24 Nov 05
Andre Citroen, with his experience in mass production, was invited to take on a management role. He effectively saved the company, reviving production from 10 cars a month to 100 within five years.
He returned to his gear-cutting business, but had been inspired. In 1917, he commissioned a design for a 16hp four-cylinder, 3-litre car from two Panhard engineers, having three prototypes built and tested.
However, his experience at Mors - and a visit to Ford's Rouge factory in Detroit to study methods of mass production - had convinced him that the future of motoring was not in expensive cars for the wealthy. After the interruption of World War One, Citroen went on to produce the Type A, billed as "Europe's first mass production car" and priced at less than Fr8,000.
By 1920, Citroen was making 100 cars a day, the upgraded Type B (10hp, 1,450cc) being launched in 1921.
With new factories - including an assembly facility in Slough, England - Citroen was making 500 cars a day by the time the Type C (5CV) was introduced in 1927. Over 88,000 Type Cs were made, including pick-up trucks and delivery vans, equipping middle-class motorists and small business owners.
Larger cars followed: the hugely popular C4 of 1928 and, a year later, the six-cylinder C6 took the Citroen brand to the upper end of the market for the first time.
Presented at the 1928 Paris Motor Show, the C6 shared much of its engineering with the smaller 1.6-litre, 10hp C4, but was fitted with a 2,442cc six-cylinder engine, the company's first. This was rated at 14hp (the equivalent of around 45bhp by modern measurements) and worked with a three-speed gearbox; it was capable of over 100kph. Initially offered as a four- or five-seat saloon, Citroen went on to offer it in coupe, six-seater, "sports limousine", "sports five-seater", full limousine and seven-seater forms.
A longer and wider C6E model followed by summer 1929, with the even more spacious and better-upholstered C6F in the autumn. Updates brought the C6G, with engine enlarged to 2,650cc (15hp/50bhp, later 19.3hp and 20.8hp) and new soft engine-mounts to reduce vibration; nearly 18,000 of these were built between September 1931 and October 1933.
