Launched in July 1961 alongside a cheaper, smaller-engined twin, the R3, the 4 inherited its engines from the rear-engined 4CV but moved them to the front, and rode on four-wheel independent suspension with transverse torsion bars mounted one behind the other at the rear. This is a detail that gives the car a genuinely different wheelbase on each side.[1] It stayed in production for 33 years with only incremental engine and trim changes, outliving several would-be successors, and over eight million were built.
The launch engine’s power is recorded here as a manufacturer-attributed range (26.5 to 32 PS, “depending on price level and the type of carburettor”) rather than the vaguer “24 hp” figure given elsewhere in the same Wikipedia article with no further sourcing. This is not two sources disagreeing so much as one article being more precise in one place than another. Kerb weight is only published as a range across the whole run, so the lowest figure is recorded at generation level rather than assigned to a specific trim.
