Are there any Dagonet 2CV survivors?

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We can hardly be named a sucker for the good old 2CV, but upon driving one recently for the first time in ages it’s hard not to like the French tin snail. It’s surprising how good this umbrella-on-wheels, basically a pre-war design, still handles in everyday traffic.

But things get interesting when you take a look at the derivatives that the French people’s car spawned. Oh yes, there are plenty of flimsy utilities, hideous Morganesque trikes and beach car kind of contraptions. But there are hidden gems, too. The one most appealing may come from a man named Jean Dagonet. He did to the Ugly Duckling what Neville Trickett did to the Mini a decade later. Dagonet chopped, tuned and tweaked 2CVs in his little workshop in Faverolles-et-Coëmy, near Reims. And from 1953-on he actually started selling his cars under the Dagonet banner. These were heavily modified 2CVs, with 18 centimetres of metal chopped from both the roof- as the waistline. The bonnet was altered and the windscreen steeply raked and the cars were lightened wherever possible. Dagonet kept on developing his cars and from 1956-on full fibreglass bodied versions were available under the DF-name – now for Dagonet-Faverolles. His cars were entered in rallies as diverse as the Mille Miglia and Liege-Rome-Liege and off course raced at Reims, so close by.

Now, up until 1958 Jean Dagonet is believed to have built several dozens of his racy snails and these must have been considered to be pretty special cars at the time. The strange thing is that survivors seem rarer then hen’s teeth. All the books that we know of about small-scale car production in France are very limited in their information on Dagonet and use the same sketchy photograps. We’ve never even seen a recent picture of a Dagonet 2CV. That makes us wonder: are there any survivors at all?

(Words Jeroen Booij, main photo, virtual collection author) 

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