The Romanian-French attempt to create an affordable people's car left behind a mixed legacy of technical innovation and questionable reliability.
Oltcit has gone down in automotive history as a unique, if ultimately not the most successful, attempt at cooperation between an Eastern European communist state and a Western car manufacturer. The company was founded in 1976 as a joint venture between the Romanian government, then still under the leadership of Nicolae Ceaușescu, and the French car manufacturer Citroën. The brand name is a simple but ingenious coinage of two words that defined its existence: »Olt« represents the historical region of Oltenia and the river of the same name in Romania, where a new factory was built in the city of Craiova, the second part of the coin, »cit", of course he was referring to the name of the French partner.
The true roots of this (ultimately) Romanian car actually go back to France, where Citroën was codenamed in the 1970s. Project Y was developing a modern successor to its then-old Ami 8 model. When Citroën bought Peugeot, the new owners quickly realized during a financial analysis that mass production of Project Y in France would be too expensive, so they preferred to develop the Visa model, which was based on the Peugeot 104 platform. In order to recover at least part of the high costs of previous development, the French simply sold the entire plans and technology to the Romanians, who were looking for a way to come up with a slightly more modern and technically advanced car for the domestic market and potential export after the Dacia 1300, which was based on the Renault 12.
The main and most recognizable product of the new Romanian factory was Oltcit Club, a compact three-door hatchback, whose series production officially began in 1981, although full production capacity was not reached until a year later. The car's design unmistakably followed Citroën's aerodynamic lines, offering a surprisingly spacious interior and large glass surfaces, which allowed for excellent visibility. In the cabin, the Oltcit stood out compared to its Eastern European competitors for its advanced ergonomic solutions for the time, including the characteristic control "satellites" next to the single-spoke steering wheel, which allowed the driver to operate all the important functions of the vehicle without having to take his hands off the wheel.
The technical design was powered by proven air-cooled boxer engines, also taken directly from the French partner. The basic model was equipped with a two-cylinder unit with a capacity of 652 cubic centimeters from the Visa model, which developed 26 kW (35 hp) and 49 Nm of torque. More demanding customers were offered four-cylinder boxer engines from the GS/GSA series with a capacity of 1,1 and 1,3 liters; the most powerful version offered a bouncy 48 kW (65 hp) and around 96 Nm of torque. Although the car was of course not equipped with the famous and complex hydropneumatic suspension of the larger Citroëns, its classic chassis with torsion bars still provided an above-average comfortable ride for the time and coped well with the Romanian roads, which at that time were anything but a "masterpiece" of road infrastructure.
According to the original cooperation agreement, Citroën was to buy a certain quota of vehicles produced in Romania and place them on Western European markets, in order to help Romania repay its technology transfer debts. These cars were sold in the West and some other markets under the name Citroën Axel, with the French betting primarily on their exceptional affordability. Historically, the purchase price of a basic model in Western markets at that time, converted into today's currency and adjusted for inflation, would have been estimated at around €4.500 to €5.500, while today, well-preserved collector's copies of the Oltcit on the antique market reach values between €1.500 and €3.500.
Despite the fact that the Oltcit was technically and design-wise well ahead of its time compared to the rest of the Eastern Bloc, it was plagued by disastrous build quality. The cars were "famous" for their extremely fast rusting bodies, capricious electronics, superficial factory assembly in Craiova and, with larger engines, disproportionately high fuel consumption. All this quickly destroyed the reputation of the Axel model in Western Europe, but due to its favorable ratio between price, spaciousness and comfort, it was still a fairly common sight on Romanian roads in the late eighties and early nineties, and a few of them were also driven on our roads.
The epilogue to this interesting automotive story was brought by the fall of the Ceausescu regime in Romania, after which Citroën finally withdrew from the joint venture in 1991. The factory was renamed Automobile Craiova and produced models based on the Oltcit under the name Oltena for several more years, with a five-door and pick-up version even added to the range. However, the Craiova factory did not suffer the disastrous end of many other plants from that period. In 1994, it was taken over by the South Korean Daewoo and produced the Cielo and Matiz models there, and since 2008 it has been in the hands of Ford. Today, the same production halls produce the most modern European vehicles and crossovers, such as the extremely popular Ford Puma on the market.
