Citroen Ami 6

Citroen Ami 6

The Citroën Ami 6, introduced in 1961, was designed to fill an enormous gap in the Citroën lineup. The company offered the utilitarian 2CV at the bottom and the revolutionary DS at the top, but had nothing for the growing middle class who wanted more than a 2CV but could not afford a DS. The Ami 6 was the answer — and it was unmistakably a Citroën.

Styling was by Flaminio Bertoni, the sculptor-turned-car-designer who had created both the 2CV and the DS. The Ami 6's most distinctive feature was its reverse-rake rear window, which angled inward from top to bottom — the opposite of conventional design. Bertoni's reasoning was practical: it allowed a longer rear shelf and better headroom for rear passengers. The French public was divided. Some loved its originality; others found it bizarre. Either way, it was impossible to mistake for anything else on the road.

Mechanically, the Ami 6 shared the 2CV's air-cooled flat-twin engine, enlarged to 602cc and producing 22 horsepower. This was paired with a four-speed manual gearbox driven through a dashboard-mounted gear lever. Performance was modest — the Ami 6 could reach 115 km/h with patience — but the car was remarkably practical. Its interconnected suspension (shared with the 2CV) gave it extraordinary ride comfort on poor roads, and the flat-twin engine was virtually unbreakable.

In 1964, Citroën introduced the Ami 6 Break (estate), which proved even more popular than the sedan thanks to its greater practicality and more conventional rear styling. The Break outsold the sedan significantly and demonstrated that the French public wanted the Ami's mechanicals but was less enthusiastic about the reverse-rake window.

The Ami 6 sold over one million units during its eight-year production run, making it one of Citroën's most successful models. It was replaced by the Ami 8 in 1969, which retained the platform and engine but adopted more conventional styling. Today, the Ami 6 sedan is the more collectible variant precisely because of its polarizing design — that reverse-rake window, once controversial, is now celebrated as a bold piece of automotive design history.