I am not a person who pays much attention to cars. When my son says, "Wow, did you see that car?" I never have. I'm not too picky about what kind of car I drive. I just want it to be dependable and easy to park. But all of that changed when I saw my first Deux Chevaux here in Paris. There is just something special about it:it has personality, spunk. Just the fact that its name means “Two Horses” is spunky, even though it only means it has two cylinders. I would love to have one but as they are no longer making them and as we already have a car, I probably won't ever get my wish. There is an antique car show the first Sunday of every month in front of the Chateau Vincennes — and there is always at least one Deux Chevaux. I am hoping to talk one of the owners into giving me a ride. I want to see what it is like inside.
I found out that the Deux Chavaux was made by Citroën, a French company. I had no idea that Citroën was somebody's name until I was strolling through the Montparnasse Cemetery and saw the name Citroën on a gravestone. I have since found out that Renault and Peugeot are also family names. It wasn't until I met a young Australian who was absolutely crazy about Citroën and it's suspension (something about hydro-pneumatic suspension) that I got curious about the company. There are clubs all over the world of Citroën fanatics where they must spend a lot of time discussing where to find spare parts for cars no longer being made. There are 60 registered clubs in Paris alone.
It was an André Citroën, an engineer, who started his own company and by 1919 was the first to mass produce a European car that was unlike others. It came with electric lighting, a starter, a hood, and a spare tire. Citroën was a marketing genius who hired the Eiffel Tower and advertised his car on the side with a sign 30 meters high with 200,000 light bulbs. He talked the French government into letting him make safety signs that said things like, "Dangerous Bend — Slow Down — Thanks to Citroën". He did the first mass mailing of car catalogues to customers and started his own printing company. Josephine Baker sang at a car show, "I have two loves: my country and my Citroën."
The first documentary films were done by the Citroën company when a caterpillar car did an expedition from Beruit to Peking crossing the Himalayas and Gobi Desert. When the Deux Chevaux was dreamed up most cars in Europe were far too expensive for ordinary workers and farmers to buy. In fact, when the Deux Chevaux model was first introduced in 1931, it was not supposed to cost more than '2 cows'. This meant it had to be light with special suspension and could only go at slow speeds. It was, in fact, a type of bicycle with four wheels, although watertight, and able to roll along at 60 kph if the terrain was flat and there was no wind. There is also the story that it had to be able to be driven across a field by a farmer wearing wooden clogs, with eggs in the back seat that would arrive at his destination unbroken.
Eventually, in 1935, the company started having financial problems and Citroën handed over his shares to Michelin who had previously helped him. He then retired and just a few months later died. 1948 was the year the car itself got it's famous shape, the one I like so much. In 1976 Peugeot bought Citroën although the cars made by them still say Citroën and still have the little double chevron sign, which has always been the logo for Citroën.
There are many legends about Citroën. Supposedly two of the latest models were buried during W.W.II to save them from Hitler's hands and dug up after the end of the war. Charles de Gaulle escaped an assassination attempt while driving one; when that famous suspension allowed him to escape even though all four wheels had been shot out. Citroën has turned out to be yet one more thing about France that I had no idea about. I see them parked here and there in Paris and have whizzed past them on highways without a clue to their history. Ask most Frenchmen about it and they say "Yes, it is a French Legend."
