View of the interior of a Citroen Traction Avant, on display at the 2021 London Classic Car Show
The Citroën Traction Avant was a range of mostly 4-door saloons and executive cars, with four or six-cylinder engines, produced by the French manufacturer Citroën from 1934 to 1957. Approximately 760,000 units were produced. Whilst front-wheel drive and independent suspension had been well established in the mass market by Auto Union and others some years before, 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. he Traction Avant, French for front-wheel drive, was designed by André Lefèbvre and Flaminio Bertoni in late 1933 / early 1934. The Traction Avant was a late entrant into the growing front-wheel drive market in Europe, competing with the well established DKW and Adler models and joining other entrants at around the same time such as the BSA Scout. Front-wheel drive had appeared in the previous decade through luxury vehicle manufacturers Alvis, which built the 1928 Racing FWD in the UK, and Cord, which produced the L29 from 1929 to 1932 in the United States. Ultimately, the inline engine front wheel drive layout of cars like the Citroën Avant was to be a dead end and virtually all modern mass-produced front wheel drive cars use the transverse engine layout, as pioneered by DKW from 1931. The Traction Avant's structure was a welded unitary body / chassis. Most other cars of the era were based on a separate frame (chassis) onto which the non-structural body ("coachwork") was built. Unitary construction (also called Unit Body or "Unibody" in the US) results in a lighter vehicle.
Size: 4307px × 3645px
Location: Syon Park, Brentford, Middx TW8 8JF
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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