Cars in the wild: a Citroën

Coming back from a walk in the forest, I had to take a detour because of contruction work, which led me past this old Citroën. It is not exactly in perfect nick, but the owner told me it will be restaured to its former self.

It's an Ami Super, at least, that's what it says on the back. As you can see, the back and bonnet don't look original, but I pulled the number plate and that confirmed it actually is what it says it is, a Citroën Ami Super:

Olympus Stylus 1s, 85mm, ISO400, f5.6, 1/125s

The Citroën Ami was introduced in 1961, to fill the gap between the cheap and cheerful 2CV and the big and luxurious DS. It was based on the 2CV, with which it shared its chassis, suspension and engine, a tiny 2-cylinder, 602cc unit.

One of its claims to fame was that, together with the Ford Taunus P3, it was the first car with non-round headlights. Before, all headlight were round; it even was the law in the USA.

In 1972, the 4-cylinder, 1015cc engine from the Citroën GS was spooned into the Ami, creating the Ami Super you see in the photos. The larger engine gave it a top speed of 140 km/h (87mph), not at all bad for the period, and still useable.

The model in the photo is a station wagon, which Citroën calls a "Break":

Olympus Stylus 1s, 50mm, ISO400, f5.6, 1/100s

A total of 1.8 million Amis had been built when production stopped in 1978. In some years, it was the best-selling car in France, and most Europeans will have seen one at some point. Only about 300 were sold in the USA.

Previous car in the wild: a Bentley.