At what other car show besides the Carlisle Import Nationals would you have a chance to see not one but two Citroen Visas? That’s right, this Visa was one of two present at the 2012 Carlisle Import Nationals, which perhaps represented a substantial fraction of all Visas in North America, while also representing two out of the four that I have personally seen stateside. Yes, that means there are at least four of these in North America, not that anyone has a decent chance of spotting one of these in traffic. More Elvis sightings than Visa sightings are reported each year, as you’d expect.
In case you haven’t put the Carlisle Import Nationals on your calendar by now, the 2013 edition of the event where you’re bound to see rarities like these will take place in Carlisle, Pennsylvania from May 17th through the19th. Now let’s take a closer look at this Visa.
Originally planned as a successor to the popular 2CV, the Visa ended up going into production much later than originally planned, in 1978 to be exact. The FWD Visa came with a choice of a couple engines, the 652cc 2-cylinder and later the 1.1 liter 4-cylinder suitcase engine. The Visa also came standard with multi-function drum control stalks, which were later replaced with more mundane Peugeot-derived controls. If you’ve never seen these controls before, it’s essentially a plastic beer can attached to the left of the steering column, with various rings on it that you can twist. Basically, it’s a shame that these didn’t survive into Citroen’s present-day hatches, cause I would have loved to try them in a rental car in Europe. And I would have also paid money to see clueless tourists completely baffled by them while negotiating Paris traffic.
The Visa was never sold in North America, though a few had trickled in during the golden age of the gray import era. Even so, a comprehensive federalization program was never really developed by Citroen importers, which at the time were bringing in a few dozen Citroen CXs per year. I believe this particular example was brought in relatively recently from Europe, one of two Visas that were imported just in the last 3 years.
The Visa was eventually replaced by the Citroen AX, which in diesel form became famous for producing mpg figures which seem futuristic even today. The Visa platform also spawned the Citroen C15 truck, which stayed in production until fairly recently. The Visa itself was also made under license in Romania as the Oltcit, which was quite a rare arrangement as far as western vehicles licensed to Eastern European countries went.
See you at the show!
[Images: Copyright 2013 Hooniverse/Jay Ramey]
![https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8290/7783831194_e0ecac101f_z.jpg"](https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8290/7783831194_e0ecac101f_z.jpg"){kind=link}
![http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8445/7856344978_ac0e019d07_b.jpg"](http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8445/7856344978_ac0e019d07_b.jpg"){kind=link}
![http://www.blenheimgang.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/090201-citroen-axel-2.jpg">](http://www.blenheimgang.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/090201-citroen-axel-2.jpg">){kind=link}
![http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qllMEUDqiHY/UOB7iN5ifhI/AAAAAAAAjCw/6Cj6aLv0GHI/s1600/93.jpg"](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qllMEUDqiHY/UOB7iN5ifhI/AAAAAAAAjCw/6Cj6aLv0GHI/s1600/93.jpg"){kind=link}
![http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/citroen_n_axel_2.jpg"](http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/citroen_n_axel_2.jpg"){kind=link}
Leave a Reply