Dolly

For Mono Monday... Past

I was going to put up John's old Murphy Radio as it is sure a blast from the past. But all he could tell me about it was he brought it in 1960. It is a old valve radio and still works but only on AFM. John lesson to it every day still. You can see it in the extra shot for today.

On my way home from Hydrotherapy class I spotted this old Citroen at the traffic lights. I found out it is a 2 CV and went on sale in 1949. Love the dolly name it had. I have a Citroen but it is a newer model to this one.

About the Man behind the Citroen
André Citroën was born in Paris on 5th February 1878 to Levie Citroën, a diamond merchant of Dutch Jewish origin and Amalie Kleimmann, a Jewess of Polish origin. André Citroën's father died when he was six. 

The name Citroën derives from "Limoenman" which in Dutch means "small lemons man”. The name was changed to "Citron" and then to "Citroën upon the family's arrival in France.

He graduated as a "Polytechnicien" from the Ecole Polytechnique at the age of twenty two.

In 1912, after visiting some of his wife's Polish relatives and seeing a distinctive set of chevron-toothed wooden gears, he set up a company to manufacture double helical gears and thus was born the double chevron logo. 

In 1913, he took over the Mors automobile company and increased output tenfold.  With the outbreak of war in 1914, Citroën offered to increase output of munitions shells and the French government gave him the go ahead; his factories produced more than 50 000 shells per day.

In 1919, Citroën started building motor cars at his Javel works.  He employed hitherto unknown (in Europe) mass production techniques borrowed from Henry Ford in the USA and within a year was manufacturing 100 cars per day. 

He was a paternalistic employer, setting up medical and dental facilities and a gymnasium in his factories and providing a crèche for his workers' children.

He innovated in the fields of advertising (illuminating the Eiffel Tower with his name and logo) and marketing and set up factories in Belgium, Britain, Germany and Italy in order to avoid punitive import charges on his products.

In 1933, he tore down the old factory and built a new one - without impacting on production and he simultaneously was developing a revolutionary new car, the Traction Avant.

André Citroën died on 3rd July 1935 having created and lost an industrial empire, having founded a firm whose products would change irrevocably the face of France and the nature of motoring and whose cars would generate a fanatical worldwide following.
For more history on the Citroën car.