The I'm Bored Guess The Car Quiz (No Googling allowed)
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Turbo-Banana gets it!
This car has quite a story to it - I think it's very interesting but please feel free to ignore it (tl;dr etc)
Back in the early 50's in France two of the most popular new cars were the Renault 4CV and the Citroen 2CV. One chap called Jean Dagonet had a reasonable reputation for tuning and modifying the 2CV. His company was called RAF and his cars were popular with rally enthusiasts as the cars were chopped and channeled and had mostly new bodywork made in GRP. Along with body and suspension mods he also tuned the engines and figures suggest that the output varied between between 14-26bhp depending on the work done (standard 2cvs of that era had 12bhp, so it was a healthy increase).
Looks were divisive...
In 1955 Dagonet sold RAF and with another chap set up a company called UMAP. The idea was to make a faster, more attractive 2+2 based on the underpinnings of the 2CV which they knew well, with his own engine modifications as options. The car was called the UMAP 425SM. The base model fell within the power restrictions for taxation purposes of the period.
UMAP approached Citroen in the hope of achieving factory support in the same way Alpine approached Renault at around the same time. This would enable UMAP to buy the skateboard chassis, with drive train and suspension etc all in place ready to accept the attractive GRP body (which only weighed about 55kgs) and new interior. Alpine received full Renault support for creating the A106 on the 4CV platform, which set them in good stead to launch the brand. Citroen refused steadfastly any interest in the UMAP venture.
Despite this a car was launched at the 1956 Paris Salon and (by all accounts) received a fair amount of attention for two reasons. One was its charming good looks, design and quality. Secondly was its price. Due to the aforementioned refusal from Citroen to supply chassis to UMAP, they had to buy brand new, fully built cars and go about converting them. This drove the price up to double that of the standard 2cv. In any case, the same year it was launched, the big show stopper was the unveiling of the Renault Dauphine.
Over the next 4 years or so cars were churned out in small quantity and from what i've read there were thought to be around 40-50 examples made until production ceased in 1960.
Now this next paragraph is purely my own speculation and is not based on fact at all:
It is my belief that when Citroen saw the UMAP proposal a little spark was set glowing away in their mind. Because 3 years later Citroen revealed thier own 2 door, attractively styled, modern 2+2, GRP bodied car based on the 2CV. This one was penned by Peter Kirwin-Taylor (Lotus Elite fame), and was assembled in the Slough factory. They called this the Citroen Bijou.
If you do a comparison side-side of the two cars the window shape and windscreen is very similar, as is the treatment of the side and front/wing. The main difference in shape is the rear haunch/quarter panel.
Only 210 examples of this were sold between 1959 and 1964. The problem with this was again two-fold. The body was relatively complex to manufacture and was expensive to make in any real volume, so cost was high. In addition to this it was also quite heavy and (with an un-modified engine) performance was worse than the standard 2CV, even though a higher top speed was possible due to the more aerodynamic shape. Despite the pretty bodywork, this was too much for the public to handle, so sales were very low.
[/boring history lesson on early 2CV derivatives]
This car has quite a story to it - I think it's very interesting but please feel free to ignore it (tl;dr etc)
Back in the early 50's in France two of the most popular new cars were the Renault 4CV and the Citroen 2CV. One chap called Jean Dagonet had a reasonable reputation for tuning and modifying the 2CV. His company was called RAF and his cars were popular with rally enthusiasts as the cars were chopped and channeled and had mostly new bodywork made in GRP. Along with body and suspension mods he also tuned the engines and figures suggest that the output varied between between 14-26bhp depending on the work done (standard 2cvs of that era had 12bhp, so it was a healthy increase).
Looks were divisive...
In 1955 Dagonet sold RAF and with another chap set up a company called UMAP. The idea was to make a faster, more attractive 2+2 based on the underpinnings of the 2CV which they knew well, with his own engine modifications as options. The car was called the UMAP 425SM. The base model fell within the power restrictions for taxation purposes of the period.
UMAP approached Citroen in the hope of achieving factory support in the same way Alpine approached Renault at around the same time. This would enable UMAP to buy the skateboard chassis, with drive train and suspension etc all in place ready to accept the attractive GRP body (which only weighed about 55kgs) and new interior. Alpine received full Renault support for creating the A106 on the 4CV platform, which set them in good stead to launch the brand. Citroen refused steadfastly any interest in the UMAP venture.
Despite this a car was launched at the 1956 Paris Salon and (by all accounts) received a fair amount of attention for two reasons. One was its charming good looks, design and quality. Secondly was its price. Due to the aforementioned refusal from Citroen to supply chassis to UMAP, they had to buy brand new, fully built cars and go about converting them. This drove the price up to double that of the standard 2cv. In any case, the same year it was launched, the big show stopper was the unveiling of the Renault Dauphine.
Over the next 4 years or so cars were churned out in small quantity and from what i've read there were thought to be around 40-50 examples made until production ceased in 1960.
Now this next paragraph is purely my own speculation and is not based on fact at all:
It is my belief that when Citroen saw the UMAP proposal a little spark was set glowing away in their mind. Because 3 years later Citroen revealed thier own 2 door, attractively styled, modern 2+2, GRP bodied car based on the 2CV. This one was penned by Peter Kirwin-Taylor (Lotus Elite fame), and was assembled in the Slough factory. They called this the Citroen Bijou.
If you do a comparison side-side of the two cars the window shape and windscreen is very similar, as is the treatment of the side and front/wing. The main difference in shape is the rear haunch/quarter panel.
Only 210 examples of this were sold between 1959 and 1964. The problem with this was again two-fold. The body was relatively complex to manufacture and was expensive to make in any real volume, so cost was high. In addition to this it was also quite heavy and (with an un-modified engine) performance was worse than the standard 2CV, even though a higher top speed was possible due to the more aerodynamic shape. Despite the pretty bodywork, this was too much for the public to handle, so sales were very low.
[/boring history lesson on early 2CV derivatives]
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