The ACI is a fruit of the Citroën World Meetings. The first was in Porec (former Yugoslavia) in April/May 1973, the second was at Vienna in summer 1974. There was a meeting on Austria (the first delegates' meeting) to discuss how the Clubs could communicate and work together. In the autumn of that year, following the initiative of David Conway from the British CCC, the first meeting of 17 club delegates took place at the Citroën headquarter - without any French representative being present. There was another meeting in Paris in 1975, but no further action. 

The next World Meeting, the first under the name ICCCR, was arranged in 1974 to be in England 1976.  In 1975 the first 2 CV World Meeting was in  Finland as the idea was that there should be a 2CV World Meeting to alternate with the ICCCR.  In 1978 the first ICCCR (No.4) was held in France itself. Organizer Yves Levasseur from the Club Traction Universelle convinced Citroën to be present at Chartres - they held a 2 CV Cross and came with a full museum. David Conway was there presented to Monsieur Bernard and Madame Citroën as the "Englishman who organizes Citroën Clubs now worldwide." 

The ICCCR continued, although not with fixed intervals and there was some dissatisfaction when they were held every three years and therefore coincided with the 2 CV World meetings which maintained the two year interval.  In 1989, the 8th ICCCR in Flevohof (The second in the Netherlands) ended with a good financial balance, so Herman Sluiter (responsible at the Traction Avant Club Nederland at that time) and the Jean-Francois Ruchaud (President of Amicale Citroen in France.) had the idea in 1990, to establish an international bank account and create the Amicale Citroën Internationale, to supervise the ICCCRs. 

At the first ACI-meeting on the 6th October 1990 the five persons present in Paris were unanimous that only David Conway could be the president of this new international association. Until 1999 David did most of the work (sending out a newsletter, arranging meeting dates, sending invitations for the annual meeting at Rétromobile) on his own, Then he wanted to retire and looked for successors.

At that time there were only a few people still believing in this "lobby-work". Citroën at that time were in the period they call themself today the "dark-age": no history, no clubs, no old models was the official politics.  Times changed with the arrival of the new PSA-head Folz and especially by the support of the chief of Peugeots tradition department, Robert Peugeot. 

Between 2000 and 2002 Citroën had to create a Conservatoire and a department for tradition themselves. Citroën, with a new organization but with very little knowledge as to how the clubs had kept their history worldwide alive for more than 20 years, had the first contact with the ACI in autumn 2002. It was a long process and there were many meetings until February 2004 when the new and formally organized ACI was established, recognized today by Citroën as the  official and only platform to communicate with clubs.

(written by Ulrich Knaack, ACI Germany delegate)