Vintage Thing No.132 - Citroen Mehari

This could only be a French car

This is a car that I don't fit. I sat in a Mehari years ago one and was struck by the lack of foot and legroom. Why this was so I don't know. I've never had this trouble with 2CVs.

Look at those little corrugations

The Mehari is a sub-culture car within 2CV circles and is made of unrusting Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene panels (or ABS to you) that unfortunately are supported by a metal frame and a standard 2CV chassis. Replace the rotting chassis with a galvanised one (as so many 2CVs sport these days) and galvanise the body frame as well and you have sustainable fun motoring.

To look at, the Mehari couldn't be anything other than French. That either puts you off or makes it highly desirable. It's not a world car designed by committee even though it's a fast running dromedary (a kind of camel designed by just one person) that gives the Mehari its name. This car has national identity. It's so redolent of the south of France and beach culture that it pings off all manner of positive associations even if the pingee thinks it looks "fugly".

But the beach culture this little car invokes isn't the sort where people surf. It's where they parade in swimsuits and look good. It's a European scene that spawned those peculiar little beach cars that re-date the beach buggy. Many design houses had a go at beach cars from the fifties onwards and I think the intended market was for parties of beautiful beach people who couldn't possibly walk from the hotel to the beach, possibly because any sort of exertion was unhip.

Design of the Mehari is credited to Jean-Louis Barrault, not a designer I know. In fact, in trying to trace his other work all references point to the actor, impressario and mime Jean-Louis Barrault (1910 to 1994). Were they the same person?

I assume they are not and that the actor/playwright has eclipsed the industrial designer commissioned by Roland de la Poype to design the Mehari. De la Poype is called by some the father of the Mehari for it was his company SEAP (Société d’Etudes et d’Applications du Plastique) that pioneered the use of ABS for automotive and other applications. Lego is probably the most familiar example.

Not only does ABS not rust but you can apply pigments to it and Meharis were offered in a variety of colours that - even if you didn't before - one now associates with dusty good times and hot sunshine. ABS is heat and scratch resistant and although the tooling is more expensive the unit cost compared with GRP soon falls dramatically as production increases.

Barrault and de la Poype's first experiments were actually with a Renault 4 but using a 2CV AZU van chassis with a 425cc engine solved many problems . Initial shapes were made out of cardboard but ABS flexes and drums with vibration like any other material so they introduced the corrugations.

The Mehari began production in 1968 and continued until 1987after 145,000 had been built, with production also in Uruguay albeit with a GRP body. With Dyane 6 running gear i.e. the 2CV6 602cc 74 x 70mm flat twin, 24kW (33bhp) and a weight of only 555kg, it had exceptional cross country ability for a front wheel drive car - hardly surprising considering its ancestry.

A small series of 4x4 Meharis were made. They were not like the twin engined 2CV Sahara but had a propshaft and inboard rear discs and are recognisable by the spare wheel mounted on the bonnet. Another variant had great bid round headlamps for - all of all places - the North American market but the rest of the bodyshell changed very little. Only 13 panels went into a Mehari.

The Mehari received a facelift with a smaller, wider grille and adopted various updates from the 2CV such as more power and disc brakes, although - also like the 2CV - it did not benefit from the 652cc engine derived for the Citroen Visa.

A similar device assembled from bolted up lightweight panels actually pre-dated the Mehari. This was the 1963 Baby Brousse but production was labour intensive and de la Poype's inspired use of ABS determined the destiny of the Mehari.

As a fan of 2CVs (fan - did you see what I did there?) I like the concept of the Mehari, my large feet and lower limbs notwithstanding. Like 2CVs, however, their hillclimbing ability is slow rather than spectacular. They find grip with their skinny tyres but hold modern traffic up too much for my liking and in Cornwall I like an automobile to romp up those valley sides.

One with a GS derived flat four motor might do it for me but the ABS panels would have to chopped to accommodate the longer motor and that seems such a shame. Or you could hack away at the bulkhead to move the engine and box rearwards but that could make the legroom issue worse - unless one hacked away even more. As ABS is used in 3-D printing perhaps this could be done quite subtly.

Late night or early morning on the 2013 Land's End Trial

This particular example is campaigned in MCC Class O events  by Toby Parkins of St Agnes and reminds me strongly of my Siva Llama with its patina of muddy fun.

And with any open top car don't forget that there's no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.