SAUNDERSTOWN When she was 20, Kate Vivian lived out a fantasy.

After a whirlwind courtship, she married a painter and they moved to Paris.

“He was on a Fulbright (scholarship) and we lived in Paris for a year,” she said. “We lived on the Right Bank right across from Notre Dame,” she said. “It was a wonderful age to be in a place like that. You’re like a sponge, you absorb it all. I learned how to cook and learned a lot about art.”

And she fell in love with the Citroen 2CV, the classic little post-WWII French car known as the Deux Chevaux.

She said she wanted to bring one back to the States. “But I was told you couldn’t bring them home, they wouldn’t pass highway laws for getting them in the States.

So she and her painter husband returned to the U.S. and after a few years went their separate ways — “We were too young when we got married” — and she did not think about owning a Deux Chevaux until 1985.

“I was camping in Massachusetts and suddenly here’s a brand-new, brightly colored Deux Chevaux,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it. I flagged down the owner and he told me there was this Frenchman who was modifying them (to meet U.S. standards) and shipping them over.”

Two years later, Vivian said she came into $5,000 and after borrowing $1,000 and being given another $1,000, she bought her bright red 1987 Deux Chevaux from Sports Imports of Cape Cod in North Falmouth for $7,000.

Well, it’s a 1987 body on a 1966 frame. She said that was the modification being done to get the cars into the U.S.

Vivian said she uses the car as a daily driver in the summer when she commutes to her job as events coordinator at The Towers in Narragansett. She also runs the Ferry Road Gallery out of her house part time. During the winter, both she and her husband, David, who has a 2CV truck, garage the cars.

Although the Citroen 2CV has not been built since 1990 and never made much of a dent in the U.S. market — a few thousand sold in very limited niche markets in the Northeast, Northwest and Southern California — it was immensely popular in Europe, and Vivian said it is “the most popular second-hand car in the world.”

Like the VW Beetle, the Deux Chevaux was designed in the 1930s but not introduced until after WWII. By 1953, Citroen was turning out 1,500 a week, and the 2CV was ultimately assembled in several other countries. Overall, about 4 million sedans were built.

The car did not have an auspicious start. When it was unveiled in 1948 at the Paris Auto Show, it was greeted with ridicule. It may look like a tin can on springs, but the design criteria posed by Citroen management was for an “umbrella on four wheels,” a car that would enable two country people to drive about 200 pounds of farm goods to market at about just over 35 mph along muddy unpaved roads.

Its bouncy suspension was famously due to the stipulation that it had to be able to cross a ploughed field with a basket of eggs in the back seat. It also had to have a roofline high enough to accommodate hats.

It is hard to think of a more basic car. With its front-wheel drive-train, the cabin is spacious and the canvas roof rolls all the way back to open up the top. In addition, the seats can be unlatched and slid out to serve as picnic chairs.

The first Deux Chevaux had a two-cylinder, 375-cc engine. The name referred to the engine’s output of just 2 units of Chevaux Vapeur (2CV), or steam horsepower, which equals about nine horsepower. It speed may have been modest, but its fuel efficiency was an impressive 60 mpg.

Early models came only in gray, but blue, green and yellow variations were added by 1961, when the engine produced 13.5 horsepower and top speed was nearly 55 mph. Over the years, the size of the engine increased and a number of variations were produced, including a small panel truck for deliveries and a fancier, two-tone model called the Charleston.

Vivian said her husband David purchased a gray 2CV truck — a 1974 AK 400 Camionette — about four years ago that he mainly uses to take garbage to the dump. The little trucks were used by farmers and artisans for decades. She said her husband became an enthusiast through her.

“He didn’t have a love for them until he lived with one,” she said.

In 1962, when Citroen was producing some 1,000 2CV’s a day, the car got a new dashboard, a speedometer and odometer, a fuel gauge and electric windshield wipers. Very fancy compared to the 1955 Deux Chevaux that I purchased in 1968 when a college student in France. That model had a dipstick in the gas tank and a knob on the dashboard to work the windshield wipers by hand when the car was stationary!

Citroen produced the 2CV for 42 years. Production ended in France in 1988 but continued in Portugal for another two years before the last one rolled off the production line in July 1990. Its distinctive appearance and performance earned it great affection over the years and a variety of nicknames, including “the ugly duckling,” in Holland, the “tin snail” in Britain, the “frog” in Greece and the “tin car” in Israel. The most common is simply “the duck.”

Vivian said she has invested a lot of money into her “duck” because she wants it to last her the rest of her life. She mostly stays close to home, the longest trip she’s taken being to Boston, across to Pittsfield, Mass., and then home. And one time it caught on fire on Route 138 at the junction with Route 1.

But mostly it runs and runs, serviced every so often by Chuck Scuncio’s Imports Etc. on South Pier Road in Narragansett.

And just as a number of European manufacturers have cashed in on iconic post WWII vehicles with redesigns that retain their flavor — Volkswagen’s New Beetle, BMW’s MINI and the 2008 Fiat 500, Citroen is reported to debut a modern interpretation of the 2CV in 2009.

There is little doubt that a great number of fans — including myself — would be very interested in such a redesign.

Auto Biography is a new feature that tells an interesting story about a car and its driver. If you think you have a newsworthy story to tell about your car, write to Auto Biography, Features Department, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St. Providence RI 02902 or e-mail projocars@projo.com. Be sure to put “Auto Biography” in the subject field.

The car doesn’t have to be a classic or expensive, but it should be somehow unique. The driver must be willing to be interviewed by a reporter about what makes this car special and to be photographed with the car.