COBI Citroen 2CV Charleston Set 24341

COBI's Citroën 2CV Charleston is a 1:12 model built from 1,465 blocks under original licence from Citroën, 30.5 cm long, with opening doors, access to the engine compartment and boot, a brick-built engine and working steering. The interior is reproduced in printed blocks; the set contains no stickers, and the parts come in numbered bags with the instructions split into stages.

Four wheels under an umbrella

The specification Pierre Boulanger wrote for the 2CV before the war is the most quoted design brief in motoring, because it describes a vehicle rather than a car: it had to carry two farmers and fifty kilos of produce across a ploughed field at 60 km/h, be driveable by someone who had never driven, cost almost nothing to run, and get a basket of eggs over the field without breaking one.

Everything followed from that. The suspension was interconnected front to rear and so soft that the body leaned alarmingly in corners while the wheels stayed on the ground. The engine was a two-cylinder of under 400 cc. The seats were hammocks on tubes, liftable out for a picnic. The roof rolled back because canvas was cheaper than steel.

Journalists at the 1948 Paris Salon called it the ugliest car ever shown. It stayed in production until 1990 and sold close to four million.

The Charleston arrived in 1980 as a special edition in two-tone paint, planned as a run of 8,000. Demand was such that Citroën kept building it, and it stayed in the range until the end.

In the COBI range

At 1:12 this is one of COBI's large-scale cars, alongside the Maserati MC20 (24335).

Specifications

Pieces: 1,465 · Scale: 1:12 · Licensed by Citroën
Model dimensions: 30.5 × 13 × 13 cm (12.0 × 5.1 × 5.1 in)