Citroën

In April 1961 the Citroën Ami 6 was launched. The car is basically a rebodied 2CV with certain mechanical upgrades to compensate for the added weight, powered by an air cooled 602cc two-cylinder engine. Within a few months the fixed windows on the rear doors were replaced 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; during the Ami's first full year of production, only 85,358 cars were sold, while the thirteen-year-old 2CV managed 144,759. Although the Ami had a modern body, it shared the aggressively minimalist underpinnings of the 2CV and this made it hard to justify a starting price which was 35% higher.

1961

1962

1963

1964

In March 1969 the Ami underwent a complete metamorphosis. The car was redesigned by the French car design and bodywork company Heuliez. Most notable changes were the sloping, rather than inverted, rear window on the saloon and the front part and bonnet. The Ami 8 break had a similar general appearance to that of the Ami 6 break with the Ami 8's taillights integrated into the rear wings.

1969

In 1973 the Ami range was expanded with the Ami Super, fitted with the larger 1,015cc four-cylinder Citroën GS engine. It gave the car a dramatic performance advantage compared to the Ami 8. However, in France its 5CV tax rating resulted in low sales figures compared to the Ami 8. A small series of Ami-based prototype coupés, the M35, were produced testing the single-rotor Wankel engine, as also seen in the NSU Spider. A twin-rotor version of this engine reached production form with the Citroën GS birotor and NSU Ro 80.

1973

The last factory-issued brochure specifically for the Ami 8 was issued in 1975, later on only brochures of the whole two-cylinder range were published, see Model range two-cylinders.