There were immediate benefits in joining the common market in 1973 — cheap wine, New Year’s Day as a national holiday and espadrilles on supermarket shelves — but the most colourful arrival from the Continent was the Citroën 2CV.
True, the “Tin Snail” had for a while in the 1950s been assembled in Slough from kits but they always looked unfinished. With tariffs abolished in 1973, the 2CV (which stood for deux chevaux, French for “two horses”) came clattering across the Channel, bringing with it a sense of Gallic gaiety and fun and a fug of noxious fumes from its flat twin-cylinder air-cooled engine.
Its flaws were somehow its strengths. Paper-thin metal provided no crash protection at all yet it made the car super-lightweight. It could manage only 67mph flat out, less with passengers, but there was never any danger of breaking the 70mph national speed limit. The best thing was that it cost just £830 in 1974 against £1,254 for a Mini Clubman estate.
Famously, the 2CV was conceived by Pierre-Jules Boulanger of Citroën to appeal to French farmers still using horses and carts. His brief to staff was that it should be able to cross a ploughed field with a basketful of eggs on the passenger seat without breaking them, hence its soft suspension, which made it a delight to drive even if it did lean dangerously on bends.
In the UK it was quickly adopted by Francophiles and teachers expressing solidarity with les paysans. A dandelion yellow 2CV parked at our school belonged to my English teacher, who looked like a mini-skirted Julie Christie. The car complemented her beret, filtered Gitanes and Jean-Paul Sartre books.
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Second-hand, it was cheaper than chips and became a counterculture favourite, driven overland on the hippie trail to Kathmandu or Kabul. It tackled the gruelling Dakar rally, pulled ploughs and was converted to sell ice cream and coffee.
After more than four decades in production, the 2CV came to the end of the road in 1990 with more than five million sold. You can buy a well-travelled 2CV today for £2,000 but an immaculate one may cost another £10,000. Our favourite is the 1981 James Bond special. With the “007” logo emblazoned on the doors and fake bullet holes at the back, it was made to celebrate the car’s appearance in For Your Eyes Only in which it was chased down a mountain, driven by Roger Moore, at one point barrel-rolling through olive groves and racing backwards to outrun villains. “I love a drive in the country, don’t you?” Moore quips.
If you can’t afford the real thing, there’s always a die-cast Corgi model.
