André-Gustave Citroën

French engineer and industrialist

• Born: February 5, 1878
• Birthplace: Paris, France
• Died: July 3, 1935
• Place of death: Paris, France

Citroën introduced Henry Ford’s mass production techniques to the European automobile industry and founded the company that produced the first car that was affordable to a broad cross section of consumers in Europe. He financed several scientific exhibitions and gave the lighting of the Arc de Triomphe and the Place de la Concorde to the city of Paris.

Early Life

André-Gustave Citroën (ahn-dray-gews-tahv see-traw-ehn) was born into a family of wealthy Jewish diamond merchants of Dutch extraction. While he was still a young child, Citroën’s parents lost most of their assets in a complex financial swindle, and, when André was six, his mother died. In the same year, his father committed suicide. Despite these difficulties, Citroën entered the Lycée Condorcet at age seven and later attended the Lycée Louis le Grand, where he performed quite well scholastically. In 1898, he began at the Ecole Polytechnique but ceased studies there in 1900.

Shortly after leaving school, he established a small shop to manufacture herringbone or vee-shaped gears whose innovative form provided extra strength. This undertaking achieved an annual sales volume of one million francs by 1910. Known under the name Société Anonyme des Engrenages Citroën, the firm’s capital rose to three million francs in 1913. It produced the steering gear for the Titanic, and, by 1913, more than five hundred gears had been manufactured there. A new factory was opened on the Quai Grenelle in Paris.

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Citroën was called up into the French artillery, where he became concerned about the paucity of French munitions and men. In discussions with General Baquet, who was the defense ministry official responsible for ordnance, Citroën proposed building a shop that would produce twenty thousand shells a day. In 1915, the government agreed to the plan, and in six weeks, Citroën built on Paris’s Quai Javel a munitions factory that ultimately manufactured more than fifty-five thousand shells daily. Citroën assisted in the revitalization of all factories involved in the war effort and was particularly instrumental in achieving increased coal supplies for those factories as well as for gas works and electrical generating stations. He reorganized the Roane arsenal on the same mass-production lines as the Javel factory and arranged the equitable distribution of food supplies to wartime French civilians through the introduction of ration cards.

Life’s Work

Much of Citroën’s success in enhancing France’s wartime output derived from his interest in mass production techniques. In 1912, Citroën visited the Ford motorworks in the United States for the purpose of learning their methods and with the hope of applying them to the French automobile industry. Citroën had long been convinced that the European car industry could and needed to experience substantial expansion, and he considered cost to be the major obstacle to the automobile’s widespread use by large numbers of consumers. The war interfered with his plans to produce such a vehicle. He applied the mass production techniques to the munitions industry during the war years, and, when hostilities ended, the armaments factory that the government had authorized him to build on the Quai Javel was adapted for automobile production.

Applying the standardized techniques of which he had become a major European proponent, Citroën began producing the 10CV Type A on a large scale in 1919. Most automobile manufacturers of that time produced but one chassis and one engine, which had to be assembled in a specialist’s workshop before it could be used. Citroën’s Type A came from the factory fully assembled and ready for the road. Because all parts were produced and assembled in a standard series, costs were considerably reduced. Before the Type A had been seen by the general public, interest in the automobile was substantial. In a span of two weeks, sixteen thousand orders were received.

The Type A that came off the assembly line for the first time on May 28, 1919, featured a thrifty, four-cylinder engine and consistently achieved a speed of forty miles per hour. It was equipped with electric starter and lights. The Type A became available in several variations: the three- and four-seater Torpedos, the three-seater Coupé, the four-seater Limousine, the City Coupé, and a delivery van. Two thousand were built in 1919 and eight thousand in 1920. By that time, Type A was outproducing all other European automobiles. More than 150,000 had been built by 1924.

To facilitate production and meet the enormous demand for its small, economical cars, the Citroën company expanded. In 1922, a factory at Levallois-Perret was bought, part of the Mors Company was purchased, and a new plant was opened in Saint-Ouen. Citroën’s French holdings involved two hundred acres of land and employed thirty-five thousand workers in the mid-1920’s, and by 1927 the company was producing four hundred cars per day. The following year, Citroën commanded 36 percent of the French automobile market. Ultimately, Citroën was manufacturing automobiles in Great Britain, Germany, and Austria.

Other models followed the Type A. In 1922, the 5CV Type C appeared, a five-horsepower model conceived of as a young people’s car. This model also achieved success as a popular means of transportation. Citroën later modified the Type C, lengthening the body and adding a back seat. After 1926, the firm also manufactured taxis, half-track vehicles, and one-ton commercial vehicles. Citroën manufactured its first six-cylinder vehicles in 1928: a car and a 1.8-ton commercial vehicle.

Citroën engaged in innovative advertising, insurance, and maintenance practices that increased public information concerning his product and reduced both psychological and financial obstacles associated with car ownership. By 1929, total sales had exceeded 100,000 vehicles, and, in 1932, the well-publicized 134-day endurance test of an 8CV affirmed the reliability of Citroën cars.

The best-known Citroën innovation in the passenger car industry came with the introduction of the Citroën “7” in 1934. Most noted for its front-wheel drive capability, the “7” contained many unique applications that combined to revolutionize design thinking in the automobile industry. This new model incorporated the overhead valve engine, removable liners, hydraulic brakes, torsion bar suspension, and a monocoque body, and it became the only popular front-wheel-drive car of its time. By 1934, however, Citroën’s unsatisfactory financial practices caused his 2,450 creditors to petition for bankruptcy, and the automobile industrialist lost control of his firm. A French government commission assumed control of the company and persuaded one of the creditors, the Michelin Tire Company, to acquire the business in 1935.

In addition to innovative contributions to the automotive industry, Citroën sponsored pioneering scientific expeditions across Africa and Asia, extending funds as well as the technical knowledge of his staff. A Citroën caterpillar tractor convoy set a twenty-day record crossing the two-thousand-mile Sahara Desert in December, 1922, and January, 1923. The Trans-Sahara Expedition consisted of a Citroën manager, several military representatives, one scientific observer, and other technical personnel. The tractors were specially equipped with rubber and canvas bands that worked successfully to overcome the varied terrain of the route. Similar expeditions followed, and, in 1924, eight ten-horsepower Citroën caterpillar tractors embarked on a fifteen-thousand-mile, nine-month trip from Algeria through Central Africa, reaching as far as Cape Town, Mozambique, and Madagascar. The Central African Expedition included experts in the area of science and technology, amassing ninety thousand feet of motion-picture film, eight thousand photographs, and considerable original research on then-unknown parts of Africa. The Citroën Trans-Asiatic Expedition covered eight thousand miles from Beirut to Peking (now Beijing) and conducted similar research between 1931 and 1932. Two of Citroën’s caterpillar tractors traversed the arduous Himalayas, the first instance of a motorized crossing of those mountains.

Significance

Citroën and the automobile company he founded came to symbolize audacity and progress in Europe’s advancement toward the technological age. Citroën himself possessed and was able to communicate a vision for the steps essential to the advancement of France’s automobile industry, and his career parallels its developments. The financial crisis that the company faced in the mid-1930’s emerged not only from the difficult world economic situation but also from the particular personality of French business people and their business practices. The individualist spirit of French firms combined with the aversion of French banks for long-term loans to undermine the stability and growth of French industry.

For inventor-industrialists such as Citroën, the lure of profits for their own sake, a distinguishing characteristic of financial institutions, was fundamentally unable to stimulate the great innovations of the kind Citroën pursued. These varied perspectives produced a mutual disdain that ultimately compromised the vigor of important French enterprises. The Citroën firm was among them. Despite reverses, however, Citroën cars continue to be regarded as unique among automobile manufacturers. Consistently subjugating form to function, Citroën cars are designed from the inside out: The driver is the first and most dominating element to be accommodated by the final product. This principle has produced an at times bizarre, but always harmonious, appearance that echoes the daring and vision of Citroën himself and his penchant for progressive and always useful experimentation.

Bibliography

Baldwin, Nick, et al. The World Guide to Automobile Manufacturers. New York: Facts On File, 1987. The article on Citroën is the most useful brief account of the company and its founder, including the major contributions and events in the history of the firm.

Broad, Raymond. Citroën. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976. Broad presents the history of the Citroën company from the first Type A through the merger with Peugeot in 1974. The twenty-nine short chapters deal with the successive innovations and explain the problems they resolved. The book is sufficiently illustrated.

De Saint-Seine, Sylviane. “Master Marketer Understood What the Public Wanted.” Automotive News, December 8, 2000, 20F. A tribute to Citroën, discussing how he produced and promoted his automobiles.

Dumont, Pierre. Citroën, the Great Marque of France: A Pictorial History. Translated by Tom Ellaway. London: Interante, 1976. This work provides a description of the automobile industry before Citroën and a discussion of his contribution to it. Dumont provides a complete study of the evolution of Citroën cars from the Type A of 1919 to the SM and GS models. This book constitutes the most complete resource for specifications, production statistics, and general information concerning Citroën and his automobile business.

Haardt, Georges-Marie, and Louis Audouin-Dubreuil. Across the Sahara by Motor Car: From Touggart to Timbuctoo. Translated by E. E. Fournier d’Albe. New York: D. Appleton, 1924. This work describes the Trans-Sahara Expedition from the perspective of its leader and Citroën’s business associate, Georges Marie Haardt. Citroën wrote the introduction, which provides insight into his personality and motivation.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Black Journey. New York: Cosmopolitan, 1927. This book deals with the Citroën expedition to central Africa, following its itinerary and detailing its achievements.

LeFevre, Georges. An Eastern Odyssey. Translated by E. D. Swinton. Boston: Little, Brown, 1935. This is the story of the Citroën Trans-Asiatic Expedition by the expedition’s historian. LeFevre provides a detailed account of the discoveries, obstacles, and successes of the trip. Citroën wrote the preface, which reflects the origins and purposes of such continental journeys and explains the development of half-track vehicles.

Reynolds, John. André Citroën: Engineer, Explorer, Entrepreneur. Rev. ed. Newbury Park, Calif.: Haynes North America, 2006. Biography with exceptionally good photographs, many of which were previously unpublished.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Citroën: Daring to Be Different. Newbury Park, Calif.: Haynes North America, 2004. Reynolds describes Citroën as an innovative car manufacturer, demonstrating his thesis with descriptions of all of the automobiles produced by the company after World War I.

Schmittel, Wolfgang. Design, Concept, Realisation. Translated by M. J. Schärer-Wynne. Zurich: ABC-Edition, 1975. Schmittel includes a chapter on the contribution of Citroën and his company to the automobile industry. The piece discusses the design philosophy of the Citroën enterprise and concludes that its subordination of structure to function produced consistently harmonious designs and reflected the firm’s commitment to progress and its daring approach to innovation.