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Citroën
Citroën (French pronunciation: [sitʁɔɛn] ⓘ) is a French automobile company. The "Automobiles Citroën" manufacturing company was founded on 4 June 1919 by André Citroën. Citroën has been owned by Stellantis since 2021 and previously was part of the PSA Group after Peugeot acquired 89.95% share in 1976. Citroën's head office is located in the Stellantis Poissy Plant in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine since 2021 (previously in Rueil-Malmaison) and its offices studies and research in Vélizy-Villacoublay, Poissy (CEMR), Carrières-sous-Poissy and Sochaux-Montbéliard.
In 1934, the firm established its reputation for innovative technology with the Traction Avant. This was the world's first car to be mass-produced with front-wheel drive and four-wheel independent suspension, as well as unibody construction, omitting a separate chassis, and instead using the body of the car itself as its main load-bearing structure.
In 1954, Citroën produced the world's first hydropneumatic self-levelling suspension system; then the revolutionary DS, the first mass-produced car with modern disc brakes, in 1955. In 1967, swiveling headlights that allowed for greater visibility on winding roads were introduced in several models. These cars have received various national and international awards, including three European Car of the Year awards.
André Citroën graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1900 and visited his mother's homeland, Poland, shortly after she died. During that holiday, he saw a carpenter working on a set of gears with a fishbone structure that were less noisy and more efficient. Citroën bought the patent for very little money, leading to the invention of double helical gears. The next year, he and his partners invested a significant portion of his inheritance in founding "Citroën, Hinstin et Cie," a gear manufacturing business specializing in V-shaped helical gears, starting with about ten workers.
Citroën had a successful six-year stint working with Mors between 1908 and the outbreak of World War I. He built armaments for France during the war, but he realized that unless he planned ahead, he would have a modern factory without a product afterward.
Citroën began planning to switch to automobile manufacturing by 1916, when he asked the engineer Louis Dufresne, previously with Mors rival Panhard, to design a technically sophisticated 18-horsepower automobile he could produce in his factory once peace returned. Long before that happened, however, he had modified his vision and decided, like Henry Ford, that the best post-war opportunities in auto-making would involve a lighter car of good quality, but made in sufficient quantities to be priced enticingly. In February 1917, Citroën contacted the 1909 creator of Le Zèbre, French automotive engineer Jules Salomon, with a mandate that was characteristically both demanding and simple: produce an all-new design for a 10-horsepower car that would be better equipped, more robust, and less costly to produce than any rival product at the time.
The result was the Citroën Type A, announced to the press in March 1919, just four months after the guns fell silent. The first production Type A emerged from the factory—located at Quai de Javel, Vaugirard, Paris—at the end of May 1919, and in June it was exhibited at a showroom at Number 42, on the Champs-Élysées in Paris which normally sold Alda cars. Citroën persuaded the owner of the Alda business, Fernand Charron, to lend him the showroom, which is still in use today. This C42 showroom is where the company organises exhibitions and shows its vehicles and concept cars. A few years later, Charron would be persuaded to become a major investor in the Citroën business. On 7 July 1919, the first customer took delivery of a new 10HP Type A. In the same year, it produced 30 cars daily, totaling 2,810 vehicles, with 12,244 produced in 1920.
That same year, André Citroën briefly negotiated with General Motors a proposed sale of the Citroën company. The deal nearly closed, but General Motors ultimately decided that its management and capital would be too overstretched by the takeover, thus, Citroën remained independent until 1935.
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Citroën
Citroën (French pronunciation: [sitʁɔɛn] ⓘ) is a French automobile company. The "Automobiles Citroën" manufacturing company was founded on 4 June 1919 by André Citroën. Citroën has been owned by Stellantis since 2021 and previously was part of the PSA Group after Peugeot acquired 89.95% share in 1976. Citroën's head office is located in the Stellantis Poissy Plant in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine since 2021 (previously in Rueil-Malmaison) and its offices studies and research in Vélizy-Villacoublay, Poissy (CEMR), Carrières-sous-Poissy and Sochaux-Montbéliard.
In 1934, the firm established its reputation for innovative technology with the Traction Avant. This was the world's first car to be mass-produced with front-wheel drive and four-wheel independent suspension, as well as unibody construction, omitting a separate chassis, and instead using the body of the car itself as its main load-bearing structure.
In 1954, Citroën produced the world's first hydropneumatic self-levelling suspension system; then the revolutionary DS, the first mass-produced car with modern disc brakes, in 1955. In 1967, swiveling headlights that allowed for greater visibility on winding roads were introduced in several models. These cars have received various national and international awards, including three European Car of the Year awards.
André Citroën graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1900 and visited his mother's homeland, Poland, shortly after she died. During that holiday, he saw a carpenter working on a set of gears with a fishbone structure that were less noisy and more efficient. Citroën bought the patent for very little money, leading to the invention of double helical gears. The next year, he and his partners invested a significant portion of his inheritance in founding "Citroën, Hinstin et Cie," a gear manufacturing business specializing in V-shaped helical gears, starting with about ten workers.
Citroën had a successful six-year stint working with Mors between 1908 and the outbreak of World War I. He built armaments for France during the war, but he realized that unless he planned ahead, he would have a modern factory without a product afterward.
Citroën began planning to switch to automobile manufacturing by 1916, when he asked the engineer Louis Dufresne, previously with Mors rival Panhard, to design a technically sophisticated 18-horsepower automobile he could produce in his factory once peace returned. Long before that happened, however, he had modified his vision and decided, like Henry Ford, that the best post-war opportunities in auto-making would involve a lighter car of good quality, but made in sufficient quantities to be priced enticingly. In February 1917, Citroën contacted the 1909 creator of Le Zèbre, French automotive engineer Jules Salomon, with a mandate that was characteristically both demanding and simple: produce an all-new design for a 10-horsepower car that would be better equipped, more robust, and less costly to produce than any rival product at the time.
The result was the Citroën Type A, announced to the press in March 1919, just four months after the guns fell silent. The first production Type A emerged from the factory—located at Quai de Javel, Vaugirard, Paris—at the end of May 1919, and in June it was exhibited at a showroom at Number 42, on the Champs-Élysées in Paris which normally sold Alda cars. Citroën persuaded the owner of the Alda business, Fernand Charron, to lend him the showroom, which is still in use today. This C42 showroom is where the company organises exhibitions and shows its vehicles and concept cars. A few years later, Charron would be persuaded to become a major investor in the Citroën business. On 7 July 1919, the first customer took delivery of a new 10HP Type A. In the same year, it produced 30 cars daily, totaling 2,810 vehicles, with 12,244 produced in 1920.
That same year, André Citroën briefly negotiated with General Motors a proposed sale of the Citroën company. The deal nearly closed, but General Motors ultimately decided that its management and capital would be too overstretched by the takeover, thus, Citroën remained independent until 1935.
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