Mention Citroën to any one under 25 and their most likely response will be that it makes the best rally cars in the world — they are currently dominating the World Rally Championship series with their acrobatic French driver, Sebastien Loeb

Part of the vast French PSA group, Citroën was forced to take a back seat to Peugeot, which ruled world rallying with its 4WD 205 and 206 models.

When Citroen built a FWD rally car that actually managed to beat the established 4WD stars on tarmac WRC events, PSA was forced to take Citroën’s rally team seriously — with these results, what could it do with 4WD?

Reluctantly the go-ahead was given, and Citroën proceeded to sweep all before it to become the undoubted star of rallying today.

But although rallying’s the association younger people make with the Citroën name, the response likely from older people is that the French company has always made weird, complicated cars for old men and architects. Yet Citroën probably makes more money from conventional cars than it does out of the hydropneumatic wonders which made it famous.

No Driver

Citroën’s founder was not interested in cars particularly, or driving, and was more likely to be found in the back seat rather than the front. Andre Citroën wanted to make money, fi rst and foremost — money to feed a gambling habit — and his main concern was economical manufacturing rather than technical novelty. Now a symbol of France, Citroën’s founder was actually of Dutch/Polish descent. In the Netherlands the Napoleonic occupation forces dictated that every citizen be known by his trade. Andre Citroën’s forbears sold lemons around Amsterdam, and so became known as Limoenman. Andre’s father became a diamond merchant, and when he moved to France in 1871, having also lived and married in Poland, his name was translated roughly into Citroën, close to the French word for lemon.Andre Citroën was the third child, born seven years after the move to Paris. He grew up in a wealthy, creative atmosphere, and was sent to the Ecole Polytechnique, the breeding ground for senior military engineers.

Whilst on leave from the Polytechnique, visiting his mother’s family in Poland, Andre discovered a foundry near Lodz making double-helical gears, cast in iron from a pattern in wood.

It set Citroën thinking about the commercial potential of this device if it were machined from steel. He purchased the patent from the Lodz foundry on the spot, and when he fi nished his schooling and military commitments, he set up a workshop to perfect the technique.

The sign

With a great fl air for publicity and marketing, Citroën was soon selling his double helical gears into heavy industry. The twin chevron signature of the French marque is a representation of double helical gears. His entrepreneurial skill led him to be asked to rescue the struggling Mors motor company, which he did, most successfully.

He went on a fact-finding mission for Mors to the USA in 1912, and saw the Ford production line in Detroit. He decided this was the way to build motor cars. War, however, intervened, and it was back in the military where he discovered that his artillery position was under great stress because it could not get enough ammunition.

On presenting his ideas to improve this situation, he was given backing by the French military to build an armaments factory using American production equipment.

It was a very successful enterprise for Citroën, but once hostilities with the Germans stopped he needed to find a purpose for his 30-acre site and 12,000 workers.

He would make motor cars, like Ford, for the masses. By 1920 15,000cars had been sold. Citroën set up dealership franchises with fi xed prices all over France, with credit and insurance schemes to go with them. He was supplying pressed steel bodies and the whole fi nancial package, not just a chassis like his competitors. Citroën was once heard to remark “The moment an idea becomes desirable, its price becomes of no importance.”

Whilst he was a businessman first, he was also happy to take risks — hence his gambling habit. He also was a great talent spotter, and gathered around him some very useful people.

The Wall Street Crash affected Citroën as much as other industrialists, at a time when his product line-up was looking old fashioned. He tarted up his current range, but concentrated his resources on the development of something he felt would be easier to drive, roomier and easier to manufacture.

Traction Avant

Once again using American technology — this time from the Budd motor company — Citroën commissioned a closed body car made with fi ve large pressings, no chassis, front wheel drive and torsion bar independent suspension. It would also feature hydraulic brakes and rack and pinion steering.

Whilst Citroën was not the first to introduce these innovations, it was the first to market them in huge numbers to the everyday car buyer. Citroën’s fl air was to take risks in volume production, daring to be different in a highly committed sense. Six months before production, he was still committed to a hydro-turbine automatic transmission for his new 7CV.

What occupied Citroën’s mind were ways to make motoring less bothersome, and more accessible. It was only after a six-car reliability trial in the fi nal stages of development, when fi ve 7CV prototypes overheated their transmissions, that the programme was halted and a manual transmission substituted in the same casing. The development of this car, and the new factory to build it, crippled the company, and the worry killed its founder. After the announcement of his new project in April 1934, the company was insolvent by December, and Andre Citroën died of a tumour in July 1935, aged 56.

His principal creditor was Michelin, which took over the company and released the new 7CV model in both front and rear wheel drive — just in case the FWD was too unusual. The company abandoned rear wheel drive completely in 1938.

Whilst the 7CV ‘Traction Avant’ was initially unreliable, the problems were ironed out and it became a symbol of France. It was still in production 25 years later, during which time its parent company used the car to innovate the Michelin X radial tyre.

Deux Chevaux

After the success of the Traction Avant, Citroën’s next pioneering venture was the ‘TPV’ — Tout Petit Voiture; a vehicle to mobilise the mainly agricultural population of France.

A motorised pony cart, it was so simple and sturdy that a farmer’s wife could use it to deliver produce to the local market. A prime test was to drive across a ploughed field without breaking eggs in a basket.

Originally destined to be presented at the 1939 Paris show, the war precluded it, and the prototypes were hidden away. It was horribly crude in appearance, and during astounding. This faith was once again to be severely tested when it came to replace the now aging Traction Avant, the car that had started out as the 7CV. Although an ageing design, the Traction Avant was still ahead of many of its rivals in many respects when it ceased production in 1957.

The Goddess

Its replacement was radical in the extreme. Having shown other manufacturers the way with monocoque steel bodies, Citroën now eschewed that principal as too expensive, and built a car in which none of the steel structure was visible as an exterior panel (and as such it could be ugly and shaped for function and strength, rather than compromised by style). The structure of the new ‘DS’ was a steel pontoon which incorporated the roof frame and all the mechanical mountings.

There were no door frames, and the screens were just held in place against the pontoon by brackets working against the pressure of the seals. This meant that production was easy, and visibility for the driver was excellent.

Radiators ducted under the bumper did not come into fashion until the mid ’70s. Citroën did this in the mid ’50s, and its attention to aerodynamics was incredible for the time, with the car having a totally fl at fl oor pan and undertray to the power unit. The exterior panels were bolt-on steel pressings (doors and guards) glass fibre (roof) and aluminium (bonnet and boot).

The suspension, steering and brakes were all driven off one pump, pressurising (initially) vegetable-based oil separated by diaphragms from compressible nitrogen for the suspension. The system maintained ride height and pitch no matter what the load. Centre point steering gave ideal geometry and excellent stability, and was power-assisted by the pump. The ride was unbelievably comfortable, but retained good handling and road holding, and with the very soft arm-chair seats the car offered a surreal amount of comfort.

Inboard front disc brakes were fi tted — at a time when only sports cars used them — operated by a button, not a pedal.

The clutch was also activated automatically using the hydraulic system, meaning no pedal was necessary. The huge wheelbase and front wheel drive meant that rear passengers had acres of uninterrupted space, and the only intrusion into the front compartment was the engine, which sat behind the differential and transmission.

Space Station

Inside the car was like a space station, making use of new plastics and some radical ideas for instrumentation and controls. The steering wheel had only one spoke to increase visibility, and to be collapsible in an accident.

Engine intrusion was probably the worst feature of the car, because the engine was disappointingly conventional and rustic. Putting it close to the passengers only served to amplify the noise.

However, the sensation the car caused on its launch in 1955 cannot be overstated. The model lasted until the mid ’70s, and well into the next century we are still seeing manufacturers taking up ideas used on the DS19. There were so many novel features it would take a book to list them.

After the Traction experience in the ’30s, Citroën was ready for teething troubles, and it got them. It was in for the long haul, so whilst it was expensive and bad for the company’s image, problems were expected. Few cars were actually sold in 1955 despite huge order books. Only in spring 1957 did the DS19 swing in to volume production.

Some of the novel features disappeared and others were toned down to appeal to a wider public, or provide cheaper, more austere model under the moniker ID19.

It was known as the Goddess (DS sounds like the French word for Goddess), and 1,456,115 cars were made over 20 years. Like the Traction Avant, it was well ahead of its time in many respects when it was replaced by the slightly more conventional CX (which had originally been intended to take a Wankel Rotary engine to spirit away once and for all the major criticism of the DS; its agricultural engine).

Citroën still uses the combined steering, brake and suspension olio-pneumatic system, augmented electronically these days, on its more expensive models — albeit on much more conventional cars — and the ride is still superior to pretty much everything else.

DS23 Restoration

Our feature car is probably one of the best of its type in the world. Being a very late car it suffered none of the teething troubles with all the developments to the model that took place over 20 years.

Being the most expensive model of the range (DS23 Pallas) it also features a fuel injected 2.3-litre engine, self levelling, swivelling headlights and leather upholstery. It has also been the subject of a ground up, nut and bolt restoration by its owners, Roger and Rosemary Simpson of Papakura, using NOS (new, old stock) parts where ever possible.

It is virtually a brand new car, the restoration having been completed after they bought it in a dilapidated state in 2002. It was their fourth Citroën DS, Peter having been captivated by the model since the age of 10 when his doctor in Kaikohe owned one.

Built in Paris on December 26, 1973, the car was sold new by Shorter’s of Shortland Street, Auckland to a lawyer. It is a remarkable restoration on a remarkable car.

Words: Tim Nevinson Photos: Quinn Hamill