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Citroën Ami
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Citroën Ami
The Citroën Ami is an economy car which was manufactured and marketed by Citroën from 1961 to 1978 over two generations, called the Ami 6 and the Ami 8. A family car, the Ami is front-wheel drive and was made in multiple body styles, including saloon car and estate car variants. The later Ami 8 fastback saloon featured a steeply raked rear window, in contrast to the earlier reverse-raked rear window of the Ami 6 notchback. Over 1,840,396 units were manufactured over the entire production run. The Ami and Citroën Dyane were replaced by the Citroën Visa and Citroën Axel.
Ami is the French word for "friend". With its 602 cc engine capacity fractionally above the limit for 2 CV designation, the Ami was nicknamed the 3CV, differentiating it from the long established Citroën 2CV.
3CV stands for Trois chevaux, or "three horses" — CV originally being the initials for "chevaux-vapeur" (horsepower – literally 'steam horses'), but used here for "chevaux fiscaux". The "cheval fiscal" was a French fiscal unit based on engine size with the smaller CV designating economy cars.
The Citroën Ami had its formal French launch on 25 April 1961, four months ahead of the August introduction of the widely anticipated Renault 4. Both the Renault 4 and the Citroën Ami responded to a perceived market need for a vehicle slightly larger and less rustic than the 2CV. The Ami is a rebodied 2CV with certain mechanical upgrades (particularly a larger engine than the 1950s 2CV) to compensate for the added weight. At launch all the cars were powered by an air cooled 602 cc two-cylinder flat engine which would also be offered at extra cost in the 2CV from 1970.
The platform chassis and suspension is similar to the 2CV, being independent all round using leading and trailing arms and coil springs interconnected front to rear. For a detailed suspension description see Citroën 2CV.
The Ami's seats were easily removable. Sales pitches of the Ami included photographs of the seats being used as picnic chairs.
The Ami and the Ford Taunus P3 were the first cars with rectangular or lozenge-shaped (non-round) headlights. This technical innovation was developed by lighting manufacturers Hella (Taunus) and Cibie (Ami). Soon this innovation found its way to the exclusive coach built Maserati 5000 GT.
The car went on sale in France in April 1961, though Citroën implemented some simple upgrades in time for the Paris Motor Show only six months later. The most visible change involved the replacement of the fixed windows on the rear doors with two-part horizontal sliding windows, similar to those already fitted on the front doors. Sales initially were not as good as those of the older 2CV; the Ami's first full year of production was 1962, during which only 85,358 of the cars were sold, while the thirteen-year-old 2CV managed 144,759 sales during the same period. Although the Ami had a modern body, it shared the aggressively minimalist underpinnings of the older car, and this made it hard to justify a starting price for the Ami which, at the end of 1961, was 35% higher.
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Citroën Ami
The Citroën Ami is an economy car which was manufactured and marketed by Citroën from 1961 to 1978 over two generations, called the Ami 6 and the Ami 8. A family car, the Ami is front-wheel drive and was made in multiple body styles, including saloon car and estate car variants. The later Ami 8 fastback saloon featured a steeply raked rear window, in contrast to the earlier reverse-raked rear window of the Ami 6 notchback. Over 1,840,396 units were manufactured over the entire production run. The Ami and Citroën Dyane were replaced by the Citroën Visa and Citroën Axel.
Ami is the French word for "friend". With its 602 cc engine capacity fractionally above the limit for 2 CV designation, the Ami was nicknamed the 3CV, differentiating it from the long established Citroën 2CV.
3CV stands for Trois chevaux, or "three horses" — CV originally being the initials for "chevaux-vapeur" (horsepower – literally 'steam horses'), but used here for "chevaux fiscaux". The "cheval fiscal" was a French fiscal unit based on engine size with the smaller CV designating economy cars.
The Citroën Ami had its formal French launch on 25 April 1961, four months ahead of the August introduction of the widely anticipated Renault 4. Both the Renault 4 and the Citroën Ami responded to a perceived market need for a vehicle slightly larger and less rustic than the 2CV. The Ami is a rebodied 2CV with certain mechanical upgrades (particularly a larger engine than the 1950s 2CV) to compensate for the added weight. At launch all the cars were powered by an air cooled 602 cc two-cylinder flat engine which would also be offered at extra cost in the 2CV from 1970.
The platform chassis and suspension is similar to the 2CV, being independent all round using leading and trailing arms and coil springs interconnected front to rear. For a detailed suspension description see Citroën 2CV.
The Ami's seats were easily removable. Sales pitches of the Ami included photographs of the seats being used as picnic chairs.
The Ami and the Ford Taunus P3 were the first cars with rectangular or lozenge-shaped (non-round) headlights. This technical innovation was developed by lighting manufacturers Hella (Taunus) and Cibie (Ami). Soon this innovation found its way to the exclusive coach built Maserati 5000 GT.
The car went on sale in France in April 1961, though Citroën implemented some simple upgrades in time for the Paris Motor Show only six months later. The most visible change involved the replacement of the fixed windows on the rear doors with two-part horizontal sliding windows, similar to those already fitted on the front doors. Sales initially were not as good as those of the older 2CV; the Ami's first full year of production was 1962, during which only 85,358 of the cars were sold, while the thirteen-year-old 2CV managed 144,759 sales during the same period. Although the Ami had a modern body, it shared the aggressively minimalist underpinnings of the older car, and this made it hard to justify a starting price for the Ami which, at the end of 1961, was 35% higher.
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