had previously helped turn the Mini Cooper into a cinematic icon in The Italian Job (1969).
Filmed on the Greek island of Corfu, the chase required six 2CVs, three of which were fitted with more powerful Citroën GS engines and reinforced to withstand the punishment of spectacular jumps, crashes and rollovers.
A licence to thrill — the 2CV steals the show in For Your Eyes Only (1981).
Credit: © 007 / EON Productions, via the official James Bond YouTube channel.
The little Citroën's unexpected moment of Hollywood glory was not lost on its manufacturer.
To coincide with the release of For Your Eyes Only in 1981, Citroën introduced a special 007 Edition, finished in bright yellow with prominent Bond insignia and a collection of adhesive bullet holes.
Owners could arrange the stickers wherever they pleased, giving the impression that their modest French runabout had survived a particularly enthusiastic encounter with enemy gunfire.
Just 500 examples were produced for the French market, with Roger Moore himself joining the launch celebrations at the Place Vendôme in Paris.
The Citroën 2CV 007 Edition (1981)
Credit: Pierre-Jean Durieu
British toy manufacturer Corgi was equally quick to recognise the little car's potential, adding the yellow 2CV to its celebrated collection of James Bond vehicles.
And in a wonderfully extravagant gesture, Corgi commissioned just twelve specially presented examples, electroplated with 23-carat gold as prizes for its leading retailers.
A gold-plated replica of one of the world's cheapest cars. Even Auric Goldfinger might have appreciated the irony.
One of only twelve gold-plated Corgi 2CVs, auctioned for £2,200 in 2024.
Credit: Vectis Auctions
But the real thing was destined to become considerably more valuable.
In July 2025, one of the six Citroëns used during filming, subsequently rescued from a Paris scrapyard, appeared at Heritage Auctions in the United States.
Still retaining the modifications that had transformed it into a Hollywood stunt machine, the little yellow 2CV sold for an astonishing $150,000.
A surviving Bond 2CV, complete with battle scars, sold for $150,000 in July 2025.
Credit: Heritage Auctions
Not bad for a car originally designed to transport a basket of eggs across a ploughed field.
Forty-five years after its unlikely starring role alongside James Bond, the Citroën 2CV is preparing for another adventure.
Whether its electric successor will ever find its way into a Bond film remains to be seen.
But in an age when automobiles have become increasingly sophisticated, complicated and indistinguishable from one another, there is surely something worth celebrating in the return of a car that dared to be different — and dares to be different again.