Citroën Axel

The Citroën Axel is a small car produced in Romania by the car manufacturer Oltcit and marketed in Europe under the Citroën brand, while in Eastern Europe it is sold as the Oltcit Club. The Axel was born when Oltcit, a small Romanian car manufacturer, agreed with Citroën to produce a new and very economical model under license. The French company proposed an old project dating back to the early 1970s to the Romanians, which was supposed to result in the Citroën LN, but it never materialized because, following the merger with Peugeot in the PSA Group, Citröen received an order from Peugeot to completely revise the project in order to use its own components. This old study, called “Project Y” and designed by Robert Opron, was born in 1973 as part of the design of the future Citroën Visa. Oltcit accepted the proposal, and in 1982 the first Axel cars began to come off the assembly line. In reality, rather than a small car, one could speak of a medium-small one, as its dimensions approached those of a medium-low class car. However, given the engine options and the low cost of the project, the Axel was also intended as a valid alternative to the utility cars on the market at the time. Therefore, the Axel could be seen as both a generously sized utility car and a low-cost medium-small car. The Axel has always been considered a poor copy of the Visa. This is perhaps due to the fact that it was a car built on a rather old project at the time of its production. Therefore, it was inevitable that some solutions could appear a bit outdated. In any case, the Axel had many characteristics that were also noticeable on the Visa, such as the particular profile of the side line and the design of the rear wheel arches. Despite the similarities with the Visa, the frame and much of the mechanics of the Axel (as well as the bodywork panels) were different. The engines, all air-cooled, were the 652 cc twin-cylinder (already mounted on the LNa and Visa) or the 4-cylinder boxer (of GS origin) of 1129 (55 hp) or 1299 cc (65 hp). In the markets of Western Europe, only versions with an 1129 cc engine (Axel and Axel 11 R models, the latter recognizable by the wide plastic side moldings) and with a 1299 cc engine (Axel 12 TRS model) were available. In any case, the mechanics were very reliable and, apart from a few isolated cases, the Axel proved capable of racking up tens of thousands of kilometers without suffering much and without requiring anything more than regular maintenance.