Buoyed by the positive reception afforded its diminutive My Ami Buggy concept from December 2021, Citroën has taken the opportunity to capitalise on the summer heatwave with a strictly limited-edition production version.
Just 50 examples of the My Ami Buggy will be available, sold online from 8 August 2022 through a dedicated website. We’ve got a lot of time for the Citroën Ami.
All-electric, ultra-diminutive, it’s enjoyed cult success in its native France ever since it was a couple of years ago. Clever sales and lease initiatives are combined with the delight of being able to scoot around urban centres in spaces that are off-limits to almost every other kind of car.
This new edition is a glorious nod to France’s burgeoning beach car culture, epitomised by one of the Ami’s distant ancestors, the Citroën Méhari.
This cult car was built on the 2CV platform and featured bold-coloured plastic bodywork and a wholly optional roof. It was joined by the Renault 4 Plein Air (), and scores of these eccentric machines survive in beach and island communities around France.
The My Ami Buggy blends khaki bodywork with stabs of sizzling yellow – particularly on the modular dashboard.
It eschews the regular (albeit symmetrical) doors in favour of open sides and metal tubes, and the UV-treated canvas roof is a classic nod to beach buggies old and new and can be removed completely and stowed in the car.
Citroën’s design team have had fun detailing the My Ami Buggy as if it were a piece of technical equipment, part military, part utility, all entertainment. The pun in the name must have been irresistible. The diminutive 14in wheels are finished in gold, and the whole ensemble looks a little more patinated and road-worn than the ‘standard’ car.
Even if you don’t snare one of these khaki-hued beach machines, the two-seater Ami is still a world apart from even the smallest EV, offering up a distinctive and defiantly different mode of transport. §
