Forgotten design studies - Colani 2CV
01/29/2022
Even with its pre-war-style body, the Citroën 2CV was a very economical car. But even the 5.4 liters of regular gasoline per 100 kilometers stated in the brochure could be significantly undercut, as Luigi Colani proved in the summer of 1981. The designer from Karlsruhe hated angular shapes and a streamlined body was the ultimate goal of automobile development.
So he wrapped the chassis of a brand-new 2CV in a plastic shell that corresponded to his idea of the ideal body shape. The result looked like a cyberpunk version of the Jaguar hearse from "Harold and Maude", whose technical basis could only be identified by its characteristic wheels.
Just how right Colani was with his theories about the backwardness of the body design of production cars was proven a little later by his plastic 2CV on the Contidrom test track. Equipped with special low-rolling resistance tires from Goodyear, the streamlined duck only needed 1.7 liters of petrol per 100 kilometers, setting a new world record for the lowest fuel consumption of an automobile.
This raises the question of whether the Colani 2CV is really a forgotten design study - or rather a forgotten record-breaking vehicle like the Audi 200 Turbo Quattro.
