Motoring Alan Judd
THE AMI, MY LITTLE FRIEND
From the 1930s to the 1970s, Citroën innovated.
Whereas most new car models were refinements of their predecessors, Citroën strove to change the way cars moved, steered and stopped, earning French engineering a reputation for stylish design and original thinking.
Remember the Traction Avant (1934-1957), the car with a drive-on part in almost every film about the French Resistance and every episode of the original television Maigret series? Or its almost space-age successor, the frogeyed DS and the variants it spawned?
Although both were designed by the Italian Bertone, they were thought of as quintessentially and charmingly French. And their beauty was more than skindeep: the revolutionary DS suspension system was adopted by Rolls-royce.
Best-known, of course, was the little 2CV (1948-1990), Citroën’s answer to the VW Beetle. Designed to carry a family of four plus 50kg goods to market, as well as to get eggs across a ploughed field unbroken, it and its variants sold 3.8 million. One variant was the Ami, offered in four-door saloon and estate versions, the latter known as the Ami 8.
My father, a farmer, had an old one which he rated his best-ever car – reliable, simply maintained (replacing its little 602cc engine took the local garage less than a morning) and genuinely capable of crossing ploughed fields. Slow, noisy and tinny – yes, but that didn’t matter. It did everything he asked of it, in surprising comfort.
In 1976, Citroën was taken over by Peugeot, and new models, though often good and worthy, were no longer revolutionary. Until –perhaps – now. There’s a new Ami.
It looks like a car – four wheels, two doors, two seats and an enclosed body – but in France can be driven by 14-yearolds without a driving licence (unlikely here). It’s electric, powered by a small 5.5kwh battery with a range of 43 miles and a recharging time of three hours from an ordinary 230v household socket.
Unlike other electric vehicles, it offers no sensational 0-60mph acceleration time. That’s because it never reaches 60: its top speed is 28mph. But, with the average speed in town centres being under 10mph, that should be no worry.
You’ll be able to buy it outright for £5,500 or lease it for £20 a month with a £2,400 deposit. It’s Europe’s cheapest car and if it takes off – as it almost could, since it weighs less than half a ton – it could redefine the city car.
What you get for your money is a cute little runabout under eight feet long (about three-quarters of an old Mini), uncluttered by safety aids such as airbags, crumple zones and clever electronics.
That’s because it is officially a quadricycle rather than a car, built in Morocco with a steel frame and interchangeable plastic panels and doors; hence the passenger’s door is fronthinged and the driver’s rear-hinged. (All models are currently left-hand drive.) It may not be as safe as larger cars, but it’s a lot safer than anything on two wheels.
The minimalist cabin has a glass roof with good head height for tall people, a screen showing speed and range, a lever to engage drive or reverse, a cradle for your phone, a knob for hanging handbags and, reports say, plenty of storage. The seats are reckoned fine for short journeys.
It won’t be sold here for a while, but should be as cheap as chips to run and its environmental impact is about as light as can currently be designed. It won’t skip across ploughed fields like my father’s old Ami and you may notice pot-holes a little more but, at £20 a month, you can put up with that.