Andre Citroen: The Man and the Motor Cars [Paperback]

John Reynolds (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 24, 1999

The French automobile pioneer and entrepreneur Andre Citroen is one of the neglected founding figures of the industry. Although his name remains a familiar household word, his colourful personality and spectacular achievements are now largely unrecognized. This illustrated biography reviews Citroen's life and work and catalogues the cars he produced. It restores his reputation as one of the most progressive and imaginative characters in the history of the motor car. The book recalls his privileged childhood as the son of a prosperous Jewish immigrant in Paris during the late-19th century. It records the start of his meteoric career, which began with the manufacture of helical gears and continued with the production of munitions during World War I. It goes on to chronicle his prodigious accomplishments as a motor-magnate in the 1920s when he was responsible for the first mass-produced and mass-marketed vehicles in Europe, a feat of industrial creativity that earned him his reputation as the Henry Ford of France. His story comes to a sad end in the Great Depression of the mid-1930s when, just after the launch of his most famous model, the revolutionary Traction Avant, his company went bankrupt and he died.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, France's most prestigious engineering college, Citroen (1878-1935), from a well-to-do Jewish family, was a hugely successful entrepreneur. His background enabled him to recognize the value of double-helical gears produced in Poland, sleeve-valve engines made in Belgium and mass-production methods developed in the U.S., a country with which he felt a special affinity. Large-scale industrial production, notes the author, "was the engineering challenge that really interested" Citroen. Always an innovator, he began direct-mail marketing, billboards and skywriting ads in France, so that by the early 1930s, Citroen was the fourth-largest automobile manufacturer in the world, after America's big three. A cultivated sophisticate fond of good living and gambling, Citroen overextended himself during the Depression, demonstrates Reynolds in his well-documented, instructive biography, lost control of his firm and died soon afterward. This biography is not just for car lovers but has much to say about the effects of industrial growth in the West and, even more interesting, about the role that subtle anti-Semitism may have played in the demise of Automobiles Citroen. Reynolds is a British freelance writer.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The French call automaker AndreCitroen the "most famous unknown man of our century," and he has also been labeled "the Henry Ford of France." Citroen, who died of stomach cancer in 1935 as his company faced insolvency, was certainly in his own way as colorful a figure as Ford. He was flamboyant and seemingly cared little about money; at the same time, he was socially and politically progressive. Citroen can be credited with bringing mass-production capability to France, which resulted in the successful munitions manufacturing effort of World War I. He built the largest automobile company in Europe, and each Citroen model bore the stamp of his personality. His 1920s advertisements targeted women, and he more than anyone else was responsible for the "motorization" of Europe. Reynolds, an auto enthusiast and freelance writer who has worked for Citroen, Ford, and Volkswagen, provides the well-documented detail that brings the accomplishments of Citroen life in this first English-language biography. David Rouse --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 238 pages
• Publisher: Sutton Publishing Ltd (June 24, 1999)
• ISBN-10: 0750923229
• ISBN-13: 978-0750923224
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,105,808 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars you'll be impressed, July 4, 2000

By 

Scott Walen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Andre Citroen: The Man and the Motor Cars (Hardcover)

For those with even a passing interest in Citroen cars or the company's founder this book will prove educational and fascinating. The Citroen car, though scarce in the US, is always reverred by automotive journalists, when they are forced to write about the cars. For instance, Autoweek Magazine's inclusion of Citroens in their greatest cars of the century issue. Okay the book, it is well written unlike so many auto books; entertaining, full of interesting info about Andre Citroen's unlikely role as auto entrepreneur, and Paris and France. Mostly, you will be very impressed by the relatively unknown (in USA) Citroen company's major contributions to automotive engineering and efforts in World War II. If you consider yourself knowledgable of cars, include this book and you never refer to a Citroen as an ugly car again. I read this book at the library and probably will buy my own copy.