Archive for the ‘Citroen 7CV’ tag

Cars of Futures Past – Citroen Traction Avant

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A “small body” Citroen 11CV Traction Avant. Photo by Stahlkocher.

At a passing glance, there’s little remarkable about the Citroen 7CV, or its later iterations, the 11CV and the 15CV. Known collectively as the Citroen Traction Avant (French for front-wheel drive) series, these automobiles were pleasantly styled for their day, yet hardly futuristic. Peel back the sheetmetal for a glimpse at what’s beneath, however, and the Traction Avant becomes one of the most remarkable cars of its time, one that would accurately predict an automotive future that was still nearly half a century away.

In the early 1930s, automaker Citroen was struggling to compete with French rivals Peugeot and Renault. As Andre Citroen saw it, his company needed something with the potential to revolutionize the auto industry, and he found just what he was looking for in a visit to the Budd Corporation in the United States. There, he saw a proposal for an automobile that used monocoque construction, incorporating body and frame into a single lightweight unit. The Budd design also featured a novel drive setup that positioned both engine and transmission in the front of the car, which allowed for improved interior room, a lower ride height and thus, a lower center of gravity that would deliver superior handling.

Citroen Traction Avant
The Traction Avant’s welded steel monocoque.

Citroen returned to France determined to build a similar car, but the question of where or how to start remained. The answer came in the form of Andre Lefebvre, a young engineer with previous experience at automaker Voisin. Lefebvre, like Citroen, believed that the future lay in front-wheel-drive automobiles, and his design collection already included such ideas sketched out. Admiring his talent as well as his drive, Citroen hired Lefebvre in March of 1933, appointing him (without an official title) to head the team that would design the automaker’s newest car.

Citroen was a traditional company, where one worked his way up the ladder, earning the respect of others along the way. The thought of a young “outsider” directing employees who’d been with Citroen for years was unfathomable, and Lefebvre immediately began to receive resistance from his colleagues. Why would Citroen waste its time with front-wheel drive, company director Maurice Broglie wanted to know, when rear-wheel drive was the long-established standard?

Citroen Traction Avant
Drawing showing the car’s torsion bar front suspension.

As Gijsbert-Paul Berk explains in his book, Andre Lefebvre and the cars he created for Voisin and Citroen, Lefebvre’s answer was simple, but demonstrative. Grabbing a box of matches, Lefebvre extracted a single wooden match. Inserting it in the rear of the box, he demonstrated that pushing the box (to simulate rear-wheel drive) made it difficult to maintain direction in a straight line. Reversing the box so that the match was in front, Lefebvre demonstrated that pulling the box (to simulate front-wheel drive) made keeping a straight line much easier. With that act, Lefebvre had visually demonstrated the benefit of front-wheel drive, but more significantly, he had also proven to the team that he, not Broglie, was now its leader.

In addition to front-wheel drive and unibody construction, Andre Citroen expected that his new car would have room for up to five adults, deliver a top speed of 100 kilometers per hour (62 MPH), return fuel economy of seven liters per 100 kilometers and possess a dry weight of 800 kilograms (1,760 pounds). Furthermore, the 7CV would have superior handling, thanks to a low center of gravity and independent torsion bar suspension; a contemporary (but not streamlined) body style, to be penned by Flaminio Bertoni; hydraulic brakes to ensure occupant safety; and an automatic transmission to attract the largest possible number of buyers. As if these goals weren’t lofty enough, Citroen insisted that the car had to be ready in time for the October 1934 Paris Motor Show, giving Lefebvre and his team just over 18 months to design a revolutionary new car from the ground up.

Citroen Traction Avant
An 11CV Traction Avant Familiale, with three-row seating for nine passengers. Photo by Cosinustangente.

By August of 1933, the first prototypes were ready, just five months after the project was initiated. The proposed automatic transmission quickly proved to be a weak point prone to the overheating of its hydraulic fluid, so it was replaced with a simple and robust three-speed manual transmission. The problems didn’t stop there, however, and 7CV prototypes experienced everything from driveshaft joint failures to collapsing suspensions and even cracked bodies. Fixing problems as they arose, the team pressed on, and in April of 1934, just 404 days from the start of the project, the Citroen 7CV was presented to a meeting of its dealers.

Power for 7CV models initially came from a 1.3-liter (79.5-cu.in.) four-cylinder engine, but this proved underpowered and was soon replaced by a 1.5-liter (93.3-cu.in.) four-cylinder that produced 35 horsepower, and later by a 1.6-liter (99.3-cu.in.) four-cylinder engine rated at 36 horsepower. In November of 1934, the 11CV debuted with a 1.9-liter (116.6-cu.in) four-cylinder engine good for 46 horsepower, but the biggest change came with the introduction of the 15CV, and its 2.9-liter inline six-cylinder engine (rated at 77 horsepower), in June of 1938.

Citroen Traction Avant
A 1938 postwar Citroen Traction Avant Commerciale, with the later single-piece tailgate. Photo by PLawrence99cx.

The original 7CV came in a variety of body styles, including Berline, Cabriolet and Faux Cabriolet. Known as the “small body” Traction Avants (and later, as the Légère models), this range was soon supplemented by the “Normale” body series, which featured 20-centemeter (7.9-inch) longer versions of the three small-body models as well as two larger examples (stretched another 7.9 inches in length) called the Conduite Intérieure and Familiale models. The Familiale was a true family vehicle, offering three-row seating with accommodation for up to nine passengers. In 1938, an 11CV version called the Commerciale debuted, offering buyers a wagon with a two-piece tailgate (though this was later changed to a one-piece tailgate).

Rushed to market in a desperate attempt to save Citroen from bankruptcy, early models were filled with flaws. When tire manufacturer Michelin assumed control of the company in December of 1934, there was finally sufficient money to sort the car’s ills in a proper manner, and by the second year of production the Traction Avant was quickly earning the admiration of buyers, who praised its handling, comfort and reliability. Production of Traction Avant models was halted by the onset of World War II, but during wartime the Citroen models developed a reputation as the preferred car of the French resistance (an ironic counterpoint to the preferred car of occupying German officers, the rear-engine, rear-drive Tatra T87). A year after the war ended, Traction Avant production resumed, and Citroen continued building the model until the last 11CV model was delivered in July of 1957. The French automaker even used the Traction Avant to test a revolutionary hydropneumatic suspension it would debut on the model’s replacement, the Citroen DS.

Last Traction Avant
July 1957: The last Traction Avant, an 11CV Familiale, is delivered. Photo courtesy Bernadette JF R.

While the Traction Avant was neither the first automobile to use front-wheel drive nor the first to use a welded monocoque body, it was the first to blend the designs in a mass-production environment. Though some would question the accuracy of Lefebvre’s matchbox demonstration, front-wheel drive does offer efficiencies of both space and manufacturing costs that later automakers would come to embrace. Today, the unibody front-drive configuration of the Traction Avant is the industry norm for non-sporting automobiles, meaning that Andre Citroen and Andre Lefebvre did, in one way, have the ability to see the future.

Editor’s note: The correct spelling of the French automaker is Citroën, and the first name of both its founder and Traction Avant engineer is properly spelled André. As explained in a previous article, a bug within the Word Press interface prevents us from using foreign characters within the first few paragraphs, so for purposes of continuity these were omitted (with the exception of model names in later paragraphs). Our apologies for any confusion this creates.