> I've always been amazed why the 2CV is seen as a styling icon.

You could ask the same about the Opinel No. 8 knife. Same thing since 1890s, one minor update every 50 years or so. It's still sold by the bucketload today for about €10.

It's just French, the same way a Lada is just Russian, a Mini Cooper is British or a Fiat 500 is Italian. It's part of post-WW2 cars that were cheap to buy, cheap to operate, cheap to fix and with production numbers in the millions.