And finally, it's soapbox time. Why did the 2CV have to die? Well, as far as Citroen themselves were concerned, it was all to do with image. For a heavily Peugeot-controlled company that was trying to push the new AX, BX and XM models, having the elderly and anachronistic 2CV on its sales list was just plain embarrassing.

Plus there was the case of the Levallois factory site. In 1948, when production started, the factory was in the middle of an industrial zone. 40 years later the area was over-run with tower blocks, yuppie housing and warehouse conversions. It was the equivalent of having a Rover plant in the middle of, say, Kensington. Citroen realised that selling the site would net millions. So that's what they did. It was just a matter of time before the labour-intensive, practically hand-built Portugese cars were killed off, the convenient excuse of 'new emissions controls' being used.

Attempts were made to save the 2CV, especially in 1987 when Levallois was threatened. Protests included a rally at Citroen U.K. headquarters in Slough by 2CVGB members; a number of protests at Citroen H.Q. in Paris; the presentation of a signed 'petition' 2CV to Citroen by 2CVGB members, and the erection outside Citroen's Paris office of a 300 foot high plasticine model of 'Countdown' host Richard Whitely, whose nostrils directed gigantic squirts of horses' urine through the open windows of the unwary Citroen bosses.(I may have made that last bit up). Nonetheless, as we all know, everything went to the wind in 1990, when the 2CV quietly drifted out of production and into history...

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