Citroen stopped building the 2 CV in 1990. Now it has brought the name back at the Paris Motor Show as the 2 CV Concept, a small electric car previewing a production model due by 2028 at a target price of around 15,000 euros. The Citroen Time 2 Meet Again commercial is BETC Paris’s one-minute launch film, posted on Citroen’s official YouTube channel on October 11, 2026. It is a countdown, a nostalgia reel and a studio product reveal stitched together, and it is very good at making you miss the old car. Whether it makes you want the new one is another question.
WHAT HAPPENS ON SCREEN
It opens on grainy black-and-white footage: a man in a flat cap at the wheel of an old 2 CV, a woman leaning in at the door, and a line of French dialogue that sounds like “Alors vous montez ou non?” (“So are you getting in or not?”). Supers follow over what CB News describes as archive material: “2 CV was not just a car…” and “…it was freedom,” over young people clambering over a car on a city street.
A glowing red dial graphic starts counting down. 5: “Freedom 2 move,” over a 2 CV bouncing across a sand dune and “l’amour” written in the sand. 4: “Freedom 2 feel joy,” over a couple kissing against a pale blue 2 CV. 3: “Freedom 2 share,” over a convoy of painted cars on a desert track and a driving school with an “Auto-Ecole” sign. A blue 2 CV rattles down a dirt road through green hills. Then the counter stops at 2, the screen floods orange, and the line arrives: “time 2 meet again.”
The final 40 seconds belong to the 2 CV Concept, shot against a seamless red-orange backdrop. Quick cuts pick out the round LED-ringed headlamps, a ribbed “2 CV” emblem, a steel wheel with a yellow clip, the black tailgate, the cream steering wheel and the yellow interior. Between them: a brown hen, a tortoise, the hen standing on the tortoise, three eggs. A front three-quarter hero shot, the “2 CV” wordmark and the chevrons close it. Music runs throughout; there is no voiceover.
CREDITS
Advertiser: Citroen (CEO Xavier Chardon). Agency: BETC Paris, with president and chief creative officer Stephane Xiberras, creative director Eric Astorgue, art directors Carol Chaladus, Frederic Rougier and Marion Andre, copywriter and art directors Dominique Marchand and Sandra Macmillan, and creative producer Magalie Dauleu. Post and sound: Prose on Pixels (POP), with lead editor Arthur Lecoeur, colorist Clement Le Fouest and sound director Marion Toreilles. Campaign line: “Elle est 2 retour.” The 60-second film has 45- and 30-second cuts, according to CB News. Sources: BETC’s credit list on La Reclame and LBB Online, CB News and Dans Ta Pub (all October 12, 2026), the Stellantis press release (October 11) and the official upload. Not cited: a director, a production company, the studio behind the car imagery, the music and the origin of the archive footage.
THE EXECUTION
The countdown is the cleverest device here. Counting 5, 4, 3 and stopping at 2 turns the model name into a punchline and gives an archive montage real momentum. The jump from black-and-white grain to saturated orange at “2” is a genuine reveal, the cover coming off on a motor-show stand.
The second half is a design film, treating the concept like a fashion object: tight crops, hard shadows, one hot color. The animals are in-jokes for press-kit readers. Citroen says the brake pedal carries a tortoise and the door bins are shaped to hold eggs, a nod to the original brief. On screen, a hen riding a tortoise is a nice surreal image most viewers will not decode.
WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T
What works: the car. The round lamps, domed roof and black tailgate read instantly as 2 CV without being a retro copy, and the film lets the details talk. The “2” wordplay, carried over from “Elle est 2 retour,” gives the campaign a portable signature. And the archive earns its emotion honestly: lovers, crowds, driving lessons, a car in the dunes. That is what the 2 CV meant.
What doesn’t: the film argues against itself. Xiberras says the challenge was to avoid turning the car into a museum piece, yet all the freedom in this minute belongs to the old car. The new one never moves, never leaves the studio, never carries a person. The film also skips the most radical part of the story, the target price of around 15,000 euros, which is what made the original a people’s car. The “2 for to” gimmick works in French but reads like text-message English. And this is a concept, so the film sells a feeling about a car nobody can order yet.
VERDICT
“Time 2 meet again” is a handsome, well-edited reveal with one great structural idea, the countdown that lands on 2, and a design that deserves the attention. But it borrows its emotion from old footage and then parks the new car in a studio, the opposite of the freedom it spends 20 seconds celebrating. A fine motor-show teaser that still needs a road. Rating: 3 out of 5.
