Late great engineers: André Citroën - French automaker supreme

His citation in the Automotive Hall of Fame describes André Citroën’s car manufacturing achievements as ‘numerous and varied’. After the Great War he introduced American-style mass production methods to France with the 10-horsepower Type A. He delivered the world’s first unibody front-wheel drive car – the Traction Avant model – that would be in production for 23 years with a run of three-quarters of a million units. He built tracked cars that could be driven on any terrain. He restructured the entire taxi fleet of his capital city Paris and organised a rapid coach transportation network in the suburbs and towns. He also ‘charmed the hearts of children by reproducing his cars as toys.’ Although often described as France’s Ford, the brand Citroën created became a household name in its own right.

Born in Paris in 1878, André-Gustave Citroen (without the diacritic over the ‘e’ in his surname) was the fifth and last child of Jewish parents, Masza Amelia Kleinman and diamond merchant Levie Citroen (whose unsuccessful speculations in South Africa would lead to his suicide when André was six years old). Descended from Dutch fruit merchants, the family name derives from Limoenman (or ‘lime man’), later changed to Citroen (meaning ‘lemon’). For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, one of the young André’s school teachers added the tréma (or two dots) to his surname, changing both how it was written and pronounced. This may or may not have been significant to a young boy obsessed with the works of Jules Verne and construction of the Eiffel Tower that he was to see at the 1889 Exposition Universelle. Most biographers refer to these two factors as being the main catalysts for André’s determination to become an engineer.