A Collection of Historical and Art Medals

Medals Related to Motoring & Motor Sport, France, 1933. 25th Anniversary of the Chambre Syndicale des Industries Aéronautiques, bronze medal by C. Mascaux, named (Mr. André Citroën), 68mm. About extremely fine, a very rare and interesting association item (£60-80)

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Historical and Art Medals.

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André Citroën was the founder of S.A. André Citroën, the car manufacturer. Citroën was a brilliant engineer who began his career in the motor industry working for Emile Mors, the French car maker, in 1899. Mors had been an electrical engineer, whose automobile business was turning out 200 cars a year by 1898. The company prospered on the strength of its successes in motor sport early in the century, but after the French depression of 1908, Citroën, who was by then the chief engineer at the Mors factory, reconstituted the Mors company as the Société Nouvelles des Automobile Mors.

Citroën himself started his own gear-making firm, S.A. André Citroën, in 1913. He put his knowledge of American mass production methods to good effect in 1919 when, in association with Jules Salomon, he evolved his first Citroën car. The Citroën type A, which had a 1.3 litre 4-cylinder engine, was put into production in a factory formerly used by Mors. Over 10,000 type A cars, which featured disc wheels, a cone clutch, 3-speed gearbox and full electrical equipment, were made; they sold in England for the equivalent of £500. By the mid-1920s the Citroën factory turned out 250 cars a day, and André Citroën opened a British factory in Slough in 1926 (it made Citroëns until 1965).

The continuing success story of Citroën, building on the innovative ideas of its founding patron, are well known. Citroën’s revolutionary traction avant front-wheel drive car, beloved of Maigret, was launched in 1934, featuring a unitary construction of chassis and body, allied with all-round independent suspension; it remained in production until 1955, succeeded by the DS series. The deux chevaux (2CV) of immortal fame first appeared in 1949.

Following serious personal financial difficulties, André Citroën was forced to sell his shareholding in the Citroën company to Michelin interests in early 1935