CADA to LEGO, the story of the ugly Duckling (2CV Citroen)

[slam23]

Hi there,

As I was looking for an outlet to share a little building project that is ongoing, I found my way to Eurobricks. Funny thing: I seemed to have made an account already, way back in 2014, but it seems that I forgot all about it. So I'm happy that I'm back.... :-). This topic will be about a CADA rebuild in LEGO. This is the first time I have bought a CADA box (or even something else than LEGO), and I'm very much looking forward to see if I like the experience. Everything is still sealed in the box at the moment. Every time I have been exposed to LEGO-like (rip-off) brands by accident, it has been a disappointment, mostly in terms of quality, how it looks and feels. I suspect (and hope) that CADA could be the exception, based upon general positive reviews and overall impression of their professional approach. I chose the digital LEGO subforum to post because at first I used BrickStudio to do the rebuild. But I then decided to go for the real life bricks, so the topic will cross over at some moment. 

But first a bit of background: When LEGO started to bring out detailed cars in their Icons line, in normal brick style and with only a smattering of Technic stuff, I was immediately sold and started buying them. I think it started with the T2 Volkswagen Camper van for me, and I also liked the subsequent Beetle, but the more recent ones like the F40, Mustang and Corvette really stoked the fire. The only one that I found a bit underwhelming in how it mirrored the real life car was the James Bond DB5, and I still had a blast building it.

I must confess I'm not even a big car fan in real life. It was back when I was in elementary school that I had a lot of Matchbox cars, to the point that every box that looked remotely the same size and dimensions elicited a spark inside. Now that I'm an adult, cars just need to work reliably and carry stuff. For me though it's definitely the genius building techniques used by the Icons designers that really get me going. The tricks they employ to get certain angles, curves and joints seem endless to me. I can easily stop mid-build and marvel at a particular NPU or nifty construction, and show it around proudly to semi-interested family members :-). 

As is probably the case with a lot of builders of the Icon series car, you secretly hope that they will build your favorite car next. While the Beetle was a close call, my all-time nostalgia car is the 2 CV Citroen. Particular the one in the color red, and with round headlights. This was our first family car that I have memories of, I think as a 4-5 year old kid. I distinctly remember the backseats were just a thin layer of skai, stretched over a metal framework (no safety belts). Very uncomfortable and it also got very hot in the summer. The gear lever was angled horizontally in the dashboard instead of vertically next to the driver. There was a rubber roof that you could roll open to change the 2CV in a cheap convertible. And it had such a distinct sound....it reminded you more of a whining outboard motor of a boat than a car engine. The top speed on the dashboard showed 120 kilometers per hour, but I have never seen one driven faster than 100.....and sitting in it sounded and felt like you were doing 200....

Next up: the CADA box arrives! 

 

[slam23]

From time to time, I'll Google for 2CV and LEGO, to see if there are any interesting/convincing MOC's out there. Mostly the harvest is a bit meagre, probably due to the very difficult translation of all those beautiful curves to mostly square bricks. I came across a very elaborate Technic version a couple of years ago, built bij Nico77productions, which also had unbelievable realistic suspension, another well-known attribute of the 2CV. Can't topple it... :-) Check out the video here: https://topgear.nl/autonieuws/citroen-2cv-van-lego/

Nico also did some smaller Technic versions. While impressive at this scale, the Technic LEGO even looks worse to my eyes. Especially the lighter colored one looks like it was shot with a machine gun…..

 

 

 

Edited July 20 by slam23

[slam23]

But since I'm not a Technic fan, I kept watching out for brick built 2 CV's. And that's when I stumbled upon the TheBlockZone website who offered the 2 CV, in yellow in CADA bricks. I immediately thought that I could try to figure out if the bricks were compatible with LEGO (they were) and if I could replace the yellow ones for red. So for the first time in my life, I spent money on bricks other than LEGO.....and because it was offered with a nice discount, I also went for the motorized option! 

I think that CADA really captured the essence of the 2CV, a nice curvy model, with a good rear wheelhouse that covers part of the wheel. I may look into doing some tweaks. Maybe put some glass in the front window, and get a gray/silver lining around the grille. Also I may look into slightly elevating the back, as the real 2CV is slanted forwards a few degrees. 

But the main part of the project will be replacing all the yellow bricks with red ones.

Edited July 20 by slam23

[slam23]

To give you an idea what kind of LEGO or other brick brand models there are on the internet, I chose some of the more well captured ones. It's a mix of official brand boxes, and some really nice MOC's

First off we have COBI with a valiant try. I like how they approached the Charleston striping, it looks very good on the doors, which get a more rounded form from it. I like the folded up roof, not sure if it can stretch out to the front, but it looks like it can. Don't like the front, especially not the sticker. But in all, the form and proportions seem off, it’s just not right. Can’t really put my finger on it.

 

They also sell a very simplified 2CV model with only 85 bricks (and the rest is vacuumformed plastic probably, large part of the bodywork and hood). This one is way off and I wouldn't consider this a brick-built car at all. It looks like they fused a construction glue-kit or Playmobil model with some bricks and also put some stickers here and there. The windows look off. 

Now for some nice MOC's.

I'll start with the best one in my opinion. It's a model that you can download instructions for on Rebrickable, and somebody called ww is the designer. The instructions only cost 5 euro's for a PDF with 274 building steps, with 760 bricks. It's a sleeker, smaller model than the CADA one, but I like several things about it. The overall form is captured very well. The wheelhousing looks very good on the front, a bit less so at the rear. I like that it has a front window that does not take away from the overall model. It has the forward slant that I'm looking for. I think on this scale especially, it has been done very well. I've decided I want to built this one also in real bricks, and will do a recolor for it too in Brick Studio. I may tweak some things, it has very basic doorknobs, I'm also looking into ways of hiding the studs on door and wheel housing if possible. 

I found this one on a site called “TurboMoc” . Although it does an adequate job on the front and kind of captures the form, it comes apart on the side, with all the gaps. This site also offers the Blockzone/CADA version without any reference of sourcing. Feels a bit rip-offy to me.

[slam23]

And an older LEGO Ideas model. Nice color! ;-). Nice doorhandles but the rear wheelhousing is a bit thick for this scale. Love the windshield wipers though! And the trans-yellow for the headlights work too. A few good ideas for sure! 

An honorable mention surely must go to this model from Nick Barrett! It's very brickbuilt (may have the used the undercarriage of the Technic one?). The picture below the one with the grandfather clock is another view, this of an earlier version. I really like the red wheelcaps, but I'm not fond of the studs-out design. I always enjoy people having to look twice of what a model is made off. "Is that LEGO? Wow!". 

 

[slam23]

Before I continue, I want to make something clear: although I always have stayed far away from other brick brands than LEGO, this was mostly fueled by the fact that I thought they were brick and model rip-offs while LEGO had the license. In the mean time I have learned that the brick system license actually already expired in 1978. So it was perfectly legal to produce LEGO-like bricks for a long time already. Still, it's not difficult to find a lot of model rip-offs, even today. Lego did recently successfully defended it's trademark on their LOGO and minifigs, and have also extended some specific licenses like Star Wars. But even with the license expired, the first few times that I encountered "fake" bricks (I don't remember the brand, but it was probably Megabloks), they definitely looked and felt off, and were clearly of inferior quality.

My first impression from CADA is positive though and while I'll focus on rebricking to LEGO, I encourage you to check out this brand for yourself. I bought my set through the Block Zone: https://theblockzone.com/ . They specialize in car designs, and they seem to be very prolific in Technic LEGO. They don't have a lot of licenses, so instead of having a Ferarri F40, they will have a "Ultimate Italian Driving Machine". They struck up a deal with Maserati and Mazda though. What I found very funny, is that they also have "stanced" and "slammed" models, which seem to be car with their wheels on an awkward angle, like some heavy object landed on them. I have probably pissed some hardcore car enthusiast off for sure now, but you have to admit that it looks like something went seriously wrong... :-) Another specific thing for the Block Zone is that they repackage CADA in their own boxes (see screenshots below). You can also find other sets, like their version of the Notre Dame (which does go a bit near rip-off territory for the LEGO Architecture series, but the church itself is of course not licensed, and the CADA model is actually on a grander scale), and I also saw the Balloon House from Up. 

I have yet to open any bags with bricks, but they already look quite nice through the clear plastic, and very much in the mold of LEGO. The Block Zone packaging looks and feels premium. Where LEGO provides you with a very spacey box, only filled to halve or at best 2/3 of volume with bags and bricks, The Block Zonegoes the other way and fills up their boxes to the brim (it was the case with the 2CV anyway). While something could be said for both approaches, with the LEGO one, it sometimes feels like with a bag of chips: big packaging, slightly disappointing content. 

The Block Zone packaging

Slid the inner box out

Filled to the brim. From the look of it, the bags subdividing system seems to adhere to the LEGO one, but the bags with the smaller parts are separate (all numbered the same). No paper bags here yet. 

The box comes with 2 building manuals, 1 sticker sheet and 1 CADA business card (I presume, it's in Chinese). I suspect there will be no printed elements, which is to be expected with the lower pricing. For my rebrick project, this is actually a good point, because now I can stick them on red bricks (if applicable)

 

This is supposedly what you get directly from CADA or resellers that don't re-box their sets:

[slam23]

Intermezzo: Name-calling and 2CV memories

So this topic is called "CADA to LEGO: the story of the Ugly Duckling". This is a direct reference to the nickname of the car in my country. So how did this came about? First a bit of history. T

his type of Citroen is called 2CV, which is short for Deux Chevaux if spelled all-out. It’s French for “2 Horses”. People often think that this directly refers to the actual amount of horsepower, but it is actually a reference towards a now very obscure tax-category in France for motorized carriages. The first ones actually delivered a whopping 9HP. It was produced between 1949 and 1990, totaling more than 5 million in all that rolled from the factory line. It was meant to be a simple car for farmers that was easy in maintenance and could handle rough (rural) terrain. It had to remain comfortable enough to not break the eggs that also had to be transported, aside from sacks of potatoes, or even vats of wine. That's where the suspension comes from. While there were some updates to it, and a few different models existed, it stayed very much the same overall to the end. It’s a very well-known car around the world, not in the least because of it’s very recognizable design and low price. Because it was also looked down at, probably for it’s simplicity and first demographic it was geared to, it has been given derogatory names in quite a few countries, and for some reason these were often animal names.

Where I come from, -the Netherlands- it is called “Lelijke Eend”, which would translate to “Ugly Duck”. Often just “Duck” for short.  Other countries that called it “Duck” were Germany; “Ente”, “La Deuche” in France, and in Czech Republic “Kachna”. In Belgium they called it “Geitje”, which is “Goatling”. In England it is “Tin Snail”, which is quite self-explanatory 😊. Often the derogatory word became somewhat of an affectionate term and badge of honor.

The 2CV was definitely very much present in my youth, which was roughly mid-seventies to late eighties. It was quite a common car to see in streets and in traffic. It had a bit of a student or hippie connotation to it, more than a farmer's car. I remember seeing them in a lot of different colors, yellow, green, blue, red, some of them with Charleston design (which I didn't like that much). Sometimes they came in a van type with a whole bloated body attached to the back, sometimes only the trunk was elongated and stuck out. I also distinctly remember them going very much sideways through a street corner, but I never saw one toppled by that maneuver. And always, there was that instantly recognizable sound of the engine. So with the car so present in my life, there were bound to be stories tied to it. I'll put some of mine below. 

- Somebody from the street of the little village where I grew up put an anonymous note in our mailbox, urging us to buy another car because the Ugly Duck was in his view detrimental to the standing of the street….we of course bought a second one….true story.

- Although the car was low in maintenance, it shared one characteristic with all cars from France (from that time), and that was rust. To illustrate how basic the car was built, when we had it for a couple of years (and it was already 2^nd hand when we got it), the rust got so bad, it actually created a hole in the ground plate, and I could see the street under the car going by while in the passenger seat….true story

- When I was young, there was a weekly TV program about cars. Aside from searching out the “Wreck of the Week” (this was before mandatory MOT testing), they tested new cars and one time they compared a 2CV with a Russian Lada. To illustrate the differences in suspension they let the cars drive very fast over a track with speed bumps, spaced about every 2 meters. They started with the Lada, and the suspension was so stiff and uncomfortable that the whole car actually started to jump in the air and it quickly landed on it's side besides the track. When they put the 2CV on the same lane, I swear that the body and undercarriage of the car stayed perfectly straight and still in the horizontal plane, while the wheels were going up and down with the speed of valves in a combustion engine….true story.

- When I was little bit older and we had a "proper" car for the first time (Toyota Carina), we got behind a 2CV on the highway, which just merged with the rest of the traffic. It was heavily loaded, probably with 5 or 6 students, and the car was groaning on it’s back axis. When they started speeding up, both back windows opened, and 2 students put an arm out to either side. They then started making flapping movements, indicating imminent take-off….true story.

[slam23]

So the next step in rebricking was downloading the Studio 2.0 software from Bricklink. I had used it a couple of years before when I did a MOC of my electric piano (this was predominantly a study in what bricks would constitute a believable keyboard with black and white keys) so I was still quite familiar with it. The plan was to transfer the yellow CADA bricks of the 2CV model in their LEGO counterparts, then export the part list and buy the bricks through BrickLink. The interesting part was to see if there would be any "translation" problems, with bricks maybe not available in LEGO. Later on, we decided to do all the bricks, and have a complete LEGO model if possible. 

First we looked at the part list in the CADA manual. To me it looked exactly like a LEGO part list, only with CADA codes. Couldn't find any way of automatically (or manually) convert these codes into LEGO part ID's, which would have made life a lot easier (although less satisfying in the end maybe). If you want to get familiar with brick grammar and get fluent in LEGO, I highly recommended doing this exercise. 

LEGO parts in Studio are defined by their official part ID,  but they also are organized in categories and described in language. This is where, brick, plate, tile, wedge, hinge etc. come into play. For a very experienced builder, this will be fluent vocabulary, but for amateurs like me (and my son of 16 years old, with whom I'm doing this build), it could pose a challenge to find the specific part. So a 2x2 tile is quite simple, but how about "60475b Brick, Modified 1x1 with Open O Clip (Vertical Grip) - Hollow Stud"? 

 

So after a lot of scrolling through categories to visually match parts, and also trying our luck on internet which sometimes yielded names and codes faster, I stumbled upon a fantastic PDF document by Tom Alphin called LEGO Brick Labels. It's originally meant for labeling drawers for LEGO part collections but it also helped enormously to ID parts for our build. It even helped with distinguishing hard to see differences in the small parts, for example Technic pins with or without friction. 

This is how the PDF looks like:

It's up to version 40 dating to december 2023, and if you visit his site https://brickarchitect.com/ you can also go into his online LEGO Parts Guide, which is even more extensive. Highly recommended resource, and you can support his work through Patreon. 

[slam23]

In Studio the 1238 original pieces would look like this:

And a simple recolor to red yielded this result:

The translation from CADA to LEGO pieces went quite smooth, we only found 3 CADA parts that didn't have a LEGO counterpart. 2 of them were not crucial to the build, and could be replaced by alternatives, 1 does pose a problem. Aside from missing counterparts, we also encountered some color trouble. Not all CADA pieces were available in the same LEGO color. This was also not crucial, as it only happened with 5-6 pieces and we found near enough colors to match them. 

The first piece that had no counterpart was this 1x3 piece that will form the handle of the suitcase that comes with the 2CV. It would otherwise probably fit in the Other_Railing_Ladders category in the Brick Label PDF:

We substituted the piece with the LEGO phone part, and added 2 1x1 round plates to give it a bit more height. It will probably look fine.

The next one is a Technic piece, called a 1x5 liftarm with alternating holes. It does not exist in that form in LEGO, but there is a 1x7 that we could find as substitute. As it is part of the external steering add-on for the remote control, it is no problem to use the 1x7. It will stick out a bit and may look a bit clumsy but that's all:

So we already got the replacement parts:

Now to the problem piece. This is an interesting one, because I found several topics on it, with complaints that LEGO has not produced something like this yet. It's a 2x2 SNOT tile with studs on both sides:

In the 2CV build, it will allow inside paneling of the doors with yellow 2x3 and 2x4 tiles. I'm not sure yet how to solve this. I have seen the reverse hinge solution in the Advanced LEGO build techniques section on SNOT. And also the antennas in the underside of a big enough plate. Both probably will pose problems in terms of getting them to fit in width and length and the antennas may not fit with the underside of tiles. This may be the one CADA part I will still need to use in the LEGO model, or we have to rethink the door paneling as a whole. We'll come back to that later when we had the opportunity to build it in real life and be able to fiddle around with it some more. 

[Sim_Camat]

Hello, 
Your project is very interesting. Many people want to build their own car (one they own or have known), but few are motivated to do so.

I think the model made by COBI brings together some very good ideas, whereas I find the proportions of the CADA model a little less successful. But your choice makes sense, especially if you want to make it in red!

Believe me, it's always difficult to create an old Citroën on this scale. 
I've been working on two ‘similar’ models for a little over five months: the Citroën AMI6 (sedan and station wagon).

(made in Stud.io)

I had to rethink my approach to my creations just for this car. This led me to develop a ‘Citroën’ chassis that can be adapted to all models that use the same assembly as your 2CV!

Maybe I'll try to make a 2CV soon, and I promise I'll try it in red! I think my work will be a mix between the superb model by ww and Cobi's creation.

In the meantime, I wish you luck in finishing your model!

[slam23]

Hi Sim_Camat,

Nice of you to reply to these posts! I love your "Ami", it is instantly recognizable! This was actually the first car that my parents had together, before I was born. Before that my mother drove a Beetle, so no shortage of classic cars in our household! I am very interested in your chassis and will definitely check out your 2 CV project :-). I'll pick up my CADA project quite soon, and I'm still awaiting the last batch of bricks from Bricklink for my other 2CV project (I'm a bit afraid it got lost in the mail). Please keep me posted about your progress, the Ami just looks amazing!

Greetings Slam23