Oltcit oddball

I have previously mentioned my friend Chris's love of all things Citroen, and this weekend I was able to get up close and personal with what to me is the star of his collection, something so unusual in the UK I doubt many readers have ever heard of it, yet alone seen one in the flesh. Alongside several Visas, he also has a rare example of what the Visa could have been: the Oltcit, also known as the Citroen Axel. Those names probably mean nothing to you, but the Oltcit is significant as the last pure Citroen design devoid of any Peugeot influence. It wasn't even built in France though - read on to find out more about the peculiar story of this curious little car.

It could only be a Citroen design, but not one you'll recognise

In the early 1970s, Citroen began work on Prototype Y, a replacement for the Ami range that was initially developed in conjunction with Fiat and was essentially a lengthened five-door Fiat 127. The relationship with Fiat soon came to an end and Citroen came up with their own independent design called Projet TA, but then in 1974 were taken over by Peugeot. The new owners ordered a redesign to use the floorpan and engines of the Peugeot 104, and TA evolved into VD ('Voiture Diminuée'), which became the Visa. The original design wouldn't go to waste though, as even before the Peugeot takeover Citroen had begun negotiations to form a joint venture with the government of Romania, and this was the car on offer.

An odd badge - only one Citroen chevron ringed by a letter O

Following the 1974 energy crisis, Citroen had identified the Eastern Bloc as a potential new market, and Ceausescu was seen as more west-friendly than other Comecon leaders. By building cars locally, Citroen could avoid huge import taxes and take advantage of cheap Romanian labour, and an agreement was reached in July 1976. Citroen would provide the design and technology, and a brand new factory at Craiova in the Oltenia region of Romania, in return for access to sales throughout the Comecon countries. The Oltcit name is a portmanteau of Oltenia and Citroen, with the government owning a 64% share and Citroen the other 36%.

No badges on the back so no clues here

The original Projet TA had been a five-door, but doors are complex and expensive components so the Romanian version lost its rear doors to keep costs down. The ride height was raised to cope with poor road conditions, but otherwise the design remained largely unchanged and retained the torsion-bar suspension and air-cooled boxer engines, very different from the Macpherson struts and (mostly) straight-four Peugeot power units of the Visa. Citroen's relationship with the Romanians was difficult thanks to bureaucracy, corruption and trade restrictions, and although the factory was completed in 1980 it would be another three years before production got into full swing, by which time the design was almost a decade old and the Visa had been on sale in western Europe for more than six years.

H-reg looks wrong on such an old-fashioned car but it stayed in production until 1996

The Romanians insisted on a minimum of 40% local content, which created some serious quality issues, and were reluctant to allow Citroen to take the profits in hard currency, instead requiring them to purchase other Romanian goods for sale in France. Production was inefficient, corruption rife and build quality sub-par, so the factory never got anywhere near its maximum capacity of 300,000 cars per year and didn't even achieve the original annual target of 130,000, a mere 60,000 being built between 1984 and 1988. Three models were initially offered: the Oltcit Spécial with the Visa's 652cc flat-twin, and the Club with the 1129cc flat-four from the GS in 11R and better-equipped 11RL trim levels. Later on there was also a Club 12TRS featuring the larger 1299cc version of the GS engine.

Somewhere under there is an air-cooled flat-four

The agreement prevented the Romanians from selling the Oltcit outside the Comecon area, and instead Citroen offered the Club 11RL and 12TRS in certain western European markets (but not the UK) under the Axel name as a budget replacement for the Citroen LNA and to help repay their investment in the venture. Although cheap, it was an ageing, poorly-built design and wasn't a great success, apparently costing an average of $100 per car in warranty claims thanks to the abysmal quality, and would disappear when the much better AX was launched in 1986. In Romania it soldiered on, even though Citroen pulled out of the joint venture with the collapse of the Ceausescu regime. The now-independent company was renamed Oltena but then in 1994 entered a new partnership with Daewoo and became Rodae, and the old Citroen design finally disappeared in 1996 to be replaced by the Daewoo Matiz. The Craiova factory is now owned by Ford and builds Transit Connect vans.

Numberplate surround from a dealer in Budapest betrays this one's history

The Oltcit/Axel was never built in right-hand drive and there are believed to be no more than four in the UK. Chris's car is a Club 11R model built in 1991, the last year of production under the Oltcit name before Citroen pulled out, so the H-prefix registration may look odd but is correct. It was imported from Hungary in 2009 and he bought it a couple of years later; it had been on the road but has recently emerged from a few years in hibernation. It has a strange appearance to British eyes, unmistakably Citroen yet not recognisable as any familiar model, and its styling is best described as a cross between a Visa and a GS. My first thought was that it looks like either a very poor copy of a Citroen Visa with not enough doors or a generic toy car that isn't based on anything in particular but was inspired by a Citroen. It does look extremely old-fashioned for a 1991 car and would not have fared well against contemporary western European models or even the likes of Lada and Skoda, but this really isn't surprising considering the design dates back to the early seventies and was dated even when it went into production in 1982.

There's no doubt you're behind the wheel of a Citroen. The pods are the other way round though.

The interior is a very typical bizarre Citroen product, with the trademark single-spoke steering wheel, square dials and those weird control pods, mounted horizontally here rather than vertically as in the Visa. The whole thing does feel quite flimsy inside and out, even more so than a Visa, with cheap plastics and thin metal, and the doors are very light and shut with a clang rather than a thud - I don't know how much an Oltcit weighs but it is probably less than the 750kg Visa Spécial. Despite its general similarity, the Oltcit apparently shares no major components with the Visa so obtaining spares must be challenging. Under the bonnet, well hidden by the spare wheel and various plastic covers, sits the flat-four GS engine of a similar capacity to the Peugeot 'suitcase' unit used in the Visa 11 but very different in layout and cooled by air rather than water. I wasn't able to drive it as some issues need to be resolved before it hits the road again after its long slumber, but I imagine it would handle much like a GS with its soft floaty torsion-bar suspension.

Like a Visa but not enough doors

So that's the curious story of the little-known Oltcit, the last of the pure Citroens free from the influence of Peugeot, but in all honesty not a great car and probably best forgotten. Things could have been so different though: if Citroen had not got themselves into financial trouble and ended up being taken over by Peugeot, this is the design that would have gone into production in France instead of the Visa and would no doubt have become rather more familiar. As it stands, it is an oddball that makes a perfect companion to Chris's collection of Visas, and I feel very privileged to be one of doubtless very few people in the UK to have got up close and personal with an Oltcit. Hopefully I will even get the chance to get behind the wheel once it has been recommissioned and put back on the road. I've never driven a left-hand drive car before and the prospect of my first one being something so obscure is certainly exciting!