The 1939 prototype is best known from all the publicity, but there must have been a number of prototypes before. This one was used to test tires at the Michelin factory in Clermont- Ferrand.
Henri Malartre bought it in 1946 and placed it in the Museum in Rochetaillée, where he was the manager. You can still see it there.

It has a water-cooled two cilinder engine. The design for the chassis and the wheel arms looks already like that of the later 2CV.

This prototype was made of aluminium.

Most Citroën lovers will know this picture of this prototype, but there's more...

This is not a real prototype, it is one of the pre-series that was made in 1938/39 in a number of 250 !!! They were destroyed when the Germans attaqued France. One (or two?) was (were?) taken apart and reassembled in 1970. Later more examples were discovered.

The coach of the 1939 2CV was made of aluminium. The roof was made of canvas, just like the 2CV had in 1948.

The back door of the 1939 prototype form almost a perfect half circle. You can see that the back of the front seats hangs from the roof at the side with wires.

The front shows only one headlight, the French law only required one. And the car had to be light, that's why the chassis and coach were made of aluminium. The fabrication with aluminium gave many problems, in spite of the ultra modern welding machines bought at AEG in Germany!.

Various designs were made after the war: this is a drawing by Bertoni (not Bertone) for the bonnet. A single headlight is drawn, because that was still one of the starting- points of the 2CV-development in 1945

In January 1948 Pierre Boulanger decides to make pictures for a sales brochure for the "Salon de l'Automobile" in October 1948 in Paris. You can still see some differences with the model as it went into production in 1948. See the lights on the front wings and the direction of the stripes in the "grille"