One of my all time favourite cars is the Citroën Traction Avant. Growing up in the ‘60s Netherlands, these were still a fairly common sight.
The umbrella-name
Traction Avant was used for a range of mostly 4-door saloons and executive cars
(7, C11, C15/6), with four or six-cylinder engines, produced by the French
manufacturer Citroën from 1934 to 1957. Approximately 760,000 units were
produced.
The Traction
Avant pioneered mass-production of a crash resistant, unitary, monocoque body.
Additionally, the car was also an early adopter of rack and pinion steering.
Although the
car's name emphasized its front-wheel drive power delivery ("Traction
Avant" literally means “front traction”), the car stood out at least as
much by its much lower profile and stance – made possible by the absence of a
separate chassis under the car's unitary body – sharply distinguishing it
visually from its contemporaries.
During the
war years the Traction was much loved, first by the French army, then the
occupying Nazi’s (who typically preferred the Traction over their own German
vehicles) and took it as far as Norway and the Soviet front.
All these photos
depict the Traction in use by the French military in the years 1938-1940.
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