Citroen Traction Avant: The fruit of imprudence

On this day, in 1934, the Citroen Traction Avant arrived, leaping into the future, thanks to a man who did not count the cost

April 18, 2018 12:36 pm | Updated 12:36 pm IST

Hanoi, Vietnam - July 25, 2011: View of an old Citroen vantage car in the streets of Hanoi. Some people can be seen in the scene.

Hanoi, Vietnam - July 25, 2011: View of an old Citroen vantage car in the streets of Hanoi. Some people can be seen in the scene.

A life’s work can build a career, and paradoxically, destroy it at the same time. That is what the Traction Avant did to Andre Citroen. It parked him in the automotive hall of fame, but also caused him great financial distress. He died bankrupt, shunted out of an automotive empire he had built.

But for the Traction Avant, there would be no Andre Citroen today. He is remembered more on April 18 than on his birthday, for it was on this day in 1934 that this car, with a raft of what were then emerging technologies, was born. With front-wheel drive, unitary construction design and four-wheel independent suspension, the car made a formal appearance at a grand do in Paris. So this is a tribute to the man and his magnificent machine on its 84th anniversary. His place in automotive history must be clarified, especially because he is often seen as the French parallel to Henry Ford.

Comparing the two would be doing a great disservice to both. They were two stars on strikingly different trajectories: Each was temperamentally incapable of making the other’s machine. The only point of convergence was their courage to chart a course in new technological waters. Ford had an instinctive grasp of social and economic sentiments in his environment. Through his people’s car — Model T — Ford was tapping into a nation’s mindscape, lush with the promises of the Great American Dream. The car appeared to be part-fulfillment of this. In contrast, Citroen was almost always swimming against the economic and political currents of his times. The other day, S Srivardhan, who has a 1949 Citroen Traction Avant and memorabilia relating to the marque, encouraged me to read Citroen Traction Avant by Jon Pressnell, lending me his copy of the book.

Pressnell dwells on the financial imprudence of Citroen and his unwillingness to read prevailing economic and political scripts.

Citroen revelled in ostentatious and expensive promotions of his brand. The author presents a list which includes “1,00,000 roadsigns, a skywriting exercise over Paris and illuminating the Eiffel tower with the Citroen name.”

When the Traction Avant project was in the works, Citroen’s spending scaled new heights. The Quai de Javel factory was lavishly restructured, and tooling up for production of this car led to a mammoth outlay. Pressnell points out that at this time France was still licking wounds inflicted by a protracted economic depression, and the political climate in the country was marked by intrigue and uncertainty. Spending was at an unprecedented low and Citroen was not offering the French a people’s car.

However, Pressnell’s book essentially celebrates what Citroen achieved with his imprudence: Automotive technologies of the future neatly tied together in one mass-produced package. The Traction Avant went on to become one of the best-selling cars of all time, being in production until 1957. But as it happens with many visionaries, Andre Citroen did not live to see that day. In fact, Citroen died the year after its launch, leaving the company in the hands of Michelin.

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